American Materia Medica, Therapeutics and Pharmacognosy

Baptisin (a bitter glucoside), baptin (a purgative glucoside),
baptitoxin (a poisonous alkaloid), resin, fixed oil.
PREPARATIONS—
Extractum Baptisiae Alcoholicum, Alcoholic Extract of Baptisia.
Dose, from one to four grains.
Specific Medicine Baptisia. Dose, from one-fourth to ten minims.
Physiological Action—When fresh and taken in a sufficiently large dose
Baptisia causes violent vomiting and purging. In poisonous doses there is
an acceleration of respiration and reflex activity followed by death from
central paralytic asphyxia.
The agent has a bitter, somewhat acrid and astringent taste. In large
doses it is somewhat violent in its influence upon the gastro-intestinal
tract, producing increased intestinal secretion of the entire glandular
apparatus. It especially influences the liver. In overdoses it is emetic and
cathartic, in some cases causing an excessive flow of viscid saliva. It is
laxative in small doses, producing soft, unformed stools. It increases the
biliary secretion, sometimes most excessively. It exercises its influence
more satisfactorily in asthenic fevers than in sthenic fevers.
Specific Symptomatology—It is especially indicated where, with
suppressed secretion and marked evidence of sepsis, there is ulceration
of the mucous membranes of the mouth, or intestinal ulceration.
In low fevers with dark or purplish mucous membranes of the mouth,
tongue dry and thin, with a dark coating, face dusky and suffused,
circulation feeble.
Fyfe gives as its specific indications those much the same as were given
in the previous writing on this remedy—dusky discoloration of the
tongue and mucous membranes; full and purplish face, like one who has
long been exposed to the cold; protracted typhoid conditions, with
continued moist, pasty coating on the tongue; sleek tongue, looking
much like raw beef; dark, tar-like fetid discharges from the bowels-prune
juice discharges; general putrid secretions.
Dr. Fearn called attention to the indication of a dusky, purplish color
often distinctly marked in typhoid patients upon one side of the face. Ten
or fifteen drops of baptisia in water during twenty-four hours has
corrected that condition quickly for him, improving the patient.
Ellingwood’s American Materia Medica, Therapeutics and Pharmacognosy - Page 76