Canella

Cold, sluggish digestion with flatulence, belching and a sensation of chilliness centered in the stomach

Used as a warming aromatic corrigent to make bitter or astringent compound formulas more agreeable and more actively stimulating

Overview. Canella is the aromatic inner bark of a slender evergreen tree native to the West Indies and Florida, long harvested in quills for use as a spice and medicine. In the physiomedicalist and earlier eclectic traditions it was classed among the warming aromatic stimulants, valued both for its own carminative action and as a flavoring agent that made bitter or astringent compounds more tolerable to take. It is closely related in use, though not in family, to true cinnamon.

Clinical Notes. Canella bark is reached for chiefly as a warming aromatic to rouse a cold, sluggish stomach: the picture is one of flatulence, dull appetite, belching and a sense of chill or heaviness in the epigastrium, often in a patient whose constitution runs cold and damp generally.

Properties and Uses. The bark is an aromatic stimulant, leaving a resinous impression in the mouth. It warms the stomach and arouses local circulation; on which account, together with its flavor, it has been used as an adjuvant to tonic and cathartic preparations for atonic conditions, and to cover the taste and obviate the griping of purges. Its taste is unpleasant to most people of a nervous temperament, and the article deserves less consideration than has usually been given to it. Medical Herbalism journal and medherb.com The Physiomedical Dispensatory by William Cook, M.D., 1869

Action, Medical Uses, and Dosage. Stimulant, aromatic, stomachic, and tonic, and may be substituted in all cases for the canella, cascarilla, and cinnamon barks. It was highly recommended by its discoverer as an antiscorbutic. Thirty grains is the dose of the powdered bark. It is seldom used in this country. A vinous tincture (bark, ℥i to sherry wine, ℥viij) may be employed in drachm doses.