Delphinium staphisagria

Overview. Stavesacre is a tall, showy annual to biennial member of the larkspur family, native to the Mediterranean region and long cultivated elsewhere as an ornamental and medicinal plant. The seed is the part used, historically pressed to remove its fixed oil before being made into a tincture or ground for external application. It has a long folk and eclectic history as a parasiticide for lice and, in nineteenth century American eclectic and physiomedical practice, as a specific remedy for irritability of the male and female reproductive organs when given internally in extremely small doses.

Overview. Staphysagria is the seed of Delphinium staphisagria, a Mediterranean member of the larkspur family long recognized as one of the most acutely toxic plants used in Western medicine. The crushed seed and its extracts were applied topically as a powerful parasiticide against lice and scabies mites, and the tincture was once dosed internally by eclectic physicians in minute amounts for nervous complaints, a practice now regarded as obsolete and unsafe. Today the plant survives in practice chiefly as a topical antiparasitic and in homeopathic dilution, where the crude toxicity is diluted away.

Clinical Notes. Stavesacre's seeds carry a strong tradition as a lice remedy: crushed or ground seed was made into an ointment, wash, or vinegar rinse and applied to the scalp or pubic hair to kill lice and their eggs.

Clinical Notes. Historically the crushed seed, made into an ointment or lotion with oil or vinegar, was rubbed into the hair and scalp to kill lice and their eggs, and a similar preparation was used against scabies. This external use accounts for almost all of the plant's surviving clinical utility, and even here modern pediculicides with better-established safety margins have largely replaced it.