Eryngium

Painful, scanty, burning urination with a sense of urethral spasm or stricture

Irritable bladder with frequent urging but little relief on voiding

Overview. Eryngium aquaticum is a perennial marsh plant of the carrot family, native to wet meadows, swamps, and pine barrens of the eastern and southeastern United States. The dried root was a staple of nineteenth century Eclectic and Physiomedicalist practice in North America, valued chiefly as a urinary remedy. It should not be confused with Eryngium yuccifolium or Liatris species, which have also carried the common name Button Snakeroot in older literature.

Clinical Notes. Eryngium root was reached for by Eclectic physicians primarily as a specific remedy for the bladder and urethra, particularly where there was irritation, scalding urination, or a spasmodic quality to the difficulty in voiding.

Therapy. Eryngium is a general stimulant, being diaphoretic and diuretic, with a special affinity for the mucous membranes. It has been given in infusion as a diaphoretic, in dropsy, gravel and jaundice, and in the commencing stage of catarrhal inflammation, such as occurs in the upper air passages in epidemic influenza.

Specific indications and reasoning. (WATER EBYNGO.) The Eryngium may be employed in infusion, or in the form of a tincture of the recent dried root, Sviij. to proof spirit, Oj. Dose, gtts. x. to gtts. xx. The Eryngium exerts a specific influence upon the bladder and urethra, relieving irritation. It is one of the most certain remedies that can be employed in dysuria from irritation, and in spasmodic stricture; continued, it proves curative in these cases. It has been employed for other purposes, and we find it highly recommeuded. It undoubtedly deserves a thorough investigation.