Jamaican dogwood

Insomnia and nervous unrest; spasm, pain, and nervous irritability; migraine, neuralgia.

Therapy. External. Reputed to relieve toothache due to exposed dental pulp, alveolar abscess, or peridental inflammation, and has been advised locally for the relief of pain in hemorrhoids. Internally. Jamaica dogwood is used to relieve pain, overcome spasm, allay nervous excitability, and produce sleep.

Therapy. In susceptible patients it will control pain and relieve general distress. It is distinctly a nerve sedative, and overcomes nervous excitability and also reflex irritability. It is an antispasmodic of much power in mild cases.

Action, Medical Uses, and Dosage. This agent was introduced as a remedy for rheumatism, the decoction having been so employed by the people living in the region of the Amazon. It was also reputed to be a remedy for syphilitic complaints, hence its name, vegetable mercury.

Action and Toxicology. Jamaica dogwood controls pain and produces sleep by its narcotic action. It increases salivary and cutaneous secretion, slows the pulse, first increases then lowers arterial tension (due to the heart weakening), dilates the pupils, reduces reflex activity, may induce convulsions, and proves narcotic to man and animals. Nausea, vomiting, and convulsions have followed a half-drachm dose of the fluidextract. Death, in animals, is caused by either heart failure or respiratory paralysis.