Santonica

Confirmed Ascaris lumbricoides infestation in an adult with no hepatic, renal, or cardiac compromise, in an era before safer anthelmintics existed

Historical single-dose vermifuge use in children, now recognized as carrying an unacceptably narrow margin between effective and fatal dose

Overview. Santonica, also called Levant wormseed, is the dried, unopened flower head of a small steppe wormwood native to the arid regions of Central Asia, the Caucasus, and southeastern Europe. The drug was harvested commercially through the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries as the primary source of santonin, a crystalline sesquiterpene lactone once regarded as the standard specific anthelmintic for roundworm infestation. It has no meaningful place in current herbal or pharmaceutical practice and is retained here chiefly for historical and toxicological reference.

Clinical Notes. Santonica and its isolated principle santonin were once dispensed widely for Ascaris infestation, given as a single measured dose followed by a purgative to expel the paralyzed worms. Older texts record the drug and its active constituent as producing striking visual disturbances even at doses considered therapeutic, most notably yellow or green tinged vision, and case literature from the period documents convulsions and fatalities in children given doses only modestly above the recommended range.

Therapy. The generally accepted influence of santonine is in the line of its anthelmintic properties. It is an excellent remedy for the long worm ... ascaris lumbricoides. It is given in doses of from one-half to one grain, twice or three times daily.

Properties and Uses. From the old Arabic school of medicine, down to the present time, this article has been prominent as a remedy for worms. The round, tape, and seat (pin) worms, are all said to yield before it, with much certainty. Its physiological action seems to be much like that of the common wormwood, but more stimulating and diffusive, and less locally tonic. Dose, from ten to thirty grains of the powder, night and morning. It may also be given by infusion.