Sundew

Clinical Notes. Traditionally used in European herbal medicine for respiratory conditions now cultivated due to conservation concerns flavonoids primarily responsible for antispasmodic effects, naphthoquinones for historical use but potentially toxic no Ph. Eur. monograph yet but quality parameters proposed

Therapy. Drosera, preferably in small doses, is of great value in the spasmodic dry cough characteristic of measles, and to a lesser extent for that of whooping cough and the irritability of the larynx following the latter. There may be simple irritation, particularly centered in the larynx, or inflammation may be present. It also relieves the tickling sensation in that organ giving rise to spasmodic cough. To a lesser extent it is useful in the coughs of bronchitis, incipient phthisis, spasmodic asthma, and in nervous or sympathetic cough occurring reflexly from other diseases. It probably acts upon the vagus.

Therapy. It is an antispasmodic, expectorant, and sedative as applied to such coughs. It will also relieve coughs of sympathetic origin, and so-called nervous coughs. It will cure the cough of measles more quickly than other remedies, and it will cure the after-cough of whooping-cough.

Specific indications and reasoning. The article that has been sold for Dioscorea by most of our druggists for the past ten years, and from which the Dioscorein has been prepared, is a species of smilax. A very good joke on Dioscorein! but unpleasant to those who have expected it to relieve pain in the bowels. True Dioscorea, when recent, is a specific in bilious colic, when given in infusion, or even in tincture. In any case it allays gastro intestinal irritation, and favorably iufluences the vegetative procosses. It is a feeble but certain diaphoretic, and allays irritation of the nervous system.