Cypripedium. Cypripedium pubescens.

(Note. The Cypripediums are rare and endangered orchids. Don't use them unless you grow them yourself.)

Synonym—Yellow Ladies' Slipper.

CONSTITUENTS—

Volatile oil, volatile acid, two resins, starch, fixed oil, sugar.

PREPARATIONS—

Extractum Cypripedii Fluidum, Fluid Extract of Cypripedium. Dose, from ten to thirty minims.

Oleo-resin of Cypripedium. Dose, from one to three grains.

Specific Cypripedium. Dose, from five to sixty minims.

Administration—It must be given in rather large doses. A preparation of the fresh root should be employed, as it loses its properties by drying.

The best results have been reported when doses of fifteen grains of the powdered root have been given, but from one to four grains every three or four hours is usually sufficient to relieve the nervous symptoms of typhoid fever.

Specific Symptomatology—The conditions in which this agent has been used may be summed us as follows: Nervousness, restlessness with constant change of position, irascibility, abnormal excitability, sleeplessness, nervous irritation from atony, neuralgia, delirium, nervousness of infants, hypochondriasis, morbid sensitiveness of the eyes, nervousness from long illness, abnormal irritability, nervousness from over-exertion of the mind, hysteria, delirium tremens, nervous headache, nervousness from gastro-intestinal irritation, irritation of the brain in young children with threatened convulsions.

Therapy—Cypripedium exercises a special influence upon nervous conditions induced by or depending upon disorders of the female genito-urinary organs. Hysteria, melancholia, restlessness with morbid excitability, sleeplessness, and pain from general hyperaesthesia induced by uterine or ovarian disorder will be benefited by this remedy. It will also relieve mental depression from spermatorrhea and venereal excesses, acting somewhat like pulsatilla.

With children it allays cerebral hyperaemia from teething, irritation of the brain in scrofulous children, with nervousness and sleeplessness, and irritation in cases in which the mental faculties are prematurely developed.

It may be used in morbid vigilance, and jactitation in typhoid fever, typhomania and great sinking of the vital powers in adynamic fevers, also where there is morbid depression from chronic dyspepsia.

Cypripedium stimulates the nervous system in a moderate degree, and is suitable for cases where nervousness is the chief feature. It will relieve pain where restlessness and nervousness are associated with headache or neuralgia. Under its influence these patients become cheerful, and the nervous agitation disappears.

The action of cypripedium is feeble, and relieves only functional derangement.

In scrofulous children its action is only temporary, and the syrup of calcium phosphate, with Fowler's solution, and cod-liver oil may be added to the treatment to overcome the constitutional tendency to development of tubercular disease.

The American Materia Medica, Therapeutics and Pharmacognosy, 1919, was written by Finley Ellingwood, M.D.
It was scanned by Michael Moore for the Southwest School of Botanical Medicine.