Polygonum. Polygonum punctatum.

Synonym—Smart-weed.

CONSTITUENTS—Not analyzed.

PREPARATIONS—

Specific Polygonum. Dose, from one to sixty minims.

Therapy—In suppression of the menses from cold, thirty drops in hot water may be drunk every two hours. It is a prompt remedy. It may be begun two weeks before the menses should next appear, if one period has passed, and given every four hours in cold water, until a day or two before the expected time, when it can again be given in hot water. It acts well, also, when there is general plethora.

More recently, I have used it in conjunction with one or two of the other uterine remedies, carefully selected, in all forms of menstrual suppression, except in feeble and anemic patients, and have found it efficient and readily controllable.

It acts promptly upon the skin and kidneys and seems to be to a certain extent antispasmodic, as in hystero-epilepsy, or epilepsy depending upon suppression of the menses, it relieves the paroxysms and reduces the number of the attacks.

Goss recommended it when there was urinary suppression from cold and in retention with lack of power in the bladder.

In certain forms of flatulent colic, when the pains are sharp and lancinating, intermittent, and of a severe griping character, it is curative.

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.