Xanthoxylum.
Related entry: Xanthoxylum under diaphoretics
The bark and berries of Xanthoxylum fraxineum.
Preparation.—Tincture of Xanthoxylum.
Dose.—From ten drops to one drachm.
Therapeutic Action.—Xanthoxylum is stimulant, diaphoretic, carminative, sialagogue, and rubefacient. The bark is an active stimulant, causing general excitement, with a sense of heat in the stomach, and a tendency to diaphoresis. It somewhat resembles Mezereum and Guaiacum in its remedial action and adaptation to the relief of disease, but is much superior to either of those agents. It is an excellent remedy in lethargic, torpid, paralytic, and leuco-phlegmatic habits of body, owing to its excitant influence. It has been used with much advantage in chronic rheumatism, and deservedly enjoys a high reputation in domestic practice in the treatment of this disease. In passive dropsies it seems sometimes to be very beneficial, when associated with diuretics and tonics. In languid or atonic states of the digestive organs, it invigorates and promotes the process of chymification and chylification, relieving flatulence, and spasmodic pain in the stomach and bowels.
It is sometimes used as a masticatory in toothache, rheumatic, neuralgic, and paralytic affections about the mouth and throat. It is also employed as a topical application to indolent ulcers, and as a rubefacient in local affections, either alone or in combination with other agents.
The berries possess similar properties to the bark. They have been found highly useful in chronic rheumatism, and in atonic and languid states of the system; also in flatulence, spasm of the stomach and bowels, colic, cholera morbus, etc., and to qualify the action of other remedies, rendering them acceptable to the stomach. They are also especially valuable for their nervine and antispasmodic properties in tranquilizing nervous irritation; Prof. Morrow regarded them of especial value, and possessed of properties of this kind not heretofore appreciated.
The American Eclectic Materia Medica and Therapeutics, 1898, was written by John M. Scudder, M.D.
