Teucrium. Teucrium chamaedrys. Germander.
(Some Teucriums contain livertoxic neo-clerodane diterpenoids. Their use is discouraged. --Henriette.)
Teucrium. Teucrium Chamaedrys L. Germander. Chamaedrys. Petit Chene, Fr. Edlar, Gamanderlein, Frauenbiss, G.—A small European labiate, which has been employed as a mild corroborant in uterine, rheumatic, gouty and scrofulous affections and intermittent fevers. Germander was an ingredient in the Portland powder, noted as a remedy in gout. This powder, according to the original prescription, consisted of equal parts of the roots of Aristolochia rotunda L. and Gentiana lutea L. of the tops and leaves of Teucrium Chamaedrys and Erythraea Centaurium (L.) Pers. and of the leaves of Ajuga Chamaepitys Schreb., or ground pine. The dose was a drachm every morning before breakfast for three months, then forty grains for three months, afterwards half a drachm for six months, and finally half a drachm every other day for a year. (Parr.)
Two other species of Teucrium have been used in medicine,—T. Marum L., cat thyme, or Syrian herb mastich, indigenous in the south of Europe, and T. Scordium L., or water germander, growing in the higher latitudes of the same continent. The former is a warm, stimulating, aromatic bitter, and has been recommended in hysteria, amenorrhea and nervous debility; the latter has the odor of garlic and a bitter, somewhat pungent taste, and was formerly highly esteemed as a corroborant in low forms of disease; but neither of them is now much employed. T. Marum is an errhine, and was formerly an ingredient of the Pulvis Asari Compositus.
A plant said to have been used advantageously in cholera in the Levant, a specimen of which was sent to Paris, proved to be Teucrium Polium L. (J. P. C., xv, 352.) Moorhof (Ph. Cent., 1893, 89) prepared a purified liquid extract from T. Scordium, and named it teucrin, which he recommends in the treatment of fungoid diseases and abscesses.
The dose of either of the three species is about half a drachm (2.0 Gm.).
