Cramp Bark Plus Capsules

The Dispensatory of the United States of America, 1918, Edited by Joseph P. Remington, Horatio C. Wood and others. - Cramp Bark

Botanical name: Viburnum opulus Related entry: Viburnum prunifolium Viburnum Opulus. N. F. IV (U. S. P. VIII). High Bush Cranberry Bark. Cramp-bark. Wild Guelderrose. Cherry-wood. Red or Rose Elder. Pincushion Tree. Squaw Bush; in cultivation Snowball Bush. Obier, Fr. Wasserholderrinde. Wasserschweike, G.—"The dried bark of Viburnum, Opulus Linné var. americanum (Miller) Aiton (Fam. Caprifoliaceae), without the presence of more than 5 per cent. of wood and other foreign matter." N. F. Viburnum Opulus, cranberry tree or high bush cranberry, belongs to the section of the genus which has peduncled cymes, light red, acid, roundish drupes, with very flat orbicular not sulcate stones, palmately veined leaves, and scaly winter buda. It is a large bush, reaching the height of ten feet, growing in low grounds from New Brunswick far westward, and southward to Pennsylvania. The leaves are from three- to five-ribbed, strongly three-lobed, broadly wedge-shaped or truncate at the base, with the spreading pointed lobes mostly toothed in the sides and entire in the sinuses. The petioles bear two glands at the apex. The snow-ball tree, or Guelder rose, is a variety in which the whole inflorescence has been turned into a mass of showy sterile flowers. "In strips, or occasionally in quills or chip-like fragments, the bark attaining a thickness of 3 mm.; outer surface of the thinner pieces of a light gray color with crooked, longitudinal, purplish-brown stripes and very small brown lenticels, the thicker pieces purplish-red or occasionally blackish, except when very young, and more or less finely fissured or thinly scaly; inner surface varying in color from yellowish to rusty-brown, with very short oblique striae, except where the outer wood layer adheres; fracture short and weak, the fractured surface mostly whitish, varying to pale brown in the inner layer, rusty brown in the outer layer, covering the green tangential layers of phelloderm. Odor strong and characteristic; taste mildly astringent and decidedly bitter. Under the microscope, sections of Viburnum Opulus show as outer corky layer, of five to twenty-five rows of cells, the walls being nearly colorless, frequently thickened on the inner surface, individual cork cells from 0.015 to 0.045 mm. in radial diameter and from 0.030 to 0.075 mm. in tangential diameter; outer bark of about ten rows of cells containing a brownish-yellow, amorphous substance, small starch grains or chloroplastids; medullary rays one to two cells in width, usually not more than one cell wide; inner bark with occasional groups of bast fibers composed of one to ten cells, the walls being very thick, non-lignified, lamellated and finely porous; adhering wood with large tracheae having scalariform or reticulate thickenings, and being surrounded by wood fibers with thick lignified walls; starch grains, mostly in cells of parenchyma and medullary rays, either single or compound, the individual grains not exceeding 0.006 mm. in diameter; calcium oxalate in rosette aggregates, 0.015 to 0.04 mm. in diameter, numerous fragments of parenchyma cells, the lumina filled with a reddish-brown amorphous substance. The powder of Viburnum Opulus is light grayish-brown, consisting of irregular fragments; polygonal cork cells, with thin, colorless walls; parenchyma with rosette aggregates of calcium oxalate, from 0.015 to 0.04 mm. in diameter; starch grains very small and mostly in parenchyma cells; fragments of parenchyma containing a brownish-yellow amorphous substance; occasional tracheal fragments associated with lignified wood fibers, bast fibers. and stone-cells." N. F. For studies of Viburnum barks, see A. J. P., 1895, 378, 394; also Ph. Post. 35, 773, Gibson (Proc. Indiana Pharm. Assoc; 1900, 112) believes that there is a glucoside present in the bark of V. Opulus; he describes it as resinous, greenish in color, soluble in alcohol, slightly soluble in water. The berries of this plant are used to a considerable extent as a substitute for the ordinary cranberry, and are antiscorbutic, but there is no sufficient reason to believe the bark has any medicinal properties of any kind. V. obovatum. Walt., a tree shrub growing from Virginia southward, is said to be an antiperiodic. (A. J. P., 1878.) Viburnum opulus was dismissed from the U. S. P. IX, but introduced in the N. F. IV. It is used in making Fluidextract of Viburnum Opulus with a menstruum of 2 volumes of alcohol and 1 volume of water. Compound Tincture of Viburnum, and Compound Elixir of Viburnum Opulus. Dose, thirty to sixty grains (2.0-3.9 Gm.).

The Dispensatory of the United States of America, 1918, Edited by Joseph P. Remington, Horatio C. Wood and others. - Black Cohosh

Cimicifugae Rhizoma, Br., 1898, Actaeae Racemosae Radix; Cohosh; Macrotys; Rattleroot; Squaw Root; Rattle Snake Root; Bugbane; Rattle Weed; Richweed; Bugwort, Rattletop; Racine d'Actee a Grappes, Fr.; Schwarze Schlangenwurzel, G. Cimicifuga was dismissed from the Br. Pharm., 1914. Cimicifuga racemosa is a tall stately plant, having a perennial root, and a simple herbaceous stem, which rises from four to eight feet in height. The leaves are large, and ternately decompound, having oblong-ovate leaflets, incised and toothed at their edges. The flowers are small, white, and disposed in a long, terminal, wand-like raceme, with occasionally one or two shorter racemes near its base. The calyx is white, four-leaved, and deciduous; the petals are minute, and shorter than the stamens; the pistil consists of an oval ovary and sessile stigma. The fruit is an ovoid capsule containing numerous flat seeds. The plant grows in shady or rocky woods from Southern New England to Wisconsin and southward, flowering in June and July. The name Cimicifuga is derived from the Latin Cimex, bug; and fugare, to drive away. Properties.—It is officially described as follows : "Rhizome horizontal, more or less branching, from 2 to 12 cm. in length, and from 1 to 2.5 cm. in thickness; externally dark brown, slightly annulate from circular scars of bud scale-leaves, the upper surface with numerous stout, erect or somewhat curved branches terminated by deep, cup-shaped sears, each of which usually shows a distinct radiate structure; inferior and lateral portions with numerous root-scars and a few short roots; fracture horny; internally whitish and mealy or dark brown and waxy, bark thin, wood distinctly radiate and of about the same thickness as the pith; odor slight; taste bitter and acrid. Roots somewhat cylindrical or obtusely quadrangular, from 1 to 3 mm. in thickness, externally dark brown, longitudinally wrinkled; fracture short; internally bark dark brown, wood yellowish, 4 to 6-rayed. Under the microscope, sections of the rhizome of Cimicifuga show a yellowish-brown suberized epidermis, a cortex made up of about 30 layers of starch-bearing parenchyma cells; the fibro-vascular bundles collateral, the xylem consisting of tracheae with bordered pores, and resembling tracheids in that the ends are rather acute; wood-fibers numerous, thin-walled, strongly lignified and with simple, oblique pores, the bundles separated by starch-bearing parenchyma strands from 5 to 30 cells wide; pith cells numerous, resembling those of the cortex. Under the microscope, sections of the root of Cimicifuga show a hairy epidermis, which becomes suberized in older roots; the cortex shows about 12 rows of starch-bearing parenchyma cells; endodermis distinct; fibro-vascular bundles 4 to 6, showing in older roots as separate collateral bundles. The powder is light to dark brown; starch grains numerous, single or compound, the individual grains spherical or more or less polygonal, each with a somewhat central cleft, from 0.003 to 0.015 mm. in diameter; fragments showing trachea with bordered pores and lignified wood-fibers; irregular, yellowish-brown fragments of suberized epidermis made up of more or less tabular cells, sometimes elongated and considerably thickened. Cimicifuga yields not more than 10 per cent. of ash." U. S. For a detailed description of the microscopic character of the root, see A. J. P., 1884, 460; also 1895, 121; Holm., M. K., 1911, p. 6. The roots "exhibit in transverse section from three to five wedge-shaped wood-bundles, separated by as many broad medullary rays. Both rhizome and roots are blackened by test-solution of ferric chloride (presence of tannic acid)." Br., 1898. The odor, though not strong, is peculiar and rather disagreeable, and is gradually lost with age. The drug of commerce is likely to be unintentionally admixed with other species of Cimicifuga and Actaea. Cimicifuga yields its virtues to boiling water. Tilghman found gum, starch, sugar, resin, wax, fatty matter, taunic and gallic acids, a black coloring matter, a green coloring matter, lignin, and salts of potassium, calcium, magnesium, and iron. (A. J. P., vi.) It no doubt also contains, when fresh, a volatile principle, with which its virtues may be in some degree associated. Davis separated by distillation a small proportion of volatile oil having decidedly the peculiar odor of the root. He also found albumen, extractive, and silica. The sugar noticed by him was of the uncrystallizable variety, and the resin of two kinds, one soluble in alcohol but not in ether, the other soluble in both these menstrua. (A. J. P., xxxiii.) A crystallizable principle has been obtained by T. Elwood Conard from a strong tincture of the root by treating with solution of lead sub-acetate to precipitate resin, tannin, and coloring matters, then filtering, and precipitating the lead by hydrogen sulphide in excess, and allowing the tincture to evaporate spontaneously; and, finally, having treated the residuary powder with petroleum benzin, afterwards washing it with water, dissolving it to saturation in strong alcohol, and treating the solution with alumina. The mixture was allowed to evaporate to a dry mass, which was nearly exhausted with alcohol. The solution, being allowed to evaporate, left behind a crystalline mass, somewhat resembling alum. This substance has little taste, on account of its extreme insolubility in the saliva, but in alcoholic solutions has very strongly the acrid taste characteristic of the fresh root. The crystals are very soluble in cold, and more so in hot alcohol, soluble also in chloroform, and slightly so in ether. They are fusible and inflammable. They are neutral, possessing neither acid nor alkaline properties. Their effects on the system were not determined. (A. J. P., 1871.) L. F. Beach (A. J. P., 1876) obtained from commercial resin of cimicifuga (the so-called cimicifugin or macrotin) a crystalline principle by Conard's process. M. S. Faick (A. J. P., 1884) found in the juice of the fresh plant a crystalline principle resembling the principle announced by Conard. On the other hand, neither F. H. Trimble (A. J. P., 1878) nor Warder and Coblentz were able to obtain a crystalline principle, while C. S. Gallagher obtained crystals of cane sugar from the fluidextract. (A. J. P., 1887.) In view of these facts, it would appear that the active principle is a resinous amorphous body. (See Drugs and Medicines of North America, vol. i.) Pinnemore reports on the chemical examination of the rhizome of cimicifuga. A systematic examination has resulted in the isolation and identification of isoferulic acid, also a minute quantity of an acid whose melting point was unaffected by admixture with salicylic acid. Palmitic, oleic, and other unsaturated acids, and phytosterol, are also present, and distinct reactions for alkaloids have been found, but the amount present is very small. (P. J., 1910, 31 (85), pp. 142-144,178.) Uses.—In 1831 cimicifuga was introduced to the notice of the profession by Young. In overdoses it is said to cause general relaxation, vertigo, tremors, decided reduction of the pulse; occasionally it causes vomiting, but its emetic action is never violent, and is probably simply the result of a mild gastric irritation. It certainly, in large doses, produces giddiness, with intense headache and prostration. It has been found by R. Hutchinson to cause in frogs complete anesthesia by a direct action upon the sensory side of the spinal cord. The same observer noted that toxic doses produce in mammals slowing of the pulse and fall of the arterial pressure, results which appear to be due in part to a direct depressant action upon the heart muscle or its ganglia, in part to a paralysis of the vasomotor center. Clinical experience has shown this drug to be a useful remedy in the treatment of chorea. It has also been employed, though with less certainty of benefit, in chronic rheumatism, urticaria, neuralgia, and dysmenorrhea. It is also asserted to act as a specific in tinnitus aurium. In chorea it is necessary to give large doses. The proper method of administration is to start with about fifteen minims of the fluidextract three times a day, increasing one minim daily until the occurrence of frontal headache or improvement in the condition. The practitioners calling themselves eclectics use, under the name of cimicifugin, or macrotin, an impure resin obtained by precipitating a saturated tincture of the root with water; dose, a grain or two (0.065-0.13 Gm.). (See N. J. Med. Rep., viii, 247.) Dose, of powdered cimicifuga, five to thirty grains (0.3-2.0 Gm.).

The Dispensatory of the United States of America, 1918, Edited by Joseph P. Remington, Horatio C. Wood and others. - Chamomile

"Chamomile Flowers are the expanded flower-heads of Anthemis nobilis, Linn., collected from cultivated plants, and dried." Br. Anthemis, U. S. VIII; Flores Chamomillae Romanae, P. G.; Roman, Low, Garden, White or English Chamomile, Chamomile Flowers, Camil, Camovyne, Whig-plant; Camomille Romaine, Fr.; Römische Kamille, G.; Camomilla Romana, Camomilla Ingleses, It.; Manzanilla (Flor de), Manzanilla Romana, Sp. Chamomile flowers were formerly recognized by the U. S. Pharmacopoeia. They still receive official recognition in the British, Austrian and Swiss Pharmacopoeias. Several species of anthemis have been employed in medicine. A. nobilis, which is the subject of the present article, is by far the most important. A. Cotula L., Dog Fennel, or mayweed, was formerly recognized by the U. S. Pharmacopoeia. A. arvensis L. (corn chamomile), a native of Europe, naturalized in this country, bears flowers which have an acrid bitter taste and possess medicinal properties analogous though much inferior to those of common chamomile. They may be distinguished by their want of odor. A. tinctoria L. is occasionally employed as a tonic and vermifuge in Europe. Matricaria suaveolens is said to yield the chamomile of the Indian bazaars. Anthemis nobilis is an herbaceous plant with a perennial root. The stems are from six inches to a foot long, round, slender, downy, trailing, and divided into branches, which turn upward at their extremities. The leaves are bipinnate, the leaflets small, thread-like, somewhat pubescent, acute, and generally divided into three segments. The flowers are solitary, with a yellow convex disk, and white rays. The involucre is of a hemispherical form, and composed of several small imbricated hairy scales. The receptacle is convex, prominent, and furnished with rigid bristle-like paleae. The ray florets are numerous, narrow and terminated with three small teeth. The whole herb has a peculiar fragrant odor, and a bitter aromatic taste. This plant is a native of Europe, and grows wild in all the temperate parts of that continent. It is also largely cultivated for medicinal purposes. In France, Germany, and Italy, it is generally known by the name of Roman chamomile. By cultivation the yellow disk florets are often converted into the white ray florets. Thus altered, the flowers are said to be double, while those which remain unchanged are called single; but, as the conversion may be more or less complete, it generally happens that with each of the varieties there are intermingled some flowers of the other kind, or in different stages of the change. The double flowers are generally preferred; though, as the sensible properties are found in the greatest degree in the disk florets, the single flower heads are the more powerful. It is rather, however, in aromatic flavor than in bitterness that the radial florets are surpassed by those of the disk. If not well and quickly dried, the flowers lose their beautiful white color, and are less efficient. The flowers which are largest, most double, and whitest should be preferred. They are thus described: "Flower-heads hemispherical, from about twelve to twenty millimetres in diameter, white or pale buff in color. Involucre composed of several rows of oblong bracts with membranous margins; receptable solid, conical, and densely covered with concave, blunt, narrow, scaly bracts; florets mostly ligu-late and white, the ligula possessing four veins and terminating in three teeth. Strong aromatic odor; taste bitter." Br. The seeds yield by expression a fixed oil, which is said to be applied in Europe to various economical uses. Though not a native of America, chamomile grows wild in some parts of this country, and is occasionally cultivated in our gardens for family use, the whole herb being employed. The medicine, as found in commerce, consists chiefly of the double flowers, and is imported from Germany and England. From the former country the flowers of Matricaria Chamomilla are also occasionally imported, under the name of chamomile. (See Matricaria.) In Europe the flowers of A. arvensis L., corn chamomile, are sometimes substituted for the official drug. In France corn chamomile flowers are sold in commerce indiscriminately with those of Anthemis nobilis, of Chrysanthemum Parthenium Bernh. (Pyrethrum Parthenium Smith), or of Anthemis parthenoides De Cand. (Matricaria parthenoides Desf.). (J. P. C., May, 1859, p. 347.) For the peculiar character by which these two flowers may be distinguished from the chamomile, see Pyrethrum parthenium. Properties.—Chamomile flowers, as usually found in commerce, are large, almost spherical, of a dull white color, a fragrant odor, and a warmish, bitter, aromatic taste. When fresh, their odor is much stronger, and was fancied by the ancients to resemble that of the apple. Hence the name chamaemelum; and it is somewhat singular that the Spanish name manzanilla (a little apple) has a similar derivation. The flowers impart their odor and taste to water and alcohol, the former of which, at the boiling' temperature, extracts only one-fourth of their weight. The investigations of several chemists made in 1878-1879, in Fittig's laboratory at Strassburg, have shown the oil of chamomile to contain the following constituents: a fraction distilling at 147° to 148° C. (296.6°-298.4° F.) consisting of isobutylic esters and hydrocarbons; isobutyl angelicate at 177° C. (350.5° F.); isoamyl angelicate at 200° to 201° C. (392°-394° F.); isoamyl tiglinate at 204° to 205° C. (399°-401° F.) (both of these esters answering to the formula C5H11,C5H7O2). In the residual portion, hexylic alcohol, C6H13,OH, and an alcohol of the formula C10H16O isomeric with camphor, to which the name of anthemol has been given (see Chem. Cb., 1903 (1), 1226), are met with, both probably occurring in the form of esters. By decomposing the angelicates and the tiglinate with potassium hydroxide, angelic acid, C5H8O2, and tiglinic acid (or methyl-crotonic), isomeric with the former, are obtained to the extent of about 30 or more per cent. of the crude oil. In the oil examined by Fittig, angelic acid prevailed; from another specimen E. Schmitt (1879) obtained but very little of it, tiglinic acid prevailing. Naudin (Bull. Soc. Chim., 1884, 41, 483) extracted also a solid paraffin, C18H36, to which the name of anthemene was given; Klopp obtained another body, anthesterin, from chamomile. (P. J., 1903, 458.) Umney states that pure oil of chamomile has the sp. gr. 0.905 to 0.912 at 15° C. (59° F.) (P. J., 1895, p. 949). The oil from Anthemis Cotula closely resembles that from A. nobilis, see A. J. P., 1885, pp. 376, 381. E. Amerman (A. J. P., 1889, p. 69) obtained a wax which was nearly white, bitter, and crystalline, melting at about 130° C. (266° F.), and a crystalline substance distinctly acid and of a glucosidal nature. There was no evidence of the presence of an alkaloid. (See Oleum Anthemidis, Br., and Extractum Anthemidis, Br. Pharm., 1898.) Uses.—Chamomile is a mild tonic, in small doses acceptable and corroborant to the stomach, in large doses capable of acting as an emetic. In cold infusion it is often advantageously used in cases of enfeebled digestion in convalescence, of general debility, with languid appetite, which often attends convalescence from infectious fevers. The flowers are sometimes applied externally in the form of fomentation, in cases of irritation or inflammation of the abdominal viscera, and as a gentle incitant in flabby, ill-conditioned ulcers. The infusion is usually preferred. The decoction or extract cannot exert the full influence of the medicine, as the volatile oil is driven off. Dose, of the powder as a tonic, from half a drachm to a drachm (2.0-3.9 Gm.) three or four times a day, or more frequently.

King's American Dispensatory By Harvey Wickes Felter and John Uri Lloyd 1898 - Motherwort

Botanical Source.—Leonurus Cardiaca is a perennial plant, with stems from 2 to 5 feet in height, wand-like, minutely downy, acutely quadrangular, with intermediate channels, purplish, beset with numerous pairs of opposite, long-stalked, rough, dark-green, somewhat downy leaves in 4 vertical rows. The lower stem-leaves are palmate-lobed and broadest; the upper ones acutely 3-lobed; those about the summit lanceolate and undivided; and all toothed and cuneiform at the base. The flowers are purplish or whitish-red, in numerous axillary whorls. The calyx is rigid and bristly. Corolla purplish, upper lip clothed with dense, white, shaggy, upright hairs; lower deeply colored, variegated, smooth, in 3 nearly equal entire lobes; middle lobe obcordate. Stamens didynamous; anthers approximated in pairs, with parallel transverse cells and naked valves. sprinkled with shining dots. Achenia oblong, or linear-obovate, blunt and squamosely muricated at the summit, and longitudinally striated, with a long beak; pappus white, hair-like, very soft, simple, and radiated in many rows (L.—W.—G.). History and Chemical Composition.—Motherwort is an exotic plant, but extensively introduced into this country, growing in fields and pastures, and flowering from May to September. It is supposed to be a native of Tartary, and may probably be indigenous to the northern sections of this country. In some sections of continental Europe, and particulary in Russia Leonurus Cardiaca has been highly endorsed as a remedy for hydrophobia. It has not, however, been as extensively used as a medicinal agent in this country as its virtues warrant. The root sends forth a number of small, long fibers of a dark-yellowish color. The whole plant is medicinal. It has a peculiar, aromatic, not disagreeable odor, and a slightly aromatic, very bitter taste, and yields its properties to water or alcohol. Mr. W. A. H. Naylor (Pharm. Jour. Trans., Vol. XXV, 1894, p. 181) found the following constituents of Leonurus Cardiaca: A bitter principle soluble in alcohol, chloroform, and ether, insoluble in water, benzol, and petroleum ether; an alkaloidal substance, not reacting, however, with Mayer's Solution; a hard resin, a soft resin, fixed oil, wax, and potassium chloride, calcium phosphate, and citric, malic, and tartaric acids. Some interesting notes on the early literature of Leonurus, by E. M. Holmes, precede Mr. Naylor's article. Action, Medical Uses, and Dosage.—Motherwort is emmenagogue, nervine, antispasmodic, and laxative. It is usually given in warm infusion in amenorrhoea from colds; and in suppressed lochia we have found it superior to any other remedy. Also useful in hysteria and chorea (King). The extract is recommended in nervous complaints, pains peculiar to females, in irritable habits, delirium tremens, typhoid stages, with morbid nervous excitability, all chronic diseases attended with restlessness, wakefulness, disturbed sleep, spinal irritation, and neuralgic pains in the stomach and head, and in liver affections. It is adapted to cases of nervous debility with irritation, nervous unrest, tendency to choreic or spasmodic movements, pelvic and lumbar uneasiness or pain, bearing down pains, and the irritability due to female disorders. Combined with ictodes and resin of black cohosh, it forms a superior antispasmodic, nervine, and emmenagogue. Externally, it maybe used as a fomentation to the bowels in suppressed and painful menstruation, etc. Dose of decoction, from 2 to 4 fluid ounces, every 1, 2, or 3 hours; of the extract, from 3 to 6 grains, every 2 to 4 hours. The root in infusion is diuretic, and is stated to be efficient in obstinate intermittents. The seeds have been given in half-teaspoonful doses in water, in bilious colic, and, it is said, will pass through the bowels when quicksilver will not; they must not be pulverized. This, however, requires more satisfactory evidence (King).