Oenthe Crocata

PREPARATION.--The fresh root is macerated in two parts by weight of

alcohol.



(The following paper on OEnanthe crocata was kindly

sent to the editor by Dr. W. A. Dewey, of the Ann Arbor

University, Michigan):



OEnanthe crocata belongs to the large family of the Umbelliferae

which furnishes us with Conium and Cicuta. It grows in marshy

localities in England and Franc . In Botanical works of the 16th and

17th centuries it was often confounded with Cicuta virosa, an error

which has even been made in more recent times, in fact, only one

Botanist of the 19th century described the plant with sufficient

exactness for its recognition, and that was DeLobel, who published his

Botany in 1851. It is one of the largest plants of the family, being 3

to 5 feet high. Our tincture is from the fresh root.



HISTORICAL.--OEnanthe was known to Galen and Dioscorides, and

numerous citations might be made to show that the drug was used from the

earliest times in various affections, affections that nearly every drug

was tried in, but it is in the "Cyanosura Materia Medica of Boecler,

published in 1729," that we first find a hint as to its true action.

"Those who ate much of it were taken with dark vertigos, going from one

place to another, swaying, frightened, turning in a circle as Lobilus

pretends to have seen."



Hahnemann, in his "Apotheker Lexicon" (Leipzig, 1793), says of the drug:

"It is said that the whole plant is poisonous and causes vertigo,

stupefaction, loss of force, convulsions, delirium, stiffness,

insensibility, falling of the hair, and taken in large quantities will

cause death."



He says further: "That, administered with great circumspection, it

should prove useful in certain varieties of delirium, vertigos and

cramps."



This is interesting coming from Hahnemann at the time when he had

discovered the law, but had not as yet given it to the world.



OEnanthe was considered in the last century as one of the most

pernicious plants of Europe, especially for cattle, who, having eaten

it, can neither vomit nor digest it and they soon die in convulsions;

this from the root, however, as they eat the leaves with impunity. It is

interesting to note that animals poisoned with it decompose rapidly.



Much of the following study is taken from a series of excellent papers

on the drug, which have been appearing for over a year in "Le Journal

Belge D'Homoeopathie," from the pen of Dr. Ch. DeMoor, of Alost,

Belgium.



GENERAL ACTION.--From a very large collection of observations of cases

of poisoning with OEnanthe, dating from 1556 to the present time and

recorded in "Allen's Encyclopaedia," the "Cyclopaedia of Drug

Pathogenesy," and in the article of Dr. DeMoor, above mentioned, we find

that OEnanthe crocata produces, almost invariably, convulsions of an

epileptiform character and which are marked by the following symptoms:



Swollen, livid face, sometimes pale.



Frothing at mouth.



Contraction of chest and oppressed breathing.



Dilated pupils or irregular. Eyeballs turned upward.



Coldness of the extremities.



Pulse weak.



Convulsions are especially severe, at first tonic then clonic.



Locked jaws.



Trembling and twitching of muscles.



OEnanthe also produces a delirium in which the patient becomes as if

drunken, there is stupefaction, obscuration of vision and fainting.



The Greek name of the plant signifies "wine flower," and so-called on

account of its producing a condition similar to wine drunkenness, and

there is a difference, so I have heard, between wine and other beverages

in this respect. Hiccoughs are also produced by the drug.



There is also great heat in the throat and stomach and a desire to vomit

and to have stool, and a great deal of weakness of the limbs and

cardialgia. Like other members of the same family, as Conium, it

produces very much vertigo, this has always been present in the cases of

poisoning with the plant. In a number of cases who had been poisoned by

the drug the hair and nails fell out.



HOMOEOPATHIC ACTION AND APPLICABILITY.--The uses of OEnanthe,

homoeopathically, have been taken from the reports above mentioned;

the drug has never been proved, and it is doubtful if one could be found

who would prove it to the convulsion-producing extremity. All the

evidence in all the authorities shows clearly that the drug produces in

man all the symptoms of epilepsy, and it is in that disease that

clinical testimony is gradually accumulating. Accepting the theory that

epilepsy is a disturbance or irritation in the cortex of the brain, it

would seem that OEnanthe crocata, which produces congestion of the

pia mater, would prove a close pathological simillimum to epilepsy. Its

usefulness in this disease is unmistakable and only another proof of the

truth of the homoeopathic law.



Let us review briefly some of the evidence of its action: Dr. S. H.

Talcott, in the report of the Middletown Asylum, 1893, notes that

OEnanthe possesses a marked power in epilepsy, stating that it makes

the attack less frequent, less violent and improves the mental state of

the patient. He prescribes it in the tincture, 1 to 6 drops daily.



In the Materia Medica Society of New York its use has been verified

several times. Dr. Paige greatly benefited a case with the 3x potency.



Dr. F. H. Fisk reports the cure of a case which had lasted two years,

with the tincture. This case during the last month before the doctor

took it was having from 6 to 10 attacks daily.



Dr. Garrison, of Easton, Pa., reports a case of reflex uterine or

hystero-epilepsy in which the 2x acted promptly.



Allen in his Hand-Book mentions the cure of three cases with the remedy.



Dr. J. Ritchie Horner reports that the remedy greatly modified the

attacks in a lady who had had the disease over 20 years, and who, for

the two months previous, had had a convulsion daily. He used the 3x.



Dr. J. S. Cooper, of Chillicothe, Ohio, reports the cure of a case of 25

years' standing with the 4x.



Dr. Henderson reports the cure of a case of 9 years' standing, where the

patient was almost idiotic; the convulsions were relieved and the mental

condition was greatly relieved and improved. In two other cases equally

satisfactory results were had.



Dr. D. A. Baldwin, of Englewood, N. J., entirely controlled the

convulsions in a young man of 16 with OEnanthe.



Dr. Ord reports a case of petit mal cured with the 3x, and in a South

American homoeopathic journal a Dr. Rappaz reports the cure of a case

of three years' standing with increasing seizures with the remedy in

doses ranging from the 6 to the 12.



The late Dr. W. A. Dunn reported a genuine cure of a young girl of 16

who had been epileptic for 7 years, latterly having as many as 4 or 5

attacks during a night. The remedy caused these attacks to entirely

disappear. The girl commenced menstruating at 12, so the establishment

of the menses had nothing to do with the cure.



Dr. Charles A. Wilson, of San Antonio, Texas, reports a number of cases

cured with OEnanthe in the 3x dilution, and the same potency greatly

lessened the number of seizures in others.



Dr. Purdon, of the University of Dublin, relates a case of epilepsy

cured with this drug in 1 to 6 drop doses several times a day.



Dr. F. E. Howard, in a case which had 3 or 4 attacks a week, gave 5

drops of the tincture every two hours, which caused violent pains in the

head, but complete recovery followed on reducing the dose.



Several cases of the cure of epilepsy with OEnanthe in alternation

with Silicea or some other drug have been reported, but as the

question, "which cured?" comes in they need not be given.



In my own practice I have had some marked results from its action and

have seen it modify attacks when everything else failed. In two cases,

one a boy of 13 who had had the disease 5 years and who had suffered

much of many sphincter-stretching orificialists and "lots of other

things," the remedy made a complete cure; the other case was in a man of

30 who had the grand mal, the petit mal and the epileptic vertigo.

OEnanthe removed entirely the two former conditions leaving only the

latter, and that in a very mild degree. It also greatly improved the

mental condition of the patient.



I have several cases under treatment at the present time, and some of

them are showing a marked effect from its use. The question of dose I

believe to be an important one. I used generally the tincture in water,

but latterly I have been using the third, and I believe with better

effect than I ever obtained with the tincture, and I am now of the

opinion that the lower dilutions, say from the 3 to the 12, will be

found more efficacious than the tincture, and the higher potencies will

suit certain cases. In order to prescribe the drug with accuracy

provings will be necessary to develop its finer symptomatology.