Stigmata Maidis

A Tincture of the Fresh Corn Silk.



NAT. ORD.--Gramineae.



COMMON NAME.--Corn Silk.



PREPARATION.--One part of fresh corn silk is macerated in two parts by

weight of alcohol.



(A great deal has been published lately concerning this

remedy. The following by Dr. Dufan, London Medical

Record, seems to give the best outline of its uses:)
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1. The stigmata of maize have a very marked, though not always a

favorable, action in all affections of the bladder, whether acute or

chronic.



2. In acute traumatic cystitis, and also in gonorrhoeal cystitis, they

have a very marked diuretic action, but, at the same time, increase the

pain; hence they should not be employed in these cases.



3. The best results have been obtained in cases of uric or phosphatic

gravel, of chronic cystitis, whether simple or consecutive to gravel,

and of mucous or muco-purulent catarrh. All the symptoms of the disease,

the vesical pains, the dysuria, the excretion of sand, the ammoniacal

odor, etc., rapidly disappear under the influence of the medicine.



4. The retention of urine dependent on these various affections often

disappears as improvement progresses, but the use of the sound must

sometimes be continued, in order to empty the bladder completely.



5. The stigmata maize have very often produced a cure after all the

usual internal remedies had been tried in vain, or with only partial

success. In other cases, the ordinary methods of treatment, which had at

first proved more or less entirely useless, became efficacious after

stigmata had been administered for a time, and had, as it were, broken

the ground for them. Most frequently the stigmata alone sufficed for the

cure, but still in some cases the effect was incomplete, and it was

found that the treatment could be varied with benefit. Injections and

irrigations of the bladder also proved useful adjuncts to the maize.



6. As the stigmata of maize are a very powerful, though at the same time

entirely inoffensive diuretic, they have also been employed with the

best results in cases of heart disease, albuminuria, and other

affections requiring diuretics. Cases have been reported in which the

urinary secretion was tripled and even quintupled in the first

twenty-four hours, and others where the exhibition of the drug was

continued for two or three months without the slightest untoward effect.



(Though Dr. Dufan condemns the use of the remedy in

gonorrhoea, other practitioners have commended it for

that very purpose. Dr. Leo Bennett, Therapeutic

Gazette, 1893, having had "unusual success" in the

treatment of that disease with the Stigmata maidis.)