This section of the book is from "The Complete Herbalist" by Dr. O. Phelps Brown. Also available from Amazon: The Complete Herbalist: The People Their Own Physicians By The Use Of Nature's Remedies.
COMMON NAMES. Culver's Physic, Tall Speedwell.
MEDICINAL PART. The root.
Description. -- It is perennial, with a simple,
straight, smooth, herbaceous stem, and grows from three to four or five
feet in height. The leaves are short petioled, whorled in fours to
sevens, lanceolate, acuminnate, and finely serrated. The flowers
are white, nearly sessile, and very numerous. Calyx four-parted corolla
small and nearly white; stamens, two. The fruit is a many-seeded
capsule.
History. -- This plant is indigenous to the
United States, but is to be found in good condition only in limestone countries.
It is often discovered in new soil, in moist woods, in swamps, etc., but
its medicinal virtues are feeble, excepting when it is found where there
is limestone. The root is the part used. It is perennial, irregular,
horizontal, woody, and about as thick as the forefinger. It is gathered
in the fall of the second year. The fresh root should never be used,
as it is very violent and uncertain in its operations. The dried
root, after having been properly prepared, is what may be relied upon for
beneficial effects. Leptandrin is its active principle.
Properties and Uses. -- The fresh root is
too irritant to be used, although a decoction of it may, with care, be
used in intermittent fever. The dried root is laxative, cholagogue,
and tonic, and very much used in chronic hepatic diseases. It is
an excellent laxative in febrile diseases, and peculiarly applicable in
billious and typhoid fevers. As a laxative and tonic it is very useful
in dyspepsia, especially when associated with torpidity of the liver.
In diarrhoea and dysentery, as a cathartic it frequently effects a cure
in one active dose. This admirable remedy is one of the ingredients
of my "Renovating Pill," see page 469.
Dose. -- Powdered root, twenty to sixty grains;
infusion, half an ounce; leptandrin, one-fourth grain to a grain.
 
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