This section is from the book "Recent Materia Medica: Notes On Their Origin And Therapeutics", by F. Harwood Lescher. Also available from Amazon: Recent materia medica.
A perennial with a spike of white flowers. The rhizome, mealy, bitter, odourless, is employed in U. S. P. 1870. A cordial or elixir is made from it. Aletrin is the bitter principle, soluble in alcohol.
Helonias dioica, or False Unicorn, has been substituted.
Therapeutics. A tonic bitter in uterine diseases. Dose of tincture (1 in 8 proof spirit), 1 to 2 fluid drachms. Dose of powder, 10 grains: fluid extract, 10 to 20 minims.
Kernels very rich in oil, which is a mild cathartic, like castor oil, without smell or disagreeable taste, in same dose, with the flavour of the hazel nut. Nuts, strung on fibres, are used in Pacific Islands as candles. The oil is produced in the Sandwich Islands.
From Aloes. (That From Barb. Aloes Is C17 H18 07 Or C17 H20 O7.)
Bitter crystalline principle; hardly soluble in cold water, easily in hot water and alcohol.
Therapeutics. Internally in pills, with sulphate of iron or soap; dose, 1/2 grain to 2 grains. Used for enemas, 1 part to 25 parts of warm water. It is not in the 1880 U.S.A. Pharmacopoeia.
Pale buff-coloured bark, with darker exterior, spongy and friable, with little odour or taste.
Therapeutics. A powerful remedy for fever, resembling the action of quinine with nux vomica It is an anti-periodic, and an antiseptic stimulant nerve tonic. [The alkaloid is Alstonine or Chlorogenine.] Dose, 5 grains of powder; in colds, 2 grain doses of powder every two hours; tincture, (2 ounces to pint of proof spirit) dose 1/2 to 2 drachms, fl. ext. 2 to 5 drops.
Rough, spongy, buff-coloured bark; it is reputed in India a good tonic anti-periodic, and its milky juice has similar properties to India-rubber. Its crystalline alkaloid is Ditamine. In French Codex, 1884. Dose of tincture (1 in 10) 1 drachm, fl. ext. 5 to 10 drops. [Conessi bark, India, from Wrightia anti-dysenterica, in same N. O., has similar properties.]
 
Continue to: