( Blood-root.)

Origin. - The dried rhizome of Sanguinaria Canadensis L., a low perennial, a native of Canada and the United States, where it grows in open woods in a rich soil. The rhizome should be collected in autumn.

Description and Properties. - Of horizontal growth, about 2 inches (5 Cm.) long and 2/5 inch (1 Cm.) thick, cylindrical, somewhat branched, slightly annulate, wrinkled, reddish-brown; fracture short, somewhat waxy, whitish, with numerous, small red resin-cells, or of a nearly uniform, brownish-red color; bark thin; odor slight; taste persistently bitter and acrid. It contains a colorless alkaloid, sanguina-rine, yielding red salts; chelerythine, yielding lemon-yellow salts; homochelidonine; and protopine.

These alkaloids are closely relatad to the opium series.

Dose. - 2-20 grains (0.12-1.2 Gm.) [2 grains (0.125 Gm.), U. S. P.].

Official Preparations

Fluidextractum Sanguinariae - Fluidextratcti Sanguinariae - Fluidextract of Sanguinaria. - Dose, 5-15 minims (0.3-1.0 Cc.) [1 1/2 minims (0.l Cc), U. S. P.].

Tinctura Sanguinariae (10 per cent.) - Tincturae Sanguinariae - Tincture of Sanguinaria. - Dose, 10-60 minims (0.6-4.0 Cc.) [15 minims (1 Cc). U. S. P.].

Physiological Action. - Externally and Locally. - Sanguinaria is an irritant and a feeble escharotic. When the powder of blood-root is inhaled it produces great irritation of the respiratory passages, with excessive secretion and violent sneezing.

Internally. - Digestive System. - Medicinal doses occasion a sense of constriction in the throat and heat in the epigastrium, increasing the secretions from the stomach, liver, and intestines. Excessive doses are followed by marked salivation, nausea, and vomiting, the drug acting as a systemic emetic. Very large doses cause great irritation of the intestines, producing hyper-catharsis.

Circulatory System. - At first the heart's action is increased and arterial tension raised, but these effects are followed by cardiac and circulatory depression. Poisonous doses sometimes result in cardiac paralysis.

Nervous System. - Large doses diminish reflex excitability by paralysis of the spinal centers, occasionally producing convulsions of spinal origin, resembling those caused by thebaine.

Respiratory System. - Medicinal doses of sanguinaria have no apparent effect upon the respiration; poisonous doses, however, render the breathing slow and shallow, death resulting from asphyxia due to paralysis of the respiratory center. The final collapse is often preceded by convulsions arising from the accumulation of carbon dioxide in the blood from failure of respiration.

Blood-root is a stimulant expectorant, increasing the secretion from the bronchopulmonary mucous membrane.

Poisoning. - Blood-root is an acrid narcotic poison, exciting salivation, violent vomiting, profuse watery evacuations from the bowels, and producing all the symptoms of gastro-enteritis. The muscular system is greatly relaxed, the pulse is slow, weak, and irregular, the skin covered with cold sweat, and finally, collapse of the vital powers supervenes. Convulsions may precede a fatal termination, which is due to paralysis of the respiratory or cardiac center.

Treatment of Poisoning. - The stomach should be washed out and diffusible stimulants freely given. Strychnine may be administered hypodermically, and digitalis and amyl nitrite given if necessary. The pain and nausea may be relieved by morphine and atropine. The normal temperature of the body should be maintained by external warmth.

This drug is now seldom used locally, the irritation caused by it being so great that patients can only with great difficulty be persuaded to submit to the treatment.

Internally. - While possessing alterative properties and classed among the specifics, one of the principal uses of sanguinaria is in acute bronchitis, when the spasmodic element predominates and after the subsidence of the more acute symptoms.

In atonic conditions of the stomach and bowels, with increased secretion of mucus, small doses of tincture of sanguinaria prove beneficial. The tincture is of equal value in duodenal catarrh with jaundice.

As an emmenagogue and aphrodisiac blood-root has been successfully employed in functional amenorrhea and dysmenorrhea, as well as in functional impotence with relaxation of the genital organs and daily seminal losses.

Contraindications. - No special contraindication exists, unless it be an acute inflammatory condition of the stomach and bowels.

Sanguinaria has practically gone out of use, as it is too irritating and "old fashioned" a drug.