Podophyllum

May-Apple

May-apple. The rhizoma and roots of Podophyllum peltatum Linné (Nat. Ord. Berberidaceae).

Resina Podophylli

Resin of podophyllum. Dose, gr. 1/4— gr.j.

Extractum Podophylli

Extract of podophyllum. Dose, gr. v —gr. x.

Extractum Podophylli Fluidum

Fluid extract of podophyllum. Dose, τηj— 3 ss.

Composition

The medicinal qualities of podophyllum are due to a resin, or to two resinous substances, one soluble in alcohol and ether, and the other soluble in alcohol only. Both possess purgative properties. May-apple-root contains the alkaloid berberine, which, however, contributes nothing to the therapeutical properties of this remedy, and, farther, it is not peculiar to podophyllum, being found in berberis, hydrastis, and other plants.

Resina podophylli is the preparation entitled "podophyllin" by the eclectic practitioners.

Actions and Uses

The taste of podophyllum is bitter, with an after-sense of acridity. It increases the intestinal secretions, and is actively cathartic, producing copious and rather watery stools. Its action is similar to, but considerably slower than, that of jalap. From six to ten hours elapse after its administration before cathartic effects are experienced. Taken by itself, it is apt to cause nausea and griping, but in combination with other cathartics, or with belladonna or hyoscyamus, it operates pleasantly as well as efficiently. The Edinburgh committee, Dr. Bennett, chairman, ascertained, as they supposed, that the resin of podophyllum has no cholagogue action, but the more recent as well as the more accurately conducted experiments of Rutherford and Vignal have apparently demonstrated that it decidedly increases the flow of bile, corresponding in this particular to the other resinous cathartics.

Podophyllum-resin is the most generally useful cathartic in cases of constipation, in which the secretions of the glandular apparatus of the intestinal canal, and of the liver, are deficient. Habitual constipation, due to torpor of the muscular layer of the bowel, may, it is said, be removed by the nightly use of a small dose of the resin combined with belladonna. Rx Resinae podophylli, grs. vj; ext. belladonnae, ext. physostigmatis, āā grs. iij. M. Ft. pil. no. xij. Sig.: One pill each night. It is especially in congestion of the portal circulation, in catarrhal and malarial jaundice, and in ascites, that podophyllum-resin acts most efficiently and serviceably. Haemorrhoids that bleed in consequence of stasis in the portal circulation, and that are of recent formation, may sometimes be cured by a brisk podophyllum cathartic.

The clinical experience which had shown that the resin of podophyllum possessed cholagogue powers, long before the experimental inquiry was instituted to settle the question, led also to a wide generalization in the therapeutical uses of this agent. Acting on the liver, it was assumed that, in a manner similar to mercury, it must also possess similar "alterative" powers. It came to be used as the "vegetable calomel," in the diseases in the treatment of which mercury was supposed to be essential. It need hardly be asserted that these speculations have no basis, and that podophyllum possesses no property in common with mercury except its power to purge.