Passiflora Incarnata – Pathogénésies de l’an 1900 – Robert Séror

Pathogénésies de l’an 1900

New, Old And Forgotten Remedies

By Edward
Pollock Anshutz

Presented
by Dr Robert Séror

Passiflora Incarnata.

Natural order

-Passifloraceæ.

Common name

-Passion
flower.

Preparation

-The
fresh leaves and flowers gathered in May are macerated in two parts by
weight of alcohol. A preparation
may also be made from
the expressed juice of the fresh leaves.

(There has been so much written concerning this unproved remedy that
we can only give an abstract of a part of it Dr. Lindsay formerly of
Bayou Gras, La., was the first to call attention to it a few weeks
before his death. He wrote in answer to an inquiry as follows -Hale’s
New Remedies).

I have much to say. I am satisfied it is no narcotic. I never
stupefies or overpowers the senses. A patient under its full influence
may be wakened up and he will talk to you as rationally as ever he
did ; leave him for a moment and he will soon be off to the Elysian
Fields again. I have tried it, my friend, in all sorts of neuralgic
affections, and have usually astonished my more enlightened patients
with it. Many times I have them to ask me what in the world it was that
had such a sweet influence over them.

(Dr. L. Phares, of Newtonia, Miss., States.)

I never saw anything act so promptly in erysipelas. I have used it
with advantage in ulcers, neuralgia, and tetanus. I have seen wonderful
effect of it in relieving tetanus, and will mention one case from
memory 

: Some ten years ago I was called
to see an old lady, in a distant part of the country, who was reported
to be “having fits.” I found her to be able to be up most of
the time, but, while examining her, convulsions came on, affecting
mainly the trunkal muscles and drawing the head back. I gave her
instantly a dose of Passiflora. The convulsions subsided and she has never had one
since. I continued the use of the medicine in small doses for a few
days. I have used it in treating tetanus in horses -a disease usually
considered as inevitably fatal to that noble animal. It has never failed
to cure the horse. * * * During the late war, my son, Dr. J. H. Phares,
had occasion many times to prescribe the Passiflora for tetanus in
horses, with one invariable result -prompt, perfect, permanent cure. He
fortunately saw no case in man. * * * Since the foregoing was written, I
have treated with the hydro-alcoholic extract of Passiflora several
cases of neuralgia and one of sleeplessness, with incessant motion and
suicidal mania. With the same extract during the current week, Dr. J. H.
Phares has treated, with the most prompt and satisfactory success, a
very virulent and hopeless case of tetanus, with opisthotonos, trismus
and convulsions in a child two years old. Other most potent remedies, in
heroic doses, having failed to produce any effect in this case, he
thinks that nothing but the Passiflora could possibly have saved the
child.

The editor of the California Medical Journal (1889) writes.

We have been employing it (

Passiflora) in some cases of spinal meningitis after the acute
symptoms had subsided, when the patients were unable to sleep, either
day or night ; could not endure the bed, and were unable to
maintain the sitting posture, with highly satisfactory results. It is
administered in small doses. Add ten drops of the mother tincture (homœopathic)
to half a tumbler of water, teaspoonful every two hours.

[At the meeting of the Homœopathic Medical Society of Delaware and
Peninsula, November 14, 1889, Dr. W. D. Troy read a paper on Passiflora
(see Homœopathic Recorder, May 1890), from which we take the
following].

My erysipelatous case was a man of some fifty years. When first seen
was abed, high fever, facial erysipelas of the flaming, rampant sort,
one eye had disappeared, the other was in rapid retreat. Patient in
great anxiety ; sharp, stinging pains ; could not rest. Was
about to give

Apis when I thought of my Passion flower. Gave two drops doses of the
tincture every two hours. Put one-half an ounce of same into one quart
of water for local application, to be applied hot by flannels and oiled
silk. After six hours patient fell asleep ; was awakened for
medicine every three hours during the night ; went to sleep easily
after each dose. Said in morning he had had a night’s good rest. Found
inflammation markedly reduced. I now changed the remedy -gave Ham., both internally and externally. On next
visit found patient every way worse. The disease had sneaked across the
scalp and invaded the whole face. The case began to look serious.
Returned to the Passiflora and kept at it with the most
happy results.

My next experience was in a Chorea -a girl budding into womanhood,
but in whom the menses had not yet appeared. Child was well developed
for her years, fourteen. I learned that for two or three years past the
child had “fits” varying at times from moderate to severe. The
neurosis was unilateral, the right side alone being affected 

: the child had had traditional treatment,
“off and on” for some time without manifest improvement. I
began with the Passiflora 1x
dil., 10 gtt. Doses every three hours.
Kept it up for several days, the choreic symptoms being not quite so
violent ; still I was growing anxious -wanted more positive
results. Added daily a five-drop dose of tincture. After a few more days
the mother informed me that there had been a slight “show”
-merely enough to stain the diaper- and that for the last two days there
had been hardly any “fits.” This was encouraging. I judged
that the day of deliverance was nigh. Very little more of the drug was
given until about the time for next menstrual flux. Then I resumed it
with the most satisfactory results. No nervous symptoms save such as are
more or less common to all women at the “periods” subsequently
prevailed.

(The following case was reported by Dr. Buell Dunlevy or Port
Chester, N. Y. –Homeopathic Recorder, Nov. 1890).

Mr. D., aged

52, sent for me to attend him during
the mouth of May. I found him presenting all the prodromal symptoms of
delirium tremens, and at once ordered him to bed, and none too soon, as
the event proved. For seven days he tossed about in a wild delirium
which was greatly aggravated by marked gastric irritation. I had him
carefully watched, both day and night, until the delirium wore off.

The treatment up to this time was

Cannabis Ind. For the mental trouble and Nux v., which greatly relieved the gastric symptoms.
But the moment he began to improve the old cravings for liquor and
morphine returned. Right here let me say that for years he has been a
great sufferer from piles and the only rest he could get was to sit
propped up in his chair. His sufferings caused him to seek relief during
the day in liquor and at nights in morphine. And this habit had so
fastened itself upon him that try as he might, he could not give it up.

When he came under my treatment I at once put a stop to all
stimulants and narcotics, but not without considerable trouble, for he
seemed determined to have them. Night after night he would lie there
calling for something to make him sleep, and this kept up until he was
bordering on a state of insanity. Fully realizing that something must be
done and that quickly too, I made up my mind to try

Passiflora. This I did, and from the time I
gave him the first dose improvement set in and has continued ever since.
I at first gave him a half teaspoonful of the Ø at bed time, but this
not proving sufficient, I increased it to a teaspoonful. He has now been
taking it almost constantly for a period of eight weeks and claims he
has not had as natural a sleep for years ; and lays particular
stress on the fact that when he awakes in the morning he feels so
refreshed and his mind remains clear.

But what seems even more wonderful is that from the day he first took
this drug up to the present he has never felt the slightest desire to
return to his former habits. The mere mention of liquor or opium seems
to sicken him, and I am fully satisfied that he is now cured and will
(so far as liquor and opium are concerned) remain so. He now takes
special delight in praising the drug to his friends and really seems
never to tire talking about the wonderful help it has been to him. I
have also prescribed the drug to others for insomnia and always with
success, one case excepted, in which I gave it for hemicrania, and here,
although it quietened the patient, it failed to produce the desired
sleep.

(The following is extracted from a paper on Passiflora, by Dr. C. A.
Walters, of Brooklyn. Homeopathic Recorder, July 1890.)

In April

1888, was called for an infant, 14 months, convulsions, caused by
dentition ; symptoms called for Belladonna, of which the 1x dil., 5
drops in half a glass water, teaspoonful every fifteen minutes until
better, then once an hour. The child improved from start, and the
convulsions ceased within one hour from commencing the medicine. The
next day the child appeared in usual health and the Belladonna was given once in eight hours and
discharged from further attendance.

Thirty-six hours after I was recalled, the child was in another
spasms. No

Belladonna symptoms being present I gave 5 drops of Passiflora tincture, every fifteen minutes, with the result that
it never had another spasm from that day to this. The child slept
soundly all through the night and awoke next morning in its usual good
health.

Since than I have prescribed it for the sleeplessness of dentition
without a failure, giving it usually in from

5 to 10 drops a dose, to be repeated
every fifteen minutes until sleep. I never give it during the day for
this purpose, but begin at bedtime.

In the insomnia of adults, from whatsoever cause, I always give

60 drops at bedtime, and if not asleep in half an
hour I repeat the same dose.

Experience has taught me that to give it in smaller doses is a waste
of time disappointing to the patient. Two such doses,

i. e., 60
drops a dose, are almost absolutely sure of giving the patient a natural
and refreshing sleep. The old school seem to have been forced to resort
to Sulfonal (whatever that may be) as the
only thing capable of producing sleep, and yet, judging from the reports
in their journals, it does not seem to “fill the bill.” Were
they ever to give this a trial we would not hear so much of Morphine, Chloral, Bromides and the like.

I have never used

Passiflora in erysipelas, having always been able to discharge my
patients within two to four days by giving them Jaborandi.

In neuralgia and headache it has acted with wonderful rapidity, even
the headache of uterine displacements being brought under its influence.
It is almost a daily occurrence to have people whom I never saw before
come miles to my office for that “sleeping medicine made from the
passion flower.”

In conclusion let me say to the brethren, try it. But give it in
appreciable doses. Don’t be afraid of it. I would not hesitate to give
it in four drachm doses, if required. But why give four when one will
do ?

P. S.- Since writing the foregoing I have used Passiflora in two
cases of delirium tremens. It acted like a charm in both cases ;
sent them to sleep in half an hour, and when they awoke, twelve and
fourteen hours after, they were themselves again. Sixty drops of
tincture a dose, two doses in each case.

(The following was reported by Dr. Joseph Adolphus in American
Medical Journal.)

A lady who had for several months suffered untold agonies, as she
described her sufferings ; her pain was described as if a weight of
many pounds was lying on her brain ; the sense of pressure and
tearing inside the skull was fearful ; her head felt as if
enveloped in ice ; the pains ran down the back of her neck, and
finally reached the lower end of sacrum, so that a slight touch of the
coccyx caused exquisite agony.

This was a case in which coccygodynia was associated with the
cerebral and spinal disease. I failed to relieve the pain for more than
few hours at a time with all other remedies I had tried ; at this
juncture, when despair was taking the place of hope, I thought of

Passiflora, which I then administered in
teaspoonful doses every two hours ; the result was something to be
remembered, for she enjoyed excellent and refreshing rest the following
night, waking up in the morning much refreshed, nearly free from pain,
with a good relish for breakfast. I continued the medicament every four
hours for several days, for no further uses for medicine seemed
indicated, as there was a rapid and complete recovery.

A lady complained of pain in her rectum continuously ; the
coccyx was also quite to the touch. There were several erosions on the
lips of the os uteri ; leucorrhœa and severe pain in the small of
the back when a certain spot (over last dorsal and first and second
lumbar vertebræ) was pressed on. I found she had been treated

secundum artem for the uterine trouble, locally
and constitutionally to no certain satisfactory result. Her respirations
were often twenty-eight to thirty per minute, much wakefulness, and at
times feeling of constriction across her breast and a sense as if her
heart would stop beating. Teaspoonful doses of the Passiflora incar. was the specific in her case.
She continued it every four hours two weeks, but from the outset of
treatment she felt the right remedy was administered.

These rectum troubles in women are frequently met with in practice. I
find the

Passiflora
incar. the best
single remedy I have for them.

Recently a man consulted me for a constant pain in his heart ;
he described it as sharp and like a pang, often causing a sense of
immediate dissolution and fear of death was on him all the time ;
pulse irregular in rhythm, now rapid, next slower, occasionally a beat
missing ; sounds very normal, but accentuated and sharp.

Passiflora incarnata was a specific in this
case ; no doubt the center and probably the local ganglia were
irritated from some cause, and whatever it was, the medicament removed
both.

By the way, I must not forget to say you will find it a valuable
medicament in sleeplessness and tossing restlessness in your fever
patients. I use the tincture in teaspoonful doses every four hours. It
appears the remedy has a soothing effect on the whole nervous system,
without any appreciable narcotic properties.

(From the transactions of the Twenty-fifth Annual Meeting of the
Maine Homeopathic-Medical Society we take the following from a paper by
Dr. A. I. Harvey on Passiflora).

It dose no good where the inability to sleep is due to pain or
distress of any kind ; but in cases where we find that the nervous
erethism is not controlled by the action of

Coffea, Opium, Sulphur, or other apparently indicated
remedy. Passiflora is in its place as a succedaneum
for Morphia or other sedatives. The dose
varies from ten drops to one drachm of the tincture according to the age
of the patient. I do not hesitate, in the case of an adult, to give
drachm doses of the tincture every hour until the patient sleeps and
have seen it act in the happiest manner in restoring the rhythm of the
heart’s action, when that organ has been deranged in its movements by
the combined effects of exhaustion and loss of sleep.

Passiflora

has
also given the much aid in a case of morphine habit of six years’
standing, which I cured wholly and entirely by the use of this remedy.
It is recommended in the above mentioned doses for delirium tremors,
trismus, tetanus, and kindred diseases of the nervous system, repeated
every hour or half-hour until relief is obtained. The remedy leaves no
after effects, is incapable of creating an appetite and, so far as my
observation extends, it is perfectly harmless even in large doses, often
repeated.

Numérisation, vérification, illustrations,
restructuration et mise en page par le Dr. R. S.