Geranium.

Botanical name: 

I should like very much to present a symposium on the action of geranium. It is certainly a remedy that deserves the most careful attention. I have written upon it a good many times, and notwithstanding my previous enthusiasm, I find myself constantly growing in confidence in its influence upon gastric troubles.

Its real influence, I think, we know but little about as yet. It is classed as a simple astringent. It is all that, but it is infinitely more, and I am not as yet prepared to say just where our future observations will place it.

Given persistently in gastric ulcers, with or without hemorrhage, in doses of from ten to fifteen drops every two or three hours, it has not, in my tests, constipated the bowels at all, nor has it in any way interfered with their action in any case, but it has produced striking effect upon the other existing conditions.

However, given in diarrhea, whether of an acute or chronic character, where active inflammatory symptoms are not present, it will effectually restrain the loose movements and assist in the restoration of tone. It controls the hyperacidity, regulates the outpour of the digestive constituents of the stomach fluids, and promotes a normal tone.

I have been using it in the last two years in cases where palpation would reveal enlargement apparently in the walls of the stomach, and have found these enlargements, with other untoward symptoms, slowly disappear.

In another article, I have written on the action of geranium in the treatment of hepatic hypertrophic cirrhosis. Its influence was certainly remarkable in the case observed.


Ellingwood's Therapeutist, Vol. 2, 1908, was edited by Finley Ellingwood M.D.