Anacardium. Anacardium occidentale.

Synonyms—Cashew Nut.

CONSTITUENTS—

It contains gallic acid and an acrid resin, anacardic acid, and cardol.

PREPARATIONS—

A tincture is prepared. The commonest form of administration is the Homeopathic mother tincture. Dose, from one-fourth of a drop to a drop, four or five times a day.

Physiological Action—The juice of the rind is acrid, corrosive and irritating. Externally it produces blisters, which are apt to be troublesome and difficult of cure. It produces redness, inflammation, swelling and deep ulceration.

Therapy—This remedy was first brought. into use, in the treatment of Senegal fever, a peculiar fever of the Tropics, where quinine has proved unavailing. Webster suggests that it may be found of value in the treatment of mental disease, the result of nervous debility, especially that form known as sexual neurasthenia, where there is loss of memory, threatened dementia, failure of the will, great anxiety, and solicitation concerning the condition, with general failure of the nervous power.

It has been used in the treatment of some forms of skin disease. There is room for investigation concerning its action.

The American Materia Medica, Therapeutics and Pharmacognosy, 1919, was written by Finley Ellingwood, M.D.
It was scanned by Michael Moore for the Southwest School of Botanical Medicine.