Scoparius. Cytisus scoparius.

Related entry: Sparteine

Synonym—Broom.

CONSTITUENTS—

Scoparin, sparteine, volatile oil, fatty matter, wax, tannin, mucilage, albumin, sugar.

PREPARATIONS—

Extractum Scoparii Fluidum, Fluid Extract of Scoparius. Dose, from twenty to forty grains.

Physiological Action—Poisonous doses of sparteine cause sweating, vomiting dimness of vision, staggering gait, dizziness, a sense of weight in the limbs, slowing of the pulse, convulsions, paralysis of the motor and respiratory centers, and death by asphyxia. The preparations of scoparius are non-toxic.

Administration—The best form of the remedy is infusion, half an ounce of broom tops to half a pint of boiling, water, to be taken in divided doses in twenty-four hours, till it acts on the kidneys or moves the bowels.

Therapy—Asthenic dropsies, dropsy with feebleness and loss of appetite, hydrothorax without inflammation, dropsy from, heart disease. It has cured diabetes, mellitus.

It should not be given in acute kidney troubles, or in dropsy from disease of the liver or spleen.

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.