Boldus. Peumus boldus.

Synonyms—Boldo. Boldu (Boldoa Fragrans, Gay).

CONSTITUENTS—

The plant contains an essential oil, a volatile oil, and an alkaloid, boldine. A narcotic alkaloid called boldoglucin.

PREPARATIONS—

A tincture is prepared. Dose, five to twenty drops.

Boldine is given in doses of from one to five grains.

The essential oil is given in capsules in three to five drops.

Fluid extract, from ten to thirty minims.

Physiological Action—Dr. Holmes, from Florida, has written a very excellent article for the National Medical Association, in which he says the agent, in its influence upon the liver and kidneys, relieves toxemia, or autoinfection, which has resulted from retention of the bile. It favors the resumption of functional activity of the liver, when stagnant, without increasing the peristaltic action of the bowels, as most liver remedies do, thus acting kindly upon the general intestinal canal. At the same time, it increases the functional power of the kidneys, so that their influence in carrying off morbific material, the products of retrograde metamorphosis, greatly facilitates the progress of recovery.

Therapy—The agent has not been in general use. The physicians of the south extol its virtues in the treatment of liver diseases. It is of excellent service in the treatment of chronic intestinal trouble where there is congestion and general inactivity of the liver. Present with this condition there may be painful digestion resulting from gastric debility, where there is also anemia with a general sallowness of the skin.

In the first case in which Dr. Holmes used the remedy, there was pain and tenderness over the right hypochondriac region. The skin was yellow, urine scanty, dark colored, almost coffee-ground color, the pain extended into the epigastric region. The tongue was heavily coated in the center, the tip and edges red, the pulse was between ninety and a hundred, and temperature 100. The patient dull, sleepy, indisposed to exercise, and the pain resembled that of gall stone. Pain, nausea and vomiting were present.

Chionanthus, chelidonium, iris, podophyllum, leptandra, euonymus, were all used and failed. The symptoms increased till the patient had a pulse of one hundred and thirty and a temperature of one hundred and five, and was reduced to a skeleton. At the suggestion of a man from. Chile, S. A., he gave this remedy in sixty-drop doses of the fluid extract, every four hours. The effect of the remedy was immediate, and the cure perfect.

The doctor reports four or five other cases where these symptoms were present with some variation, all cured by this remedy promptly, after our usual specifies had failed. The agent certainly demands careful investigation.

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.