Veratrum Album. White Hellebore.

Related entry: American hellebore

Synonyms—White Veratrum.

CONSTITUENTS—

Jervine, pseudojervine, and protoveratrine.

PREPARATIONS—

The dose of the powder, from one to eight grains.

A preparation of thirty drops of the tincture in four ounces of water, may be given in teaspoonful doses, to infants.

Twenty drops of an ordinary tincture is the dose.

Specific Symptomatology—Diarrhea with large watery discharges expelled with violence, spasmodic pains in the bowels, cramps, cramp colic, pain producing prostration, with cold skin, cold sweat and sunken eyes.

Therapy—This remedy, in small doses frequently repeated, is specific in cholera infantum, cholera morbus, and in various forms of acute diarrhea. It has some of the indications of arsenite of copper. It has been found beneficial in Asiatic cholera. It is not in general use. It was at one time given to act upon the skin and as an emetic. It is said to be found beneficial in some forms of nervous headache and in cases of mental derangement.

It has been long in use, to destroy lice, and as an insect powder.

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.