Xanthium.
Related entry: Xanthium strumarium
The whole plant of Xanthium spinosum, Linné (Nat. Ord. Compositae). An introduced weed common along the coasts of the United States. Dose, 5 to 30 grains.
Common Name: Spiny Clot-Bur.
Principal Constituents.—Possibly an evanescent alkaloid and considerable nitrate of potassium.
Preparation.—Specific Medicine Xanthium Spinosum. Dose, 1 to 60 drops.
Specific Indications.—Ague, with profuse sweating; prophylactic against malaria, and to prevent the recurrence of chills; nervous excitation, with profuse sweating; bloody urine, with urination painfully tenesmic and frequent; urine heavily loaded with mucus and gravelly deposits.
Action and Therapy.—Clotbur is used chiefly as a soothing diuretic, to allay irritable conditions of the bladder, and is especially recommended in chronic cystitis and haematuria. It is frequently used in conjunction with tincture of red onion, for irritation of the urinary tract with bloody, painfully voided urine loaded with mucus and gritty deposits. Its other uses cover the indications given above, unnatural sweating being an especial indication for the drug.
