Cotyledon Umbilicus.
Cotyledon Umbilicus L. Navelwort. Pennywort. Cotylet, Nombril de Venus, Fr. Nabelkraut, G.—This is a perennial, herbaceous, succulent plant, of the fam. Crassulaceae. The plant is a native of England, where it grows upon old walls and rocks, and dry sandy banks.
According to Fletet, it contains trimethylamine, combined with an unknown acid. When the powder of the plant is exposed to the air, it attracts moisture, and exhales a disagreeable odor strikingly analogous to that of fish, and an extract treated with a fixed alkali disengages, even in the cold, an odor which, at first ammoniacal, soon acquires the fishy character referred to. The plant contains cellulose, starch, glucose, mucilage, chlorophyll, yellow coloring matter, a volatile oil of a sandarac-like odor, tannin, iron, and salts of potassium, sodium, calcium, and iron, with 0.9 per cent. of nitre, and 95 per cent. of water. (Ann. Ther., 1865, 125.) It has been highly lauded in epilepsy (for references, see 16th edition U. S. D.), but it has very feeble and uncertain therapeutic properties. Dose, of fresh juice, from one-half to one fluidounce (15-30 mils), two or three times a day; of fluidextract, one fluidrachm (3.75 mils); of dry extract, five grains (0.32 Gm.); to be increased and given steadily for months.
