Evening Republican, Volume 22, Number 69, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 24 March 1919 — Strychnia Most Useful and Most Used Stimulant to the Heart and Nervous System [ARTICLE]

Strychnia Most Useful and Most Used Stimulant to the Heart and Nervous System

Ask any physician “What- is the most useful and most used stimulant to the heart and nervous system?” and he will answer ’’Strychnia,” notes a writer in Milwaukee Sentinel. Strychnia is an alkaloid found originally in the seed of the strychnos nuxvomlca, the poison-nut tree found in India, Bhrmah and Siam and growing also in Cochin China and Australia. The tree is of moderate size and has a fruit the size of a small orange, with a hard shell and a bitter pulp inclosing one to five seeds, less than one inch in diameter and one-fourth inch thick and shaped like disks. It is the bitterest substance known, and when one has heart failure, or nervous exhaustion, or is. run down or needs a tonic, some’doctor is sure to give him the alkaloid from one of these peculiar Indian trees. Text books on medicine frequently refer to “emergency heart stimulants,” meaning by this drugs used, by a hy- - podermlc injection to produce prompt stimulation of s weakened heart. Some of the most valuable heart stimulants require a good deal of time after being given to produce their effects, hence the need of emergency heart stimulants. Strychnine, we know, Is a splendid emergency heart stimulant. A tree which has various species—several hundred, in fact—throughout the world, and is of some medical interest, is the aqaeia. The acacia Senegal is the type of tree which fornishes gum acacia, or gum arable. While acacia is,not possessed of any marked curative properties of itself, it is a constituent of many important preparations in pharmacy, as, for instance, in the making of emulsions, where its heavy mucilaginous qualities make it a valuable vehicle for oily and resinous substances. It is also widely used in the preparation of pills and troches. Gum catechu, a substance containing tannic acid and used in dyeing, which was at one time used as a edy in colitis and dysentery, comes from the acacia catechu and acacia suma, both native to India.