POTHOS.
Nat. Ord., Araceæ.
Common Name, Skunk Cabbage.
Preparation.—The fresh root gathered in spring is macerated in twice its weight of alcohol.
(Contributed by Dr. S. A. Jones to the Homœopathic Recorder, 1889.)
This perennial, odorous member of the natural order Araceæ is one of our most common meadow and bog plants. From its very realistic, skunk-like odor when cut or bruised, and its resemblance in shape of leaf and mode of growth to the cabbage, it has been commonly well known as the skunk cabbage.
Belonging to the same family as the Calla lily and Indian turnip, the shape of its flower becomes at once familiar to anyone who observes it. Among the first plants to flower in spring is this species, and by closely observing the surface of any boggy meadow in the latter part of March or early April one will find irrupting the earth like mushroom the points of many beautiful spathes gaping open to extend invitations to the earliest slugs and carrion beetles of the season. These are the flowers of Pothos appearing some time before the leaves, and when divested of the mud that clings to them, and polished with a damp cloth, as the apple-woman serves her pippins, they shine out in beautiful mottled purple, orange, and deep red, and, being very fleshy, will keep up appearances many days if cut deep and placed in hyacinth jars.
The root is large, thick, and cylindrical, giving off its lower end numerous long, cylindrical branches; the leaves which appear on the fertilization of the ovary are large, smooth, entire, and deeply plaited into rounded folds. On opening the pointed spathe or floral envelope, a club-like mass will be noted arising from its base. This is the spadix bearing the naked flowers, which are perfect, consisting of a four-angled style and four awl-shaped stamens. The fruit, when mature, is a globular, ill-smelling, glutinous mass, consisting of the enlarged, fleshy spadix and changed perianths, and enclosing several large bullet-like seeds.
The roots are easily gathered, one alone being sufficient to make a year's stock of tincture for the most lavish practitioner.
The Tincture.
Take the fresh root stalks and rootlets, gathered in spring on the first appearance of the flowers, and chop and pound them to a pulp, and weigh. Then taking two parts, by weight, of alcohol, mix the pulp with one-sixth part of it, add the balance, and, after stirring the whole well, pour it into a well-stoppered bottle and let it stand for eight days in a dark, cool place. After straining and filtering, the resulting tincture should be of a light brown color and have a slightly acrid taste and a neutral reaction.
Chemistry.
The active principle of this plant is doubtless volatile, as the dried root presents none of the acridity of the fresh, and is odorless as well. Dr. J. M. Turner determined in the root a volatile fatty body, a volatile oil, a fixed oil, and a specific resin.
On the 16th of December, 1887, there came into my hands a case that the family physician (a homœopath) had pronounced epilepsy and declared incurable. Upon being consulted, his diagnosis had been confirmed and his prognosis corroborated by the late Prof. E. S. Dunster, of the University of Michigan.
Up to date that identical patient has had neither a "fit" nor any approximation thereto, and that fact is an occasion of this paper. One who already discerns the first gray shadows of that night which comes to all, does not now write at the urging, or the itching, of the Ego. He disclaims any merit, having evinced only a monkey-like imitativeness. He had from the Infinite, the gift of a good memory, and an old book, picked up one happy day at a street stall, flashed into recollection some twelve years later, and enabled him then to imitate the much earlier doing of its worthy author—
"Only the actions of the just Smell sweet and blossom in the dust."
This dead worthy—he that was James Thacher, M. D.—more than any other, made known the virtues of Pothos fœtida, and gratitude for what his book had taught me to do made me feel that to write up this forgotten remedy were the fittest return that I could make for his well doing.
A second incentive, ample enough, is found in the fact that the first homœopathic paper on Pothos fœt. has never had a faithful translation into our language, and has not been critically reproduced in any other. A study of the Homœopathic Bibliography, as given in this paper, will teach an impressive lesson not only to the real student of Materia Medica, but also to those who assume the responsibilities of editorship.
A third inducement, and perhaps a pardonable, is the singular fact that much search in our literature has not enabled me to find any assistance of the clinical application of Pothos fœt. by a homœopathic practitioner. If any reader knows of any such, he will greatly gratify the writer by making it known.
An Empirical Bibliography.[K]
1785. Rev. Dr. M. Cutler.—Memoirs of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Boston.
1787. D. J. D. Schoepf, M. D.—Materia Medica Americana potissimum Regni Vegetabilis. Erlangen. (Not in my possession. Quoted from Barton.)
1813. James Thacher, M. D.—The American New Dispensatory. Boston. (This is the second edition wherein Pothos is mentioned for the first time. Our citations are from the fourth edition. Boston, 1821.)
1817. James Thacher, M. D.—American Modern Practice, etc. Boston.
1818. Jacob Bigelow, M. D.—American Medical Botany, etc. Vol. 2. Boston.
1820. Wm. M. Hand.—The House-Surgeon and Physician. Second edition. New Haven.
1822. Jacob Bigelow, M. D.—A Sequel to the Pharmacopœia of the U. S. Boston.
1822. John Eberle, M. D.—Materia Medica and Therapeutics. Philadelphia. (The citations are from the fourth edition. Philadelphia, 1836.)
1825. Ansel W. Ives, M. D.—Paris' Pharmacologia. Third American edition. New York.
1830. Elisha Smith.—The Botanic Physician, etc. New York. (The title page proclaims him "president of the New York Association of Botanic Physicians.")
1838. C. S. Rafinesque.—Medical Flora, etc. Philadelphia.
It was admitted into the catalogus secundarius of the second edition of The Pharmacopœia of the United States of America, and dropped into the dust-heap when the men who knew how to use it had passed away.