Rosin-Weed among the "Allopaths." Rosin-weed never got into the Pharmacopœia but it is none the worse for that. More people have been poisoned by the drugs inside of the Pharmacopœia than by those outside of it. Except the few comments by western and southern medical journals, it was practically unknown in the dominant school, as shown by there being only one reference to it in the Index Catalogue. This is an article by Dr. Q. J. M. Goss, of Marietta, Georgia, in the Nashville Journal of Medicine, 1887, xx, page 60, in which Dr. Goss praises rosin-weed highly for its power to cure catarrh of the mucous membranes, comparing it to the balsams, cubeb and turpentine, and relating the cure of two cases of asthma.
In the Library of the New York Academy of Medicine, there is a thin pamphlet by Dr. Goss, entitled New Medicines, which I suspect to be taken chiefly from Dr. Hale's New Remedies, in which he says of silphium laciniatum, "It has proved for me one of the best remedies in humid asthma. I have made several brilliant cures with the tincture of this plant and the tincture of ptelea trifoliata in doses of 30 drops each four times a day in simple elixir.... In acute diseases of the mucous membranes, the dose should be small, 5 to 10 drops; but in chronic inflammation, the dose may be 30 drops of the saturated tincture. It is a valuable remedy in chronic bronchitis and tracheitis. It will soon become a popular remedy in mucous diseases."
This prophecy of popularity was scarcely borne out; for, with the exception of the article by him in 1887, rosin-weed drops out of sight and is found in no books published in the last forty years.
Pharmacology. For the following information, I am indebted to the Botanical Department of Parke, Davis & Co., whom I wish to thank for their unfailing courtesy in replying to my inquiries about this little known plant:
"Rosin weed is a general name for all species of the genus silphium of which there are more than twenty species; some of these species, however, have special names. Three species are usually mentioned as being used for medicinal purpose. We list them with their synonyms as follows:
Silphium perfoliatum, Lin. Indian cup, ragged cup, cup plant, rosin weed.
Silphium terebinthinaceum, Lin. rosin weed (true), prairie dock.
Silphium laciniatum, Lin. Syn. S. gummiferum, Ell. compass-plant, polar plant, pilot plant, rosin weed.
It is more than probable that all the species of the genus are equally effective from a therapeutic point of view."
We have always used the fluid extract of the herb. Goss and Hale used the tincture of the fresh leaves and so the homœopaths have always used it. Since looking into the history of the plant, I recall a remark of that wise old physician, Rademacher, in regard to chelidonium. Ich bin kein Freund von Extrakten. He preferred the tincture of the fresh plant. Tinctures of the fresh plant were Hahnemann's preference too, and it may well be that with rosin-weed also, the tincture preserves the medicinal power better than the extract.