MULLEIN OIL.
Preparation.—Fill a bottle with the blossoms from the Verbascum thapsus, cork tight, and hang in the sun for four or five weeks. By that time there will be an oily liquid distilled. Mix with ten per cent. of alcohol.
(Dr. A. M. Cushing introduced this now rather well-known remedy to the medical profession in 1884. He writes of it as follows):
The history of it is this: My father's house was the home for all poor tramps, as well as ministers, etc. He fell into the river, got water in his ears and was quite deaf for months. A blind man called, heard loud conversation, asked the cause, etc., then said for kindness received he would tell us how to make something that would surely cure him, and it was worth a thousand dollars in New York city. We made the oil, put it in his ears at night, and he was well in the morning. For years we kept a bottle of it, and it travelled all around the towns and did wonders. That was when I was a youngster. When I studied medicine, or when I was practicing, I wanted to know if it was homœopathic, and made a proving, and developed the symptoms of almost constant but slight involuntary urination, keeping my pants wet.
I did not make any this past season, and have divided till I have but a little, half-and-half alcohol, left. I could spare a little of that, and next season, if I live, will try and make a quantity.
(The next item is from a letter of Dr. H. C. Houghton's, of New York, addressed to Boericke & Tafel.)
I have been much interested in the clinical study of this remedy—new, yet not new—but I have not succeeded in demonstrating what the symptom—deafness means in this case. Dr. Cushing does not claim to be an expert in this department, so time must help us out, and I am anxious to learn all I can of its effects on the ear.
In an old note-book of Dr. Hering's, Hearing and Ears, copied for me with the author's permission by my friend Dr. C. R. Norton, I noticed the following: "In Germany, flowers of Verbascum thapsus put in a dark-colored bottle, hung up in the sunlight, give in two or three weeks an oily fluid which has cured many old people and children." This method is impracticable, the amount produced being so small. Verbascum prepared in olive oil or fluid petroleum has the same effect as any oil; excellent in chronic disease of the integument; negative in middle ear disease. When your house brought out Mullein oil under Dr. Cushing's direction, I took it up again, and have prescribed it in a large number of cases. In chronic dermatitis of the external meatus and drum-head, or exfoliation after furuncle, it is excellent; in chronic catarrhal inflammation of the tympanum I have not been able to see any effect, but in chronic suppurative disease of the tympanum, or in accumulations of detritus in cases of perforation, scarred drum-heads, etc., it acts to dislodge accumulations, free the ossicula from pressure, and thereby improves the hearing; this process goes on for months till the tympanum has thrown out an amount of débris that is surprising. In a few cases it has caused soreness and increased muco-purulent discharge, due, I think, to excessive use.
My experience with it in chronic catarrh of the tympanum coincides with that of my friend, H. P. Bellows, M. D., of Boston, as published by him, but I purpose to continue the study of the drug, and hope for better results. In sub-acute or chronic disease after suppuration its effect is very gratifying; it aids exfoliation and checks irritation from exfoliated material.