(A treatise on the "Sexual Passion," by the late Dr. Gallavardin, Lyons, France, contains this item on Origanum):
The person who discovered a remedy that in a certain sense may be considered as a specific against sexual passion was a clergyman of Mizza, the founder of an orphan asylum. This remedy is Origanum majorana (or common marjoram), which proves effective in masturbation and in excessively-aroused sexual impulses. The author uses it in the 4th dilution, as he has not found the higher potencies effective. He dissolves five or six globules of this dilution in four teaspoonfuls of fresh water, and the young masturbator takes of this every two days, a quarter of an hour before the meal, one teaspoonful. If the cure is not accomplished eight days after this solution is used up, the same dose is repeated in the same way. When desired, this remedy can be used, according to the author, without the knowledge of the patient, by pouring a teaspoonful into the soup, milk or chocolate.
The effect frequently appears very rapidly, but sometimes it does not appear.
OXYTROPIS LAMBERTI.
Nat. Ord., Leguminosæ.
Common Names, "Loco" Weed. Rattle Weed.
Preparation.—The whole plant without the root is macerated in two times its weight of alcohol.
(The following proving of the "loco weed" was conducted by the late Dr. W. S. Gee, of Chicago, in 1887):
Oxytropis Lamberti, Pursh.—Commonly taller, as well as larger, than other varieties (the scapes often a foot or more high); silky,—and mostly silvery-pubescent, sometimes glabrate in age; leaflets from oblong-lanceolate to linear (4 to 16 inches long); spike, sometimes short-oblong and densely flowered, at least when young; often elongated and sparsely flowered; flowers mostly large (often an inch long, but sometimes much smaller), variously colored; pod, either narrowly or broadly oblong, sericeous pubescent, firm-coriaceous, half-inch or more long, imperfectly two-celled. Includes O. Campestris of Hook, Fl. Bor. Am., in part. Common along the Great Plains from Saskatchewan and Minnesota to New Mexico, Texas, etc., and in the foot-hills.—From Coulter's Manual of the Botany of the Rocky Mountain Region.
It is one of the poisonous members of that family. It is found in California and New Mexico.
It is a perennial plant, with herbaceous or slightly shrubby stems, the foliage remaining green during winter when grass is scarce, and so attracting animals that would otherwise probably instinctively shun it. The plants do not appear to be equally poisonous at all seasons or in all localities, and it has been doubted whether the active properties they possess are due to a normal constituent of the plant. No medical use has ever been made of these plants, although their poisonous character has often led to the suggestion that they might be found valuable. No physiological study has been made of the action of the poison, and no complete chemical analysis has as yet appeared.