Gelsemium sempervirens - Yellow jasmine
" CONSTITUENTS: Gelsemine, Gelsemic Acid, Gelseminine, Volatile Oil, Gum, Starch, Resin.
PREPARATIONS: Extractum Gelsemii Fluidum, Fluid Extract of Gelsemium. Dose: from one-half to ten minims. Tinctura Gelsemii, Tincture of Gelsimium. Macerate and percolate with dilute alcohol. Dose: from five to thirty minims. Specific Medicine Gelsemium. Dose: from one-third to ten minims, prescribed, ten minims to five drachms in four ounces of water. Teaspoonful every half hour to two hours.
Therapy: In the acute fevers of childhood, some evidences of nerve irritation are seldom absent. Here the agent exercises its happiest influence. Muscular twitchings with the above specific symptoms demand this remedy. If spasms supervene, the dose is increased in size and frequency until they are controlled. Often no other agent need be given.
The direct contra-indication is congestion, either of the nerve centers alone, or of any organ. The phenomena of dullness, hebetude, obstructed circulation, whether local or general, with normal or lowering temperature, with increasing weakness—asthenia—must be treated with the antitheses of gelsemium. ..."
(Finley Ellingwood: The American Materia Medica, Therapeutics and Pharmacognosy, 1915)