Collinsonia canadensis - Stone Root
"CONSTITUENTS: Volatile oil, resin.
PREPARATIONS: Specific Medicine Collinsonia. Dose: from one to sixty minims. Extractum Collinsoniae Fluidum, Fluid Extract of Collinsonia. Dose: from two to fifteen minims. Tincture Collinsoniae, Tincture of Collinsonia. Dose: from five to thirty minims.
Therapy: It is a specific remedy for hemorrhoids. If they are of recent origin they can be cured in a comparatively short time with this agent. The most intractable cases will be relieved and permanently benefited by its persistent use. There is no therapeutic influence more reliable than this. I have relied upon it for years.
In catarrhal gastritis, where the circulation is defective, collinsonia, either alone or combined with hydrastis, is of first importance. These agents combined improve the tone of the stomach, strengthening its walls and its mucous membranes, and increasing the strength and character of its glandular structure. They increase the appetite and greatly improve the digestion and assimilation of food.
This combination is a superb general tonic in relaxed and debilitated conditions, and combined with iron can hardly be excelled.
Acute inflammations do not promptly yield to collinsonia, although it is an excellent auxiliary to the indicated treatment.
When piles are operated upon, this remedy may be given before and after the operation to most excellent advantage. The author has cured many cases by combining equal parts of the fluid extracts of collinsonia and hamamelis virginica, and giving from twenty to thirty drops of the mixed extracts every two hours. The distilled extract of hamamelis can be injected into the rectum, or kept in contact with the external piles by a compress, especially during sleep. Or an occasional application of the liquor of the persulphate of iron in full strength can be made to stubborn external piles.
Collinsonia is of great value in the hemorrhoids of the pregnant female, with imperfect venous circulation in the pelvic viscera. Pain in the rectum from whatever cause, especially pain not attributable to a definite cause, and pain after surgical operations or a sensation of weight, constriction and general uneasiness in the rectum are quickly and more or less permanently relieved by collinsonia. In pain in the lower bowels, persistent and steady, collinsonia is specific. Either single full doses, or doses of five minims of the tincture every ten minutes, should be given in water. It is superior to opium in some cases.
Collinsonia is a heart tonic of direct and permanent influence. It does not seem to stimulate the heart to sudden action, but its continued use induces steady, permanent and highly satisfactory improvement in the strength and character of the organ, and a correspondingly improved general circulation.
It is valuable when the heart is debilitated from protracted fevers, or from rheumatic inflammation or from overstrain. It will be found excellent in the bicycle heart, in conjunction with small doses of cactus grand.
In chronic laryngitis or pharyngitis, with relaxed walls of the larynx, with dark discoloration and enfeebled capillary circulation, collinsonia exercises a specific influence, especially in the condition known as clergyman's sore throat, caused or increased by the use of the voice.
In atonic conditions of the circulation of a local character, where passive hemorrhages are of frequent occurrence without apparent cause, where there is increasing debility, collinsonia and hamamelis in conjunction given as above indicated are positively curative. ..."
(Finley Ellingwood: The American Materia Medica, Therapeutics and Pharmacognosy, 1915)