Cinnamomum camphora - Camphor
"It has long been used in hysteria to control the attacks and to relieve the nervous excitement, restlessness, nervous depression, melancholia and hypochondria. In sudden depression from exhaustion and the conditions of depression consequent upon neurasthenia, it serves a good purpose.
In all forms of nervousness in women and in children and in the feeble it has long been in common use. In the excitable mania of exhausting fevers, it serves a useful purpose. It allays nervous excitement and produces a general tranquillity of feeling.
It is a sovereign remedy for acute coryza—"cold in the head," and may be inhaled or taken internally. In acute and chronic catarrh it has a tonic yet soothing effect upon the mucous membranes. It controls hypersecretion and restores normal functional action.
These facts are also true in catarrhal bronchitis, in asthma and in whooping cough. In these spasmodic coughs the antispasmodic influence of the agent is of prime importance.
It is of service when added to cough syrups as a stimulating sedative in the persistent coughs of capillary bronchitis.
It has a marked anaphrodisiac influence, and has been given freely in nymphomania, satyriasis and erotomania. Its influence in controlling sexual excitement is positive. It cures priapism, chordee, and in a general way reduces the power of erection and the sexual appetite. In sexual weakness and in nocturnal emissions accompanied with erotic excitement from over indulgence, with violent erections, it is of much use and may be combined with ergot to equalize the circulation of the organs.
It is a stimulating diaphoretic in fevers, and in inflammatory disorders with inactivity of the sudoriferous glands. This is especially true in exanthematous fevers, and where there is mania in prostrating fevers. Its influence is marked in adynamic fevers where there is feeble, rapid heart action and irritable pulse, with dry skin and muttering delirium, with subsultus tendinum. It has a diffusive stimulating influence in these cases which is of value.
It is combined with opium and ipecac in the well known Diaphoretic Powder, in the proportions of one part each of camphor, opium, and ipecac, with seven parts of the potassium sulphate. The dose is from two to ten grains."
(Finley Ellingwood: The American Materia Medica, Therapeutics and Pharmacognosy, 1915)