Salix alba - White Willow
"CONSTITUENTS: Salicin, wax, fat, gum.
PREPARATIONS: -
Therapy: This to an extent is antimalarial and like the other agents of this class it improves the tone of the gastro-intestinal tract and the glandular organs. It corrects impaired conditions of all mucous membranes and is thus of value in excessive catarrhal discharges from these membranes, being freely given in bronchorrhea, gastric catarrh, catarrhal diarrhea and in leucorrhea, in all cases acting more promptly if malarial conditions have caused the existing debility. It has antiseptic properties, of course, if antimalarial, and is a good remedy in protracted fevers.
It has a mild influence in controlling passive hemorrhages, but cannot be depended upon if they are severe.
Its antiseptic properties are apparent in its ability to correct the fetor of wounds and offensive discharges when locally applied.
Felter and Lloyd, in the American Dispensatory, make the following statement concerning the action of this remedy, which is important. Its field of action in those functional wrongs of the reproductive organs is due most largely to undue irritability of the parts and thought to be less due to mental or emotional causes. However, sexual passion from any functional cause is moderated by it, and it is especially adapted to the disorders of the sexually intemperate male or female and of the youth, subject day or night to libidinous suggestions and lascivious dreams terminating in pollutions, while for those extreme forms of sexual perversion, satyriasis, erotomania, and nymphomania, it is more nearly specific than any other agent. Not only does salix nigra act as a check to sexual passion and misuse, but it proves a useful tonic and sedative to many conditions following in the wake of sexual intemperance, among which may be mentioned spermatorrhea, in its varied forms, prostatitis, cystitis and ovaritis."
(Finley Ellingwood: The American Materia Medica, Therapeutics and Pharmacognosy, 1915)

Salix nigra - Black Willow
"CONSTITUENTS: Salicin, a glucoside, tannin, wax, gum.
PREPARATIONS: The tincture of the aments, or catkins, of the black willow, have increased medicinal properties over any other part of the tree. Specific Salix Nigra Aments. Dose: from ten to sixty minims. Specific Salix Nigra Aments is a unique preparation and contains the full properties of the drug.
Therapy: The agent was brought to the attention of the profession through its influence in controlling sexual hyperesthesia and undue sexual excitement. It is a remedy for satyriasis, erotomania and nympho-mania, more particularly from local irritation.
It relieves spermatorrhea when dependent upon these or similar causes, and quiets the general nervous system. It is a remedy for ovarian congestion, ovarian neuralgia and hyperesthesia, also for ovarian irritation in hysteria. It will exercise a direct and satisfactory influence in many cases of hysteria, overcoming the extreme excitability and nervousness, headache and the globus hystericus, and will permit quiet, restful sleep. It will serve an excellent purpose in these cases in combination with general nerve tonics and restoratives, greatly enhancing their influence."
(Finley Ellingwood: The American Materia Medica, Therapeutics and Pharmacognosy, 1915)