NUX MUSCHATA. 43 



nut must be reduced to powder, mixed with twenty parts of 

 alcohol, and put aside lor a week, being shaken twice every 

 day. To twenty drops of this mixture are to be added eighty 

 drops of alcohol, and the usual dilutions made. 



Physiological Effects. — The activity of Nutmeg depends 

 on the volatile oil which it contains. Swallowed in moderate 

 doses, it produces the common effect of spices. In large doses, 

 it proves narcotic, and causes giddiness, delirium, precordial 

 anxiety, sleepiness, and actual stupor (Callen, Mat Med., vol. 

 ii. p. 204). A person by mistake took two drachms or a little 

 more of powdered Nutmeg, he felt it warm in his stomach, with- 

 out any uneasiness ; but in about an hour after he had taken it, 

 he was seized with drowsiness, which gradually increased to a 

 complete stupor and insensibility, and not long after he was 

 found, having fallen from his chair, lying on the floor of his 

 chamber, in the state mentioned. Being laid a-bed he fell 

 asleep, but waking a little from time to time, he w r as quite deli- 

 rious, and he thus continued, alternately sleeping and delirious, 

 for several hours. The day after he was quite in his ordinary 



health. 



Medical Uses (Homceopathic). — We owe our knowledge 



of this remedy as a homoeopathic medicine to the provings of 



C. G. Helbig {Heraclides, Heft 1). It seems that Nux 



Moschata exerts its action more particularly on the cerebrum 



and cerebellum; the spinal cord; the nerves of sense and motion. 



On the ganglionic system; on the pneumogastric, and nerves 



of the abdominal viscera. Hahnemann remarks that the 



Nutmeg " diminishes the irritability of the whole body, but 



especially that of the primse viae, for a considerable time. 



(Does it not increase the contractile power of the muscular 



fibre, especially of the prima vise, and diminish its capability of 



relaxing?) In large doses, it causes an absolute insensibility of 



the nervous system, obtuseness, immobility, loss of reason, lor 



its direct action; headache and sleep, for its secondary action. 



It possesses healing properties. May it not be useful in im- 



