Oct. i, i 9 *o An Experimental Study of Echinacea Therapy 67 



DOSAGE 



The dose of fluid extract echinacea is variously given as from 10 

 minims to 0.5 fluid ounce for adult human beings, and for the "Sub- 

 culoyd" preparation the parenteral dose recommended is 3 to 10 mils 

 daily. It has also been stated that large doses of echinacea do not 

 produce toxic effects upon healthy subjects, although this has been 

 contradicted. The doses chosen for our experimental animals ranged 

 from 0.25 to 1 mil daily of fluid extract and from 0.2 to 0.5 mil daily of 

 subculoyd, which, calculated on a kilogram-of-body-weight basis, would 

 correspond to from 40 to 160 mils daily of fluid extract and from 30 to 

 60 mils daily of the "Subculoyd" for man. It is well known, however, 

 that to produce a given effect in guinea pigs requires very much larger 

 doses per kilo than in larger animals. We decided upon a large dose 

 of the remedy so as to favor the echinacea as much as possible and to 

 remove any possibility of failure through administration of inadequate 

 amounts. 



GENERAL RESULTS AND CONCLUSIONS 



In no one of the diseases treated with echinacea was any evidence 

 obtained to show that the plant exerts any influence upon the course 

 of infectious processes under laboratory conditions. Daily feeding of 

 animals with echinacea preparations for several days before injection of 

 microorganisms or their toxins did not increase the resistance of the 

 animals to these agents. In the two chronic cases where the animals 

 were given doses of echinacea preparations for extended periods of time 

 nothing appeared in the autopsy pictures which could be attributed to 

 the action of the echinacea per se, except that in two cases a gastric 

 catarrh was present which may have been due to this plant. In all 

 cases the course of the disease was the same in the control animals and 

 in the animals which were given remedial treatment. 



It does not appear, therefore, that echinacea or the preparation of 

 inula and echinacea are of value in the treatment of diseases produced 

 by microorganisms and their toxic products. 



EXPERIMENTAL WORK 



I. — TESTS OF ECHINACEA AS A REMEDY FOR TETANUS 



In order to test the efficacy of echinacea as a remedy for tetanus a 

 total of 29 guinea pigs was used. The animals were injected with a 

 sample of standard tetanus toxin furnished by the Hygienic Laboratory 

 of the United States Public Health Service. This material was kindly 

 placed at our disposal by Dr. W. N. Berg, of our laboratory, who had 

 used a part of it in his work on the destruction of tetanus antitoxin by 

 chemical agents (2). It had been carefully standardized; the minimal 



