314 Botanic Drugs 



the opinion that staphisagria has no worth-while 

 place in internal therapy. 



STICTA 



LUNGWORT, Sticta pulmonaria, a lichen, not the 

 old Pulmonaria officinalis, an odd cultivated herb 

 long abandoned as a remedy. Sticta is one of the 

 drugs that spread from Homeopathic practice into 

 more general use. There is no known active agent 

 in sticta, unless it be a bitter acid similar to that 

 found in Iceland moss. Sticta is said to possess a 

 sedative action upon the vagus and it is more or 

 less used in the treatment of asthmatic cough, hay 

 fever, whooping cough, and laryngeal spasm. The fl. 

 is administered in doses of 1 to 10 minims. While 

 upon a purely empiric basis, many competent phy- 

 sicians assert that sticta gives them good results as 

 an antispasmodic in the treatment of cough. 



STILLINGIA 



QUEEN'S ROOT, Stillingia sylvatica. Official only 

 in the U. S. Contains an oil and acid resin largely 

 lost in drying. The most active preparations of 

 stillingia are made from the fresh root, which is 

 assuredly active as an emeto-cathartic in full doses 

 and in smaller doses excite secretions and excre- 

 tions in the way generally designated as alterative. 



THERAPEUTICS. There is a tendency to dis- 

 credit the "vegetable alteratives," probably because 

 few so-called ones really possess any such activity. 

 Stillingia is far from being inert, and if any vegetable 

 drug is really a true alterative stillingia must be so 

 classed, along with phytolacca root. 



Stillingia actively stimulates the secretory func- 



