SPIGELIA PINKKOOT. 227 



Medical Properties and Uses. — Gelsemium is a very powerful drug 

 whose therapeutic limitations are not, as yet, accurately denned. In toxic 

 doses — and, unfortunately, these have been only too frequently adminis- 

 tered — it produces paralysis of both motion and sensation, without, how- 

 ever, greatly affecting the mind, except in rare instances. In fatal cases, 

 after motion is entirely destroyed, the respiration becomes progressively 

 more and more labored, and finally ceases from paralysis of the respiratory 

 muscles. Occasionally death is preceded by convulsions and coma, but 

 usually the mind is clear nearly to the last. These severe effects of the 

 drug, moreover, have not always borne a definite relation to the size of 

 the dose administered. In other words, there seems to be an amount of 

 uncertainty' about the action of the drug which, on the one hand, adds to 

 its danger, and on the other, detracts from its value as a therapeutic agent. 

 In some cases, quite unexpectedly, poisonous effects have followed doses 

 supposed to be far within the limits of safety ; in others, much larger doses 

 have failed to produce the therapeutic effects desired and exj^ected. Re- 

 garding its therapeutic applications, rejecting, as we reasonably may, all 

 its claims to specific effect in certain diseases, there seems to remain no 

 other just place for it except in febrile and inflammatory affections of a 

 decided sthenic type. That in such cases it may moderate or subdue 

 febrile action, through its powerfully depressant effects, is very evident ; 

 but that the desired results can be obtained more readily and more safely 

 by this drug than by several other better-known and more certain agents, 

 certainly requires demonstration. Meanwhile the judicious physician will 

 suspend judgment, or, at least, experiment with great caution. 



SPIGELIA.— PiNKROOT. 



Spigelia Marilandica Linne. — Pinkroot. 



Description. — Calyx deeply 5-parted, the lobes very slender, pointed, 

 persistent. Corolla five times as long as the calyx, tubular funnel-form, 

 somewhat inflated toward the summit, the border with 5 acute, spreading 

 segments. Stamens 5, very short, inserted in the mouth of the corolla 

 and alternate with the segments. Ovary small, ovate, free ; style longer 

 than the corolla, slender, jointed near the middle, hairy above. Capsule 

 double, consisting of 2, cohering, 1-celled, few-seeded carpels which sepa- 

 rate at maturity, and open loculicidally. 



An herbaceous perennial, with a short rhizome, beset with numerous 

 fibrous rootlets. Stems several from the same rhizome, erect, ^ to 1-J foot 

 high, simple. Leaves opposite, sessile, ovate, acumiuate, entire, smooth, 

 with the margins and veins somewhat pubescent. Flowers spiked, in one- 

 sided cymes ; the spikes simple or forked, short, appearing in June and 

 July. The corolla is 1^- inch long, scarlet or crimson without, yellow 

 within, and very showy. 



