VERATRUM SABADILL
-Synonyms---Cevadilla. Schoenocaulon officinale. Melanthium sabadilla. Veratrum officinale. Helonias officinalis. Sabadilla officinarum. Asagraea officinalis. Sabadillermer.
---Habitat---Southern North America, Guatemala and Venezuela.
---Description---The name Schcenocaulon indicates the habit of the scape, meaning 'a rush' and 'a stem.' The name Asagrcea commemorates Professor Asa Gray of Harvard University, the most distinguished of living American botanists. It is not quite certain whether the seeds are obtained from the Veratrum Sabadilla, a plant 3 or 4 feet high, or from the V. officinale, differing slightly in appearance and construction. The seeds are black, shining, flat, shrivelled and winged, odourless, with a bitter, acrid, persistent and disagreeable taste, the pale grey, amorphous powder being errhine and violently sternutatory. The seeds were known in Europe as early as 1752, but officially only as the source of veratrine.
---Constituents---Sabadilla contains several alkaloids, the most important being Cevadine, yielding cevine on hydrolysis; Veratrine, obtained from the syrupy liquor from which the cevadine has crystallized; and Cevadilline or Sabadillie, obtained after the extraction of the veratrine with ether.]
Two other alkaloids have been isolated: Sabadine, which is less sternutatory than veratrine, and Sabadinine, which is not sternutatory. Sabadilla yields about 0.3 per cent of veratrine. The seeds also contain veratric acid, cevadic acid, fat and resin.
---Medicinal Action and Uses---Sabadilla, or cevadilla, is an acrid, drastic emeto-cathartic, in overdoses capable of producing fatal results. Cevine was found to be less poisonous than cevadine, though producing similar symptoms. The powdered seeds have been used as a vermifuge, and to destroy vermin in the hair, being the principal ingredient of the pulvis capucinorum used in Europe. Cevadilla was formerly used internally as an anthelmintic, and in rheumatic and neuralgic affections. The highly poisonous veratria, which is derived from it, has been given in minute doses internally in acute rheumatism and gout, and in some inflammatory diseases, but it must be used with caution. Veratria is useful as an ointment in rheumatism and neuralgia, but is regarded as being less valuable than aconite. The ointment is also employed for the destruction of pedicule. Applied to unbroken skin it produces tingling and numbness, followed by coldness and anaesthesia. Given subcutaneously, it causes violent pain and irritation, in addition to the symptoms following an internal dose. The principal reason against its internal use is its powerful action on the heart, the contractions of the organ becoming fewer and longer until the heart stops in systole.
---Poisonous, if any, with Antidotes---Large doses paralyse heart action and respiration, and its use is so dangerous that it is scarcely ever taken internally.
HOMEOPATHIC PICTURE SABADILLA Cevadilla Seed. Asagræa Officialis
Action on mucous membrane of the nose and the lachrymal glands, producing coryza and symptoms like hay-fever, which have been utilized homeopathically. Chilliness; sensitive to cold. Ascarides, with reflex symptoms (nymphomania; convulsive symptoms). Children's diarrhœa with constant cutting pains.
Mind.--Nervous, timid, easily startled. Has erroneous notions about himself. Imagines that he is very sick; that parts are shrunken; that she is pregnant; that she has cancer; delirium during intermittents.
Head.--Vertigo with sensation as though all things were turning around each other, accompanied by blackness before eyes and sensation of fainting. Dullness and oppression. Over-sensitiveness to odors. Thinking produces headache and sleeplessness. Eyelids red, burning. Lachrymation. Difficult hearing.
Nose.--Spasmodic sneezing, with running nose. Coryza, with severe frontal pains and redness of eyes and lachrymation. Copious, watery, nasal discharge.
Throat.--Sore; begins on left side (Lach). Much tough phlegm. Sensation of a skin hanging loosely; must swallow it. Warm food and drink relieve. Empty swallowing most painful. Dry fauces and throat. Sensation of a lump in throat with constant necessity to swallow. Chronic sore throat; worse, from cold air. Tongue as if burnt.
Stomach.--Spasmodic pain in stomach with dry cough and difficult breathing. No thirst. Loathing for strong food. Canine appetite for sweets and farinaceous food. Pyrosis; copious salivation. Cold, empty feeling in stomach. Desire for hot things. Sweetish taste.
Female.--Menses too late; come by fits and starts. Intermit (Kreos; Puls). (due to transient and localized congestion of womb alternating with chronic anæmic state).
Fever.--Chill predominates; from below upwards. Heat in head and face; hands and feet icy cold, with chill. Lachrymation during paroxysm. Thirstless.
Extremities.--Cracking of skin under and beneath toe; inflammation under toe-nails.
Skin.--Dry, like parchment. Horny, deformed, thickened nails. Hot, burning, creeping, crawling sensation. Itching in anus.
Modalities.--Worse, cold and cold drinks, full moon. Better, warm food and drink, wrapped up.
Relationship.--Complementary: Sepia. Compare: Veratrina (is alkaloid of Sabadilla, not of Veratrum, locally in neuralgias, and for removal of dropsy. Five grains to two drams Lanolin, rubbed on inside of thighs, causes diuresis). Colch; Nux; Arundo and Pollatin. Phleum pratense-Timothy-Hay-fever- Potentized-12-specific to many cases and evidently acts in a desensitizing manner (Rabe). Cumarinum (hay-fever).
Antidotes: Puls; Lycop; Conium; Lach.