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Nat. Ord., Euphorbiaceæ.

Common Name, Indian Acalypha, Indian Nettle.

Preparation.—The fresh plant is macerated with two parts by weight of alcohol.

(Dr. Tonnère, of Calcutta, India, seems to have been the first to call attention to this plant as a remedy. In a small work, Additions to the Homœopathic Materia Medica, collected and arranged by Henry Thomas, M. D., and published in London in the year 1858, appears the following credited to that physician.)

Tincture of the Acalypha Indica, prepared and administered in the sixth decimal dilution, is specific in hæmorrhage from the lungs. In three cases in which I have employed it, the persons were affected with phthisis. In one case there was a tuberculous affection of the upper portion of the left lung, of some two years' standing. Hæmoptysis had been going on for three months; the expectoration had been in the morning pure blood; in the evening dark lumps of clotted blood, and the fits of coughing were very violent at night. In this case all homœopathic remedies had been tried unsuccessfully, when I accidentally discovered the virtues of the Acalypha Indica, that remedy having been given me by a native for jaundice. I prepared the mother tincture upon the homœopathic principle, and took 10 drops, which brought on a severe fit of dry cough, followed by spitting of blood. Having noted all the symptoms experienced by myself, and finding that they were nearly all similar to those of my patients, I gave six drops 6th [decimal] dilution in half a tumbler of water, a spoonful to be taken every half hour, beginning immediately (9 a.m.). At 6 p.m., the blood stopped. I continued this for eight days, and the blood has never reappeared (now three months since). The patient is improving, and auscultation proves the disease has decreased, and I am in hopes to affect a cure, yet one month since I have been giving them the medicine they have not spit any blood, although previously one of them never passed a day without spitting a great quantity. Calcarea carb. is an antidote to the Acalypha.

Another transatlantic medical friend writes:—"I hope you obtained some of the Acalypha Indica while you were here. I have found it perfectly successful in arresting hæmoptysis in three cases of consumption in the last stage; I could not perceive any other effect from its use, but the cessation of the hemorrhagic sputa was, I think, a great advantage."

Its use in my hands has been very satisfactory, but I have only tried it in similar cases to those already cited. The first instance of my using it—in a hopeless case of phthisis—a continued and wearisome hæmoptysis succumbed to its exhibition, and quiet sleep succeeded its use—the patient eventually died of pulmonary paralysis.

In a case of passive hæmorrhage from the lungs, after Arnica was used with little benefit, Acalypha benefited, and then failed; after which the use of Arnica entirely stayed the hæmorrhagic flow. (Perhaps Hamamelis would have at once cured, but it was not at hand.)[A]

K., a phthisical patient, had hæmoptysis to a considerable extent; in a short time his voice failed him; he took half-drop doses of 7th [decimal] dilution of Acalypha in water every half hour, and in a few hours the blood spitting left him entirely.

(In 1885 Dr. Peter Cooper, of Wilmington, Delaware, read a paper on the drug Acalypha Indica of which the following is an abstract:)

Professor Jones recapitulates as follows: "Time. Hæmorrhage occurs in morning. Blood. Bright-red and not profuse in morning; dark and clotted in afternoon. Pulse. Neither quickened nor hard; rather soft and easily compressible. Cough. Violent and in fits at night; patient has a played-out feeling in the morning and gains in strength as the day advances.

N. B.—Worthy of trial in all pathological hæmorrhages having notedly a morning exacerbation."

Such is an outline presentation of the drug given us by so eminent an authority as Professor Jones, of the University of Michigan. It was his "N. B.," his suggestion that Acalypha was worthy of trial in all pathological hæmorrhages from any source, providing the morning aggravation was present, that fixed my attention upon the drug especially. At the time I had a case of hæmorrhage per rectum that had baffled me for several months. No remedy had aided the case in the least, so far as I could see, unless it was Pond's Extract used locally in the form of injection; and I finally came to the conclusion that the relief apparently due to the Hamamelis was merely a coincidence. I had given all the hæmorrhagic remedies I knew of or could hear of. Still the bleeding came just as often, with increasing severity. Each time the patient was sure she would "bleed to death," and I was not positive she would be disappointed. In fact, I was so hopeless that I used to delay the answer to her summons as long as possible, so that the bleeding might have time to exhaust itself. She became reduced in flesh and the hæmorrhagic drugs became reduced in number, until like the nine little Indians sitting on a gate the last one tumbled off and then there was none. As soon as I read Dr. Jones' monograph on Acalypha Indica, I determined to try it. She had all the symptoms—bright-red blood in the morning; dark and clotted in the afternoon and evening; weak and languid in the forenoon, stronger during the afternoon—except one, i.e., instead of the blood coming from the lungs it came from within the portals of the anus. I procured the 6x dil. and served it in water. It gave speedy, almost immediate relief. Each subsequent attack came less profuse and at longer intervals. She has not had a hæmorrhage now for two months, while before she was having from seven to one (continuous) a week. She is gaining in flesh, is in every way improved, and keeps Acalypha Indica constantly by her.