Apocynum cannabinum
Indian hemp, American hemp, hemp dogbane. · Plant · Apocynaceae
Apocynum is most suitable for people who feel confused, low-spirited, and distressed. The remedy is prescribed primarily as a treatment for edema (a collection of watery fluid in the body cavities or under the skin). The edema is characteristically associated with diseased organs, and may be linked with Hodgkin’s lymphoma or Bright’s disease. There is often great weakness, irritation in the digestive system, a slow or irregular pulse, and considerable thirst. Secretions such as perspiration and urine may be reduced, and breathing patterns may become uneasy.
Key symptoms
- Dropsy: ascites, anasarca, and hydrothorax with great thirst
- Diminished frequency of the pulse is a prime indication
- Suppression of urine and strangury
- Nausea, vomiting, and drowsiness with difficult breathing in Bright's disease
- Excessive vomiting; food or water immediately ejected
- Abdomen bloated; sensation of sinking in stomach
- Chronic nasal catarrh with snuffles; takes cold easily
- Stool watery and flatulent with relaxed sphincter
- Mitral and tricuspid regurgitation; arrhythmia
Worse (aggravation)
Better (amelioration)
Indian Hemp
Increases secretions of mucous and serous membranes and acts on cellular tissue, producing œdema and dropsy and on skin causing diaphoresis. Acute hydrocephalus. A diminished frequency of the pulse is a prime indication. This is one of our most efficient remedies, in dropsies, ascites, anasarca and hydrothorax, and urinary troubles, especially suppression and strangury. In the digestive complaints of Bright's disease, with the nausea, vomiting, drowsiness, difficult breathing, it will be found of frequent service. The dropsy is characterized by great thirst and gastric irritability. Arrhythmia. Mitral and tricuspid regurgitation. Acute alcoholism. Relaxation of sphincters.
Mind
Bewildered. Low spirited.
Nose
Long-continued sneezing. Snuffles of children (Sambucus). Chronic nasal catarrh with tendency to acute stuffiness with dull, sluggish memory. Dull headache. Takes cold easily, nostrils become congested and blocked up easily.
Stomach
Nausea, with drowsiness. Thirst on walking. Excessive vomiting. Food or water is immediately ejected. Dull, heavy, sick feeling. Oppression in epigastrium and chest, impeding breathing (Lobelia infl). Sensation of sinking in stomach. Abdomen bloated. Ascites.
Stool
Watery, flatulent, with soreness in anus; worse after eating. Feeling as if sphincter were open and stools ran right out.
Urine
Bladder much distended. Turbid, hot urine, with thick mucus and burning in urethra, after urinating. Little expulsive power. Dribbling. Strangury. Renal Dropsy.
Female
Amenorrhœa, with bloating; metrorrhagia with nausea; fainting, vital depression. Hæmorrhages at change of life. Blood expelled in large clots.
Respiratory
Short, dry cough. Respiratory short and unsatisfactory. Sighing. Oppression about epigastrium and chest.
Heart
Tricuspid regurgitation; rapid and feeble, irregular cardiac action, low arterial tension, pulsating jugulars, general cyanosis and general dropsy.
Sleep
Great restlessness and little sleep.
Modalities
Worse, cold weather; cold drinks; uncovering.
Relationship
Cymarin is the active principle of Apocyn, lowers pulse rate and increases blood-pressure. Strophanthus (extreme cardiac depression with intense gastric disturbance; dropsy). Aralia hispida-Wild Elder-a valuable diuretic, useful in dropsy of the cavities, either due to hepatic or renal disease with constipation. Urinary disorders, especially with dropsy. Scudder advises doses of five to thirty drops in sweetened cream of tartar, (Solution). Apis, Arsenic, Digital; Helleb.
Dose
Tincture (ten drops three times daily) and in acute alcoholism 1 dram of decoction in 4 oz water.
This remedy comes in as a good one to contrast with Apis. You will find it analogous in its symptoms and much like the complaints cured by Apis.
You will be astonished in going over the dropsical condition, the rheumatic condition, the tumefaction of the cellular tissues, the dropsy of the sacs, the scanty urine resulting in dropsy; the inflammatory swellings with oedema, at the great resemblances; and if you were to start in with two cases and work them out from their particulars, and if one feature were left out, the aggravation and the amelioration, the cold and the heat, in many cases you would not be able to distinguish between Apis and Apocynum, so near alike are their swellings, their bleedings, their distensions, and their disturbances.
Indian (American) Hemp. N. O. Apocynaceæ. Provings were made with fresh plant-tinctures, or fresh or powdered root-tinctures or infusions. Watery infusions (with just enough spirit to keep them from fermenting) are said to be more efficacious than tinctures. The whole fresh plant, root included, should be used for making the tincture or infusion.
Clinical
Ascites. Catarrh. Coryza. Diabetes insipidus. Diarrhœa. Dropsies. Enuresis. Heart, affections of. Hydrocephalus. Menorrhagia. Metrorrhagia. Nausea. Neuralgia. Snuffles. Tobacco-heart. Urinary difficulties. Vomiting.
Characteristics
The clinical effects of Strophanthus and the symptoms produced on patients to whom it has been given in large doses, clearly show the relationship between it and Apocynum. Both produce intense gastric disturbance, extreme depression of the heart's action, and both control dropsical effusions and produce diuresis. Apo. c. depresses the heart, kidneys, and intestines, relaxing sphincters. It causes an intense sinking sensation; …
Indian Hemp. (Apocynaceae)
Excretions diminished, especially urine and sweat. Dropsy of serous membranes; acute, inflammatory. Dropsy: with thirst (Acet. ac.), water disagrees or is vomited (Ars.); most cases uncomplicated with organic diseases; after typhus, typhoid, scarlatina, cirrhosis; after abuse of quinine. Acute hydrocephalus, with open sutures; stupor, sight of one eye lost; constant and voluntary motion of one arm and one leg (left arm and leg, Bry.); forehead projected. Amenorrhoea in young girls, with bloating or dropsical extension of abdomen and extremities. Metorrhagia: continued or paroxysmal flow; fluid or clotted; nausea, vomiting, palpitation; pulse quick, feeble, when moved; vital depression, fainting, when raising head from pillow. Cough, short and dry, or deep and loose, during pregnancy (Con.).
- In all varieties of dropsy, both idiopathic and secondary, especially when dependent upon disease of the liver.
Phatak's chapter on Apocynum cannabinum is available in the app.
Read Phatak in the appClassical texts are in the public domain. Educational reference only — not medical advice.
