Library · Dictionary of Practical Materia Medica (3 vols)

Gymnema Sylvestre

Dictionary of Practical Materia Medica (3 vols) · J. H. Clarke

Open remedy: Gymne.

For educational use by students and qualified practitioners. Not medical advice. Consult a registered homeopath.

Gymnema sylvestre. N.O. Asclepiadaceae. Tincture of leaves.

Clinical

Snake-bite. Taste, altered.

Characteristics

This plant, which grows in the Deccan peninsula, Assam, and some parts of Africa, is woody climber with long, slender branches. The powdered root has a reputation among the natives as a remedy for snake-bite. It is mentioned here an account of a single symptom observed from chewing one or two leaves, which had a bitterish, astringent, and slightly acid taste. Immediately after chewing them the sense of taste for sugar was lost, and also the taste for bitters, the effect lasting some hours. Everything else cold be tasted, as the ginger in ginger bread but not the sweet. Quinine tasted like chalk.

What is in this library

These titles sit beside the repertory: Allen’s Keynotes, Anshutz on the twelve tissue remedies, Boericke’s materia medica, Clarke’s Dictionary, Hering, Jones, Kent’s lectures, Nash, and Boger’s Synoptic Key. Philosophy includes Hahnemann’s Organon (5th and 6th), Kent, Close, Burnett, Haehl, Gibson Miller, Royal, J. H. Allen, and Anshutz. Clinical, therapeutics, regional works, and short remedy pictures follow the same shelf.

Chapter text is on this shelf for study: open a title, then a heading. When a medicine appears in more than one materia medica, switch authors on the chapter to compare how each describes it. For educational use by students and qualified practitioners. Not medical advice.

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