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Matricaria Chamomilla, L
Matricaria (U S P)
 

Part used : Flower heads.

Nat. Ord. : Compositae.
Common name : German chamomile.
Botanical Source : A branching annual, having a stem from 1 to 2 feet high, with alternate, smooth, deep green, pinnate leaves.     

History and Description : This plant is found in  wastes and fields in Europe northward to Finland, and is cultivated in this country by our German population. It is likewise found in Asia in the temperate localities, and, through naturalization, has become one of the plants of Australia.  All parts of the plant are medicinal, but the flowers are generally employed.

Chemical Composition : In addition to the ordinary constituents of plants, matricaria contains a small portion of tannin and tannates, malates, bitter extractive, and a volatile oil.

Action, Medical Uses, and Dosage :
Matricaria is usually listed as having properties similar to anthemis, but of less activity. It has, however, come to be preferred over the latter by Eclectic practitioners, and is now an important remedy with us, particularly in affections of young children. It has two particular specific fields of action--one upon the nervous system, subduing nervous irritability, and the other upon the gastro-intestinal tract, relieving irritation. Upon the nervous system its action is most pronounced, affecting both the sensory and motor nerves. It is peculiarly adapted to the nervous manifestations of dentition, and in other affections where there seems to be a morbid susceptibility to pain. Earache, rheumatic and neuralgic pains, abdominal neuroses, etc., are relieved by it when the nervous apprehension is all out of proportion to the actual amount of pain experienced. A matricaria patient is restless, irritable, discontented, and impatient, and, if a child, is only appeased when continually carried. In pregnancy, it relieves nervous twitching, cough, false pains, etc., accompanied by great unrest.

It should be borne in mind, however, that it is not the gross dose of matricaria that will overcome these morbid, nervous phenomena, but the small, or almost minute dose. It is one of those agents, and we have many, that exert their peculiar effects only in small doses, yet can be used without harm in large doses, but without the peculiar benefit derived from the smaller amounts. It relieves the erethism producing hysteria--a little slowly, perhaps, but its effects are lasting--and for the conditions that threaten infantile convulsions, during dentition, it is one of the most certain of drugs. Either small or large doses of matricaria (specific or infusion) are of value in amenorrhoea, with sense of weight and heaviness in the womb, and bloating of the abdomen, accompanied with sudden nervous explosions of irascibility. The infusion, given to the extent of producing free diaphoresis, relieves dysmenorrhoea, with labor-like pains, and tends to prevent the formation of clots. Various painful conditions, due to contracting colds, are relieved by matricaria infusion associated with aconite. Among these may be mentioned earache, rheumatism, catarrhal affections of the bowels, ears, nose, and eyes. Locally, it has been used as a wash for leucorrhoea, mammary abscess, ulcerating bubo, and catarrhal conjunctivitis.

Specific Indications and Uses : Nervous irritability, with peevishness, fretfulness, discontent, and impatience; sudden fits of temper during the catamenial period; muscular twitching; morbid sensitiveness to pain; head sweats easily; alvine discharges, fetid, greenish and watery, and of green mucus with curds of milk, or of yellow and white flocculi, associated with flatulence, colic, and excoriation of the anal outlet; a remedy particularly fitted for the disorders of dentition, and to correct the condition threatening to end in dentition
convulsions.  

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