HYDRANGEA ARBORESCENS

Like some other members of the Saxifragaceæ, Hydrangea. has a traditional reputation as a "stone-breaking" remedy having been used in calculous diseases for many years.

Dr. Nottingham, of Lansing, says (Amer. Hom. November 15, 1899) that in physiological doses it produces "giddiness, oppression of the chest, and acts as a cathartic, diuretic, sialogogue, and narcotic." He used it with brilliant results in the following case: Mr. B., 71, tall, slender, dark, was exceedingly irritable and frequently subject to violent paroxysms of anger. For many years he had been accustomed to make the most reckless use of drugs, and was always requesting his homœopathic doctor to give him "something stronger." For eight years he had suffered from vesical sphincter-irritation, with dribbling of urine, severe spasms of prostate, renal catarrh, yellow sand in urine, and even small calculi. After persistent use of best-indicated remedies with no effect, the fluid extract of Hydrangea. was given, a teaspoonful every three or four hours, and the symptoms disappeared in a remarkably short time.

Cooper has also used this remedy (which, he says, is the thirstiest plant known) with good effect in diabetes, in cases presenting great thirst with abdominal symptoms and in enlarged prostate.

It appears to act strongly on the neck of the bladder.

Hansen adds that it is particularly useful for profuse deposits of white amorphous salts in the urine; and has arrested the tendency to formation of calculi; relieves distress from renal calculus, with soreness over region of kidneys and bloody urine.