Pleurisy Root Powder (Asclepias tuberosa) 1 lb: C This is Starwest's nitrogen-flushed double wall silverfoil pack. Used as an infusion, decoction, extract and tincture. Grieve's classic 'A Modern Herbal': 'The rootstock, the part used medicinally, is spindle-shaped and has a knotty crown, slightly but distinctly annulate, the remainder longitudinally wrinkled.' 'The Western Indians boil the tubers for food, prepare a crude sugar from the flowers and eat the young seed-pods, after boiling them, with buffalo meat. Some of the Canadian tribes use the young shoots as a potherb, after the manner of asparagus.' 'Antispasmodic, diaphoretic, expectorant, tonic, carminative and mildly cathartic.' 'From early days this Asclepias has been regarded as a valuable medicinal plant. It is one of the most important of the indigenous American remedies, and until lately was official in the United States Pharmacopoeia.' 'It possesses a specific action on the lungs, assisting expectoration, subduing inflammation and exerting a general mild tonic effect on the system, making it valuable in all chest complaints. It is of great use in pleurisy, mitigating the pain and relieving the difficulty of breathing, and is also recommended in pulmonary catarrh. It is extensively used in the Southern States in these cases, also in consumption, in doses of from 20 grains to a drachm in a powder, or in the form of a decoction.' 'It has also been used with great advantage in diarrhoea, dysentery and acute and chronic rheumatism, in low typhoid states and in eczema. It is claimed that the drug may be employed with benefit in flatulent colic and indigestion, but in these conditions it is rarely used.' 'In large doses it acts as an emetic and purgative.' 'A teacupful of the warm infusion (1 in 30) taken every hour will powerfully promote free perspiration and suppressed expectoration. The infusion may be prepared by taking 1 teaspoonful of the powder in a cupful of boiling water.' 'The decoction is taken in doses of 2 to 3 fluid ounces.' 'The dose of the fluid extract is ½ to 1 drachm; of Asclepin, 1 to 4 grains.' 'A much-recommended herbal recipe is: Essence of composition powder, 1 oz.; fluid extract of Pleurisy Root, 1 oz. Mix and take a teaspoonful three or four times daily in warm sweetened water.' King's 1898 Dispensatory: 'Asclepias, or pleurisy root, was one of the most common of the indigenous medicines employed by the Eclectic fathers. It was favorably written upon by most of the earlier writers on American medicinal plants. The drug has fallen into unmerited neglect, and could profitably be employed at the present day for purposes for which much more powerful, and sometimes dangerous, drugs are used. It has an extensive range of usefulness, being possessed of diaphoretic, diuretic, laxative, tonic, carminative, expectorant, and probably antispasmodic properties.' 'Pleurisy root has a deservedly good reputation in respiratory diseases. It acts upon the mucous membrane of the pulmonary tract, augmenting
