Did the queen of darkness cure dropsy?
By Chelsie Vandaveer
June 23, 2003
Sponsored By: Spring Hill Nursery—>Click here.
killerPlants Tendrils: ~~1~~2~~3~~4~~5~~
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When Ladislaus Cutak wrote his Cactus Guide in 1956, he mentioned that two small pharmaceutical firms made medicinals containing extracts from the queen of darkness, Selenicereus grandiflorus. "The juice extracted from the stems...is prepared as a heart tonic and generally used by homeopathists." The climbing cactus was a controversial medicine; it was confused with other cactus, proper preparations were ignored, and beneficial or detrimental dosages were close.
Natives of the Caribbean Islands had used fresh extracts of Selenicereus grandiflorus to treat dropsy (symptoms of heart failure).
kp Plant of the Week 06/23/2003
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In Mexico, related species were used for kidney and bladder problems, intermittent fevers, coughs, and difficulty with breathing.
In the American Journal of Pharmacy (March 1898), a physician, Gordon Sharp, complained of the inconsistent results he obtained with (and the various colors of) cactus extracts on his patients. Sharp was scathing, blaming botanists for changing the plant's botanical name and hence, causing him problems with which cactus extracts he had actually ordered. In Sharp's day the plant was known as Cereus grandiflorus, the name change having happened one hundred and thirty years earlier. Sharp backed by some pharmaceutical companies set to testing only dried plant material.
That same year in King's American Dispensatory, pharmacist John Uri Lloyd and doctor Harvey Wickes Felter, considered the plant a worthy treatment similar in action to Digitalis. The two tested extracts of fresh plant material. "In medicinal doses, night-blooming cereus diminishes the frequency of the pulse, and increases the renal secretion, and is, therefore, sedative and diuretic."
The men agreed, "It is a remedy for almost all functional cardiac irregularities, as palpitation, pain, cardiac dyspnoea, intermission in rhythm, etc." Twenty-four years later, Felter writing in The Eclectic Materia Medica, still believed the plant aided or cured numerous problems involving the heart and nervous system.
Despite the differing methods of preparation and results seen in patients over the years, the plant was deemed worthless. In 1932, all medical testing of the Selenicereus species ceased.
killerPlants Tendrils: ~~1~~2~~3~~4~~5~~
Suggested Reading:
What is digoxin? What's in a Name? - November 8, 2002
How did foxes use these gloves? What's in a Name? - November 1, 2002
Who taught doctors how to cure dropsy? Plants that Changed History - October 29, 2002
How did we learn how to use digitalis? Plants that Changed History - November 5, 2002
What plant commemorates the death of a dragon? Herbal Folklore - March 11, 2002
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