Dmitry

Podophylhtm or May Apple. “Yellowish green petioles.” “The fruit is lemon yellow, diversified by brownish spots.” “The powder is light yellowish gray.” “An active and certain cathartic. In some cases it has given rise to nausea and vomiting.” “A hydragogue and cholagogue.” The office of a cholagogue is to cause a flow of bile, which is of itself a yellow or yellow green fluid that has a laxative effect as it passes into the duodenum and lower bowels.

1. Senna, (Cassia Marilandica). “Flowers beautiful golden yellow; the calyx is composed of five oval yellow leaves; the stamens are ten, with yellow filaments and brown anthers.” “An efficient and safe cathartic.”
2. Colocynth (colocynthis). “Flowers are yellow.” “Fruit yellow when ripe.” “Contains a white spongy medullary matter.” “A powerful hydragogue cathartic.” “stimulant, diuretic, laxative.”
3. Gluten, phosphate of lime, etc., which constitute the hard yellow portion of grains near the external portion, are somewhat laxative.
4. Figs (Ficus). “The best are yellowish or brownish.” “Figs are nutritious, laxative and demulcent.”
5. Magnesia (MgO). The yellow-green principle strongest in the spectrum of magnesium. “Antacid and laxative.”
6. Magnesium Carbonate (MgCO3). The yellow strong in both carbon and magnesium. “Laxative.”
7. Castor Oil (Oleum Ricini). “Yellowish.” “A mild cathartic.”
8. Olive Oil (Oleum Olivæ). “Pale yellow or greenish yellow.” “Nutritious and mildly laxative, given in case of irritable intestines.”
9. Sulphur is “pale yellow * * laxative, diaphoretic,” etc.
10. Magnesium Sulphate (Epsom salt, MgSO4), has the strong yellow principle of magnesium and sulphur, but is toned down by the cool blue of oxygen, so it is called “a mild and safe cathartic,” a “refrigerant,” etc.
11. Eggs (Ovum). “The yolk in its raw state is thought to be laxative.”
12. Prunes (Prunum). Yellowish brown or orange brown. “Laxative and nourishing.”
13. Peaches have a yellowish pulp. Gently laxative.
14. Cape Aloes (Aloe). “Powder greenish yellow.” “Cathartic.”
15. Many more similar examples could be given, but these are quite sufficient to establish the potency of yellow as connected with the nerves of the bowels. I will quote the following, however, to show that when we appeal more to the red principle with drugs we reach the coarser elements of blood and thus produce a more severe and drastic effect than when dealing more exclusively with the finer elements of the nerves:—
16. Gamboge when broken “is of a uniform reddish orange, which becomes a beautiful bright yellow.” “Gamboge is a powerful drastic hydragogue cathartic, very apt to produce nausea and vomiting, when given in the full dose.”
17. Black Hellebore (Helleborus niger). “The flower stem is reddish toward the base,” has “rose like flowers.” The petals are of a white or pale rose color with occasionally a greenish tinge.” The root is “externally, black or deep brown, internally white or yellowish white, producing on the tongue a burning and benumbing expression, like that which results from taking hot liquids into the mouth.” “Black Hellebore is a drastic hydragogue cathartic possessed also of emmenagogue powers. The fresh root applied to the skin produces inflammation and even vesication.” A good example of the burning qualities of black and red.
18. Croton Oil (Oleum Tiglii), “varies from a pale yellow to a dark reddish brown. Its taste is hot and acrid—it is a powerful hydragogue cathartic, in large doses apt to excite vomiting and severe pain.”
19. Senna (Cassia acutifolia, etc.). “The leaflets are yellowish green color, the flowers are yellow, the fruit grayish brown.” “The infusion is of a deep reddish brown color. When exposed to the air a short time, it deposits a yellowish insoluble precipitate. It is a prompt and safe purgative. An objection sometimes urged against it is that it is apt to produce severe griping pain.”
20. Rhubarb (Rheum). “Good rhubarb is yellow, with a slight reddish brown tinge;”—”unites a cathartic with an astringent power, the latter of which does not interfere with the former, as the purgative effect precedes the astringent; * * appears to affect the muscular fibres more than the secretory vessels. It sometimes occasions griping pains in the bowels.”

Why it is that a substance like potassium tartrate, and other saline substances may have the rubific element of potassium, and yet be but a “mild refrigerant cathartic,” is easily explained by noticing the amount of oxygen (C4H4K2O6) which moderates and cools the thermal and expansive qualities of the other substances, and acts somewhat as it does in acids. It seems that the text is listing various substances that have laxative or purgative properties, and highlighting the role of the color yellow in their composition and effects. The author is also noting that when the red principle is more prominent, the substances tend to have a more drastic and severe effect on the body.

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1. Indian Hemp (Apocynum Cannabinum). The root is of a yellowish brown while young, but dark chestnut (red brown) when old, with a nauseous acrid taste. “The internal ligneous part is yellowish white.” “Powerfully emetic and cathartic, sometimes diuretic.”

2. Lobclina. “The active principle of lobelia is a yellowish liquid.” “Lobelia is emetic, occasionally cathartic, diaphoretic,” etc.

3. Tartar Emetic (KSbC4H4O7, H2O), “a white crystalline salt,” with the yellow, orange and red all strongly developed in the spectra of its elements. “According to the dose it acts variously as a diaphoretic, diuretic, expectorant, purgative and emetic.”

4. Bloodroot (sanguinaria). “The whole plant is pervaded by an orange-colored sap. The color of the powder is brownish red.” The leaf “is yellowish green on the upper surface, paler or glaucous on the under, and strongly marked by orange-colored veins.” “Sanguinaria is an acrid emetic, with stimulant and narcotic powers.”

5. The fact that emetics deal so much in the red as well as in the yellow principle shows that they act more or less upon the blood and muscular tissues as well as the nerves. “The action of an emetic is directly or indirectly upon the nerve centres that supply these muscles. * * All emetics acting through the blood produce more or less depression.” (Hartshorne). Emetics act principally upon the pneumogastric nerve.

We have seen in the last chapter (XIX, 3) the law by which the nerves become stimulated, more especially by the yellow color, and to some extent by the orange and even the red, these principles being included in the substance of the nerves themselves. We have seen that the more violent nerve stimuli include something of the red or orange as well as the yellow, that drugs taken internally, when sufficiently active and exciting and working, no doubt, to some extent upon the vascular as well as the nervous tissues of the stomach, cause that quick repulsive action which is termed EMETIC; that those drugs whose yellow principle works somewhat more slowly, do not exert their expansive and repulsive action until they reach the bowels and thus constitute LAXATIVES, or when sufficiently active, PURGATIVES; that certain drugs which have an affinity for the liver and bile, causing them to act, are called CHOLAGOGUES; that those which stimulate the kidneys are called DIURETICS; those which stimulate the uterus, from some special affinity they may have for that organ, are called EMMENAGOGUES; those which stimulate the nerves of the skin and to some extent the vascular glands in a way to cause perspiration are called DIAPHORETICS; those which stimulate the nerves of the skin and call the blood outward until the surface becomes reddened are called RUBEFACIENTS. In all cases yellow is the central principle of nerve stimulus as well as the exciting principle of the brain which is the fountain head of the nerves, although, as we have seen, the more violent elements of stimulus approach the red, especially where vascular action is called forth. Those elements which act more directly to excite the brain, are called CEREBRAL STIMULANTS. I will give a few examples of the different drugs and foods which belong to the various departments of nerve action.

1. Red is injurious, of course, when there is already too much of the red, or inflammatory condition of the system, such as the predominance of red hair, very rubicund countenance, or feverish and excitable condition generally.

Iron, the preparations of which abound in the red, is “contra-indicated in inflammatory diseases, producing, when injudiciously employed, heat, thirst, head-ache, difficulty of breathing and other symptoms of an excited circulation;” “contra-indicated in the sanguine temperament generally.”

2. The same is true of the other red elements, or of elements in which red abounds in the spectrum, but the principle is too obvious to need further examples. The exciting effect of red objects on various animals is also well known. That red light has exactly the same exciting effect is well known. I quote the following from a letter of a thoughtful observer, Edwin M. Hale, M. D., to the Chicago Tribune:
3. “In one of the French Insane Asylums, not only the blue ray but others were tried, and the effect was very interesting. The red ray caused results which confirmed the popular belief in its exciting, maddening, influence. When violent and maniacal patients were placed in rooms where the red ray predominated, they became worse. All the violent symptoms were aggravated. If these patients were removed to a room where the blue ray predominated, they became calm and quiet. It is related that one patient, a woman, whose delirium was greatly aggravated by the red ray, immediately said on going into the blue room—’how soothing that is,’ and shortly after, when left alone, fell asleep.”
4. Thermel must naturally produce an effect somewhat similar to that of red, so far as its heating qualities are concerned, but being invisible cannot, of course, affect one through the optic nerve.
5. Dr. Pancoast speaking of the red light says that “if employed to excess, as to amount or time, the red light over-excites the nervous system and may produce dangerous fevers or other disorders that may prove as troublesome as the evil we are seeking to correct. We seldom employ red light to the exclusion of the other rays, and it should never be so employed, except in extreme cases, when prompt action is the first consideration.”

The danger of the above “exclusive red light,” which Dr. Pancoast deems so great as to require “a skilful physician,” may be averted by using the red glass only a few minutes at a time at first, taking the precaution when the system becomes too hot, to put blue glass in its place, or a wet bandage over the head. For general cases, however, it would be better to have blue glass over the head and red and clear glass over the rest of the body in conditions of lethargy. A better arrangement still is the instrument devised by the author called the CHROMOLUME, in which both physiological and chemical laws are complied with in the harmonic arrangement of glass. See explanation in XXIII and XXIV of this chapter.