The following abstract of a paper read by Dr. Quinlan at the recent
British Pharmaceutical Congress, may prove of interest to medical
readers in this country, where the plant mentioned is a common weed:
"About a year ago Dr. Quinlan had seen the chewed leaves of the
_Plantago lanceolata_ successfully used to stop a dangerous hemorrhage
from leech bites in a situation where pressure could not be employed. He
had searched out the literature of the subject, and found that, although
this herb is highly spoken of by Culpepper and other old writers as
a styptic, and alluded to as such in the plays of Shakespeare, its
employment seems to have died out. Professor Quinlan described the
suitable varieties of plantain, and exhibited preparations which had
been made for him by Dr. J. Evans, of Dublin, State apothecary. They
dried leaves and powdered leaves, conserved with glycerine, for external
use; the juice preserved by alcohol, as also by glycerine, for internal
use; and a green extract. He gave an account of the chemistry of the
juice, from which it appeared that it was not a member of the tannin
series; and also described its physiological effect in causing a
tendency to stasia in the capillaries of the tail of a goldfish,
examined with a microscopic power of 400 X. He regarded its styptic
power as partly mechanical and partly physiological. The juice, in large
doses, he had found useful in internal hemorrhages. The knowledge of
the properties of this plant he thought would be useful in cases of
emergency, because it could be obtained in any field and by the most
uninstructed persons."
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