The Use ofRauwolif serpentinain Hypertensive Patients

Abstract

RAUWOLFIA serpentina (Ophioxylon serpentinum) has been used in India for many years to treat a variety of diseases that at first thought appear to bear little similarity to one another. These include insanity, epilepsy, insomnia, hysteria, eclampsia and hypertension. On reflection, however, these various diseases could have a common denominator if they were all relieved symptomatically by a sedative or a "relaxing" drug such as Rauwolfia. Our attention was drawn to the drug because reports of its hypotensive effects seemed to be fairly well documented; indeed, the conservative claims made for it by several authors increased rather than . . .