Poisoning with homemade remedies

Check your answers on page 86

Herbal medicines may be frequently encountered in clinical use and many patients are happy to self medicate with over the counter herbal medications. Due to the variability of natural products the actual amount and identity of active components can be variable, even for products from reputable manufacturers. More adventurous patients may also be prepared to produce their own products from plants grown or harvested themselves. While many correctly identified herbal products may be very safe there are a number of more dangerous plants which, though they should not be approached without a large measure of caution, if not training and skill, are nonetheless freely available growing wild in many gardens or hedgerows.

The following case considers a patient self-administering a homemade remedy for swollen ankles, which she considers is likely dropsy, and so is taking a foxglove based remedy to ‘strengthen the heart’.

The patient has been preparing a decoction of digitalis leaves using an old reference she has located (Brower, 1802). The reference uses the old apothecaries measurements, for which she does have a balance and set of standard weights.