Family Name: Algaceae

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Notes from the Eclectic Physicians

Notes from the Eclectic Physicians

1911: Fyfe
Scrofulous enlargement of glands, menstrual derangements, with atonic and flabby condition of the uterine tissues, obesity. The long continued use of this agent is said to be beneficial in obesity. Fucus vesiculosus is alterative and diuretic.

1919: Ellingwood
Synonyms – Sea wrack, Kelp-ware.

Preparations – Fluid Extract Bladder Wrack, miscible with water without precipitation. Dose, from one-half to four drams, three times a day.

Powdered Extract Bladder Wrack, of the same strength as the solid extract. Dose, from five to thirty grains.

Solid Extract Bladder Wrack; one part equals five of the plant. Dose, from five to thirty grains.

Therapy – This agent is used for the specific purpose of reducing unhealthy fat in excessive adiposity. If given in doses of from one-half to two drams, three or four times daily, it has reduced excessively fat patients in a satisfactory manner without interfering in any way with the normal health functions. Wilhite, in New Preparations, 1878, gave his observations as follows: “From our study of the drug we do not believe fucus to be a reducer of the adipose tissue of healthy subjects. It is mostly on those cold, torpid individuals with a cold, clammy skin, loose and flabby rolls of fat, with relaxed pendulous abdomen, that fucus will display its powers to the best advantage. In this class of cases fat is a morbid condition, a result of vitiated function. With such the remedy acts beneficially by overcoming this torpid and morbid tendency, thus reducing the size by toning up the vascular and sympathetic systems. Possibly it also acts upon the starchy matters of the food in some manner, so as to prevent their easy change into fat when introduced into the human economy.”

It is in the obesity of individuals of the lymphatic temperament that the beneficial effects of this drug are the most marked. It has little or no influence in the reduction of the fleshiness of persons of active habits, or of those of the sanguine temperament. In these cases strict regulation of the diet affords the only prospects of relief, but owing to the keenness of the appetite usually present, this regulation is rarely enforced. Fucus shows its most decided influence upon women in whom there exist menstrual derangements, as menorrhagia and leucorrhoea, owing to a general atonic and flabby condition of the uterine tissues. In such cases an improvement in the local derangements usually precedes the general reduction of fat and the improved tonicity of the general system.

Fucus is advised as a specific remedy in the treatment of both exophthalmia and simple goitre. It is especially successful in patients not above thirty years of age. It is also suggested in the treatment of fatty degeneration of the heart. It is of service in desquamative nephritis, and in irritation and inflammation of the bladder. When general muscular relaxation is present, it is of service in the treatment of menstrual derangements.