Male fern rhizome

Two Examples of Special Procedures [207] a) Rhizoma Filicis (Male Fern Rhizome)... 

The rhizome of Dryopteris filix-mas (male fern) was formerly used as an antihelminthic drug (1), but it is... 

Tbe Male Fern along with the Marginal Fern Dryopteris margin-alis) have long been known to the pharmaceutical and medical professions as the source of the drug Aspidium, a most valuable remedy for the expulsion of tapeworm. The parts of these plants employed are the rhizome and stipes which are collected in autumn, freed of the roots and dead portions and dried at a temperature not exceeding 7o°C. 

The tapeworm infection is a widespread helminth disease which has attracted the attention of native practitioners and physicians. The first so called "effective" herbal preparation for eradicating tapeworms from humans became available in 1775 known as "Madame Nauffer s Tapeworm Cure" [1]. The active ingredient of this remedy was male fern. Since then the extract of the rhizome of male fern (Dryop-terisfilix mas), called aspidium oleoresin, has been used as a folk remedy and also as a drug in clinical medicine to treat tapeworm infections in humans. 

MALE FERN (Buckler Fern) Filicis rhizoma The drug consists of the dried rhizomes with remaining petioles from Dryopteris filix mas (L.), Schott, family Polypodiaceae, a fern which grows in Europe, Northern Asia and America. 

Aspidium. Male fern male shield-fern filix mas (B.P.). Rhizome and stipes of Dryopteris filix-mas (L.) Schott., Foiypodiaeeae. Habit. North America, Northern Asia. Europe. Northern Africa. Constit. Filicic and flav-aspidic acids, volatile oil, ashaspidin, filicin. filmaron. fiI Lx red, resin. It yields not less than 6.5% oleoresin (U.S.P.)... 

A few chemotherapeutic agents were known before Ehrlich s time. These were cinchona bark and ipecacuanha rhizome, for the cure of malaria and amoebic dysentery respectively, and mercury for alleviation of the symptoms of syphilis. Mercury began to be used in this way in the sixteenth century, cinchona and ipecacuanha in the seventeenth. Santonin and male fern have... 

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