Extractum Senecionis Fluidum.—Fluid Extract of Senecio.

Botanical name: 

Related entry: Senecio.—Life Root

SYNONYM: Fluid extract of life-root.

Preparation.—Take of the recently dried herb Senecio aureus, in coarse powder, 16 troy ounces; alcohol, diluted alcohol, each a sufficient quantity. Add a sufficient quantity of the alcohol to the herb to thoroughly moisten it, and allow the mixture to macerate for 24 hours; then transfer it to a percolator, and gradually add alcohol, returning a little of the first that passes, till it runs clear. Reserve, by itself, of the first percolate, 12 fluid ounces. Then pour gradually on the residuum in the percolator, a sufficient quantity of diluted alcohol, until the liquid that passes is but slightly impregnated with the properties of the life-root herb; evaporate this latter solution to 4 fluid ounces, and while warm mix in the reserved tincture, and make 1 pint of fluid extract.

Medical Uses and Dosage.—(See Senecio). This fluid extract possesses the medicinal virtues of the life-root, and forms a useful agent in amenorrhoea, either alone or in combination with the fluid extracts of black cohosh, water-pepper, etc. It may likewise be used advantageously in the other diseases in which the root is found efficient. The dose is from ½ to 1 fluid drachm, 3 or 4 times a day (J. King).


King's American Dispensatory, 1898, was written by Harvey Wickes Felter, M.D., and John Uri Lloyd, Phr. M., Ph. D.