Gymnema sylvestre. *N.O. Asclepiadacae. Tincture of leaves.
Clinical
Snake-bite. Taste, altered.
Characteristics
This plant, which grows in the Deccan peninsula, Assam, and some parts of Africa, is woody climber with long, slender branches. The powdered root has a reputation among the natives as a remedy for snake-bite. It is mentioned here an account of a single symptom observed from chewing one or two leaves, which had a bitterish, astringent, and slightly acid taste. Immediately after chewing them the sense of taste for sugar was lost, and also the taste for bitters, the effect lasting some hours. Everything else cold be tasted, as the ginger in ginger bread but not the sweet. Quinine tasted like chalk.
John Henry Clarke MD (1853 – November 24, 1931 was a prominent English classical homeopath. Dr. Clarke was a busy practitioner. As a physician he not only had his own clinic in Piccadilly, London, but he also was a consultant at the London Homeopathic Hospital and researched into new remedies — nosodes. For many years, he was the editor of The Homeopathic World. He wrote many books, his best known were Dictionary of Practical Materia Medica and Repertory of Materia Medica