Alstonia scholaris

by

Alstonia scholaris

Alstonia

(Dita bark)
Botanical name: alstonia scholaris r. br.
Family: apocynaceae
Known: Hindi: Satwan; Eng: Dita Bark; French: Ecorce de dite; Ger: Ditarinde.
Description: A tall evergreen tree with a straight, often fluted and buttressed stem, 12 m high and up to 3 m in girth. Leaves 3 to 7 in a whorl, glabrous, coriaceous, oblong-lanceolate or obovate, shining above, pale beneath, 10 to 20 cm long, nerves 30 to 60 pairs joining,  petiole about 6 to 13 mm long. Inflorescence peduncled or sessile cyme, umbellately branched or capitate, peduncles whorled, 2.5 to 5 cm long. Calyx small, about 3 mm long, pubescent; corolla white, pubescent, throat villous, lobes rounded; fruit twin long slender follicles 30 to 60 cm long and 3 mm in diameter, hanging in clusters.
Seeds 6 mm long, flattened, ciliate.
Part used: Stem bark
History and authority: Introduced in 1866, Monthly Homoeopathic Review, Vol.  X, 508; Allen: Encyclopaedia Materia Medica, Vol. I, p. 192.
Potencies: 2x to contain one part Mother Tincture, two parts of Purified Water and seven parts of Strong Alcohol. 3x and higher with Dispensing Alcohol.
Prescribed dose: Tincture to third potency. Locally, for ulcers and rheumatic pains
Clinical Use:

  • Malarial diseases, with diarrhoea, dysentery
  • Camp diarrhoea of undigested food
  • Low fevers with debility
  • Characteristics are the gone sensation in stomach and sinking in abdomen, with debility.
  • Anaemia
  • Feeble digestion
  • A tonic after exhausting fevers

Rubrics covered by Alstonia in Synthesis repertory:
Abdomen
ABDOMEN – SINKING sensation
ABDOMEN – SINKING sensation – accompanied by – weakness
Extremities
EXTREMITIES – PAIN – rheumatic
Generals
GENERALS – ANEMIA
GENERALS – MALARIA
GENERALS – MALARIA – accompanied by – anemia
GENERALS – MALARIA – accompanied by – diarrhea
GENERALS – MALARIA – accompanied by – dysentery
GENERALS – MALARIA – accompanied by – indigestion
GENERALS – WEAKNESS
GENERALS – WEAKNESS – fever – after
Rectum
RECTUM – DIARRHEA
RECTUM – DYSENTERY
Skin
SKIN – ULCERS
Stomach
STOMACH – EMPTINESS
STOMACH – EMPTINESS – accompanied by – weakness
STOMACH – INDIGESTION
Relationship

  • Similar in action to Alstonia constricta, the bitter bark or native quinine of Australia.
  • Ditain (active principle, is anti-periodic, like quinine, but without unpleasant effects)
  • Cinchona (similar in diarrhoea, chronic dyspepsia and debility).