The use of castor oil in treating drug overdose is perhaps the latest therapeutic triumph registered by the plant, which the imaginative people of the Middle Ages called the Palma Christi. It has been reported from Canada (by Dr. Michael Diamond) and from the University of Medicine in Miami, Florida, that individuals who have attempted suicide by taking large overdoses of drugs are being given quantities of castor oil greatly exceeding the ounce or two usually taken as a cathartic or for inducing labor in pregnant women. Nearly a pint is administered twice a day, and patients who were comatose and expected to remain so for four or five days recovered in 24 hours. Some physicians believe that the castor oil absorbs the drugs, quickly removing them from the system. Thus the harmful effects of the body’s prolonged exposure to drugs are prevented. Some doctors add charcoal tablets to the castor oil; this acts as a detoxifying agent and enhances the curative effect. This treatment could well save the lives of many who have taken large drug overdoses.
[† March, 1977, Volume 12, No. 2, page 86, Copyright © 1977 by the Edgar Cayce Foundation, Virginia Beach, VA.]
How do you give a pint of castor oil to a comatose patient?
We would assume Dr. Michael Diamond and the University of Miami used a feeding tube.