Scutellaria lateriflora

Specific Indications. - Nervousness attending or following illness, or from mental or physical exhaustion, or teething; nervousness with muscular excitation; tremors; subsultus tendinum; hysteria, with inability to control muscular action; functional heart disorders of a purely nervous type, with intermittent pulse.

Action and Therapy. - Scutellaria is calmative to the nervous and muscular systems and possesses feeble tonic properties. By controlling nervous irritability and muscular incoordination it gives rest and permits sleep.

The Eclectic Materia Medica, Pharmacology and Therapeutics by Harvey Wickes Felter, M.D. (1922)

Medicinal uses

Scutellaria lateriflora is used in herbal medicine as a mild sedative and sleep promoter. Scutellaria, as a genus, has numerous medicinal uses and various species of skullcap are used in the same way. It should be noted though that the traditional uses of Virginian Skullcap should not be confused with those of other Skullcaps as there are 200 different species of Skullcap and they are not all used in the same way.