It is found as a rough clump of a pound or more in weight when fresh, thickly branched, each branch shooting from the side of the main rhizome at an angle inclining backward and upward. The branches almost touch each other, are as large as the rhizome, and are from 1 inch to 3 inches in length. Internally, the rhizome resembles that of the true wild yam, while the lower portion is, in like manner, covered with stout, fibrous rootlets. The color is generally a very much darker brown. The so-called dioscorein is not a definite principle of the rhizome, but is simply a dried solid extract, and to call it otherwise is a misnomer.
Wild yam contains an abundance of starch.
Action, Medical Uses, and Dosage. And I can truly say that nearly all remedies have thus been classified, not from any positive knowledge of their action, but from the results following their administration. A change of classification based upon the known action of remedies is certainly desirable, and I am glad to observe that the attention of physicians has already been attracted in this direction. Specific dioscorea may be given in 5-drop doses every 5 minutes. In fact it is not only of value in bilious colic, but in all forms of colic and other painful abdominal neuroses , and all forms of gastro-intestinal irritation .