Native American researcher Daniel Moerman notes that the Ramah Navajo made a cold infusion of field bindweed and used it as a lotion to heal spider bites. If the spider had been inadvertently swallowed, field bindweed was then deliberately ingested with food.
A study investigating the medical properties of the Morning Glory family as a whole concluded that research in many countries over the past 28 years has shown this family has useful medicinal properties, but it is not economically viable to industrially extract and sell the compounds, so scientists are trying "to mimic the isolated natural compounds synthetically, studying the biological activity and the side effects of the synthetic compounds."