Synonym – Alnus rubra. Natural order – Betulaceae. Common names – Red Alder. Tag Alder. Habitat. Grows in wet ground, marshes and along streams, chiefly east of the Mississippi river. Preparation – Tincture from the fresh bark.
GENERAL ANALYSIS AND THERAPEUTICS.
Acts chiefly on the mucous membranes, skin and glands. It is used chiefly in atonic dyspepsia with deficient secretion of gastric juice. Also in ulcerations of the mouth and gastro- intestinal canal. It not only stimulates the flow of gastric juice, thus aiding digestion, but it also directly stimulates nutrition and thus acts curatively in strumous disorders, including enlarged glands, leucorrhoea and amenorrhoea. It has proved curative in pustular, herpetic and eczematous diseases of the skin.
ALLEN CORSON COWPERTHWAITE was born at Cape May, New Jersey, May 3, 1848, son of Joseph C. and Deborah (Godfrey) Cowperthwaite. He attended medical lectures at the University of Iowa in 1867-1868, and was graduated from the Hahnemann Medical College of Philadelphia in 1869. He practiced his profession first in Illinois, and then in Nebraska. In 1877 he became Dean and Professor of Materia Medica in the recently organized Homeopathic Department of the State University of Iowa, holding the position till 1892. In 1884 he accepted the chair of Materia Medica, Pharmacology, and Clinical Medicine in the Homeopathic Medical College of the University of Michigan. He removed to Chicago in 1892, and became Professor of Materia Medica and Therapeutics in the Chicago Homeopathic Medical College. From 1901 he also served as president of that College. He is the author of various works, notably "Insanity in its Medico-Legal Relations" (1876), "A Textbook of Materia Medica and Therapeutics" (1880), of "Gynecology" (1888), and of "The Practice of Medicine " (1901).