Synonym. Hydrate of Ammonia. Common name. Aqua ammonia. Preparation. A solution containing ten per cent. of ammonia gas, specific gravity 0.959, corresponds to the 1x dilution. Subsequent dilutions made with alcohol.
GENERAL ANALYSIS AND THERAPEUTICS.
Acts as a powerful irritant to mucous membranes, either by inhalation or swallowing, and cases oedema and ulceration. Its chief symptoms are “a burning excoriating discharge from the nose,” and “burning rawness down behind the sternum.” It also produces great prostration. In poisonings it produces bronchitis with profuse expectoration also very difficult, respiration, almost suffocation. It has been used in scarlatina with the characteristic nasal discharge (Arum), and is one of the best remedies known for aphonia, when the characteristic rawness in the throat is present. It has also been used for spasm of the glottis, and has cured muscular rheumatism of the shoulders.
Compare. Ammonia salts, Arum, Kali caust.
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).