Natural order. Araliaceae. Common name. American Spikenard. Habitat. An herbaceous plant growing in rich woodlands throughout the United States. Preparation. Tincture from the fresh root. General Analysis Chief action is exerted through the pneumogastric nerves upon the organs of respiration, giving rise to suffocative attacks resembling asthma or hay fever, in the treatment of which it has been successfully used. Characteristic Symptoms Nose Smarting soreness of the posterior nares, caused by passage of acrid mucus (Arsenicum, Arum, Ammonium carb., Cepa), with peculiar soreness of alae nasi, as if fissured. Respiratory Organs Dry, wheezing respiration; sense of impending suffocation; whistling worse during inspiration; must sit up (Arsenicum, Sambucus); hay asthma. Spasmodic cough at night, awakens after the first sleep, and cannot sleep again on account of it; caused by tickling in throat, associated with constriction of chest; has to sit up and cough violently; sometimes caused by a feeling of a foreign body in the throat. Sputum at acme of asthma scanty; then increased, warm and saltish. Raw, burning, sore feeling behind the whole length of the sternum (Rumex) and in each lung. 7 Female Organs Acrid, offensive leucorrhoea, with bearing down pains. Compare Antim tart., Arsenicum, Ipecac., Iodium, Sambucus.
THERAPEUTICS
Has been used chiefly in the treatment of asthma, hay fever and suffocative catarrh. Has been used as a domestic remedy, in infusion, for dysmenorrhoea, leucorrhoea and suppressed lochia.
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).