Benzoicum Acidum. Preparation. The pure crystals are dissolved in alcohol.
GENERAL ANALYSIS.
Acts especially upon the urinary organs, giving rise to symptoms of a uric-acid diathesis, affecting especially the joint and tendons. The peculiar characteristic of the drug is its deep-red- colored urine, with very strong urinous odor.
CHARACTERISTIC SYMPTOMS.
Mouth. Extensive ulceration of the tongue, with deeply chapped fungoid surfaces.
Throat. Angina faucium and tonsillaris, with characteristic urine.
Stool. Diarrhoea in children; profuse, watery, light colored, offensive, exhausting stools, with urinous odor and characteristic urine. Stool frothy.
Urinary Organs. Urine highly colored; changeable color, brownish (Carbolicum acidum, Acid nitricum), urinous odor exceedingly strong (Nitr. ac.); offensive; pungent smell (Asafoetida, Aspar.). Soreness, or hot, burning pains in left kidney. A granular kind of mucus mixed with phosphates in the sediment; urine dark-reddish brown; acid reaction, or very offensive; fleeting pains in bladder, not when urinating, but at other fleeting pains in bladder, not when urinating, but at other times; vesical catarrh from suppressed gonorrhoea; calculi, or gout. Redness the urine acid; hippuric acid.
Sexual Organs. Suppressed gonorrhoea; gleet; with offensive urine. Prolapsus uteri, with foetid urine.
Respiratory Organs. Great weakness, difficult breathing, increasing every hour. Cough, followed by expectoration of green mucus.
Heart. Pain in region of heart.
Back. Dull pain in back, in region of kidneys; stiffness in loins.
Lower Limbs. Swelling in right knee; ulcerative pain in whole leg, with pains in kidneys. Cracking or sense of dryness in knee joint. Pain in both knees. Tearing and stitches, especially in the metatarsal; joints of the right great toe. Gouty concretions and nodosities.
Generalities. Weariness and lassitude (Cinchona). Pains suddenly change their locality (Kali bichromicum, Ledum, Pulsatilla). Symptoms in sick go from left to right, and from below upward, especially in rheumatism and gout.
Conditions. Especially adapted to rheumatic or gouty subjects; in syphilitic or gonorrhoeal patients.
Compare. Arnica, Berberis, Carbolicum acidum, Ledum, Nitr. ac., Pulsatilla, rhododendron, Sulphur
BENZOIC ACID ANTIDOTE. Copaiba.
THERAPEUTICS.
Benzoic Acid may be indicated in any form of disease characterized by the peculiar urine of this drug, without which it is seldom to be employed. It is especially useful in gout and rheumatism of the joints, and of rheumatic and gouty arthritis. It is a valuable remedy in catarrh of the bladder, cystitis, nocturnal enuresis, and nephritic colic, the urine always being dark and extremely offensive. Asthma, especially in rheumatic patients, offensive urine. Diarrhoea in children, stools and urine both having a urinous odor. Also useful in other conditions already named. Bad effects from copaiba.
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).