Synonym. Momordica Elaterium. Natural order. Curcurbitaceae. Common name. Squiring Cucumber. Habitat. A coarse, fleshy plant found in the Mediterranean. Preparation. Tincture from the unripe fruit.
GENERAL ANALYSIS.
Acts powerfully upon mucous surfaces, causing an enormous flow of watery serum from the first mucous membrane that absorbs it, whether it be in the nose, oesophagus, stomach or intestines. Its most important action is upon the gastrointestinal canal, where its characteristic effects are produced, causing vomiting of the excessive gastric secretions, and violent purging, stripping the intestinal membrane of its epithelium, a gastro-enteritis resulting from its prolonged action.
CHARACTERISTIC SYMPTOMS.
Stomach. Nausea; vomiting of watery substance, or of greenish bilious matter, with great weakness.
Abdomen. Cutting, gripping pains in the bowels.
Stool. Copious liquid stools (Arsenicum, Cinchona, Veratrum alb. watery; frothy, or of an olive-green color (Crot. tig., Gratiola, Secale cor.).
Lower Limbs. Shooting, also dull aching pans in the course of the left sciatic nerve to the instep and toes.
Compare. Colchicum, Coloc., Crot. tig., Gratiola, Secale cor., Veratrum alb.
THERAPEUTICS.
Has been used chiefly in choleraic diarrhoea with forcible copious stools, as above described. Has been used in dropsy of renal origin; hydropericardium; also in jaundice, with high fever of an intermittent type, and characteristic stools. Sciatica.
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).