Synonyms. Leptandra Virginica. Veronica Virginica. Natural order. Scrofulariaceae. Common names. Culver’s Physic. Black root. Habitat. A perennial herbaceus plant growing throughout the United States east of the Mississippi. Preparation. Tincture from the fresh root.
GENERAL ANALYSIS.
Acts especially upon the liver and the intestinal canal, arousing their secretory functions. Its chief characteristic is a profuse black, tar-like, very foetid stool (Arsenicum).
CHARACTERISTIC SYMPTOMS
Head. Constant full frontal headache dizziness; pain in bowels.
Mouth. Tongue coated yellow mornings. flat, unpleasant taste in the morning.
Stomach. Vomiting of bile, yellow tongue, shooting pains about liver, black stools.
Abdomen. Aching in liver, extending to spine, worse in region of gall- bladder. Aching in umbilical region rumbling in abdomen and urging to stool, relieved by passing a profuse dark, foetid stool. Rumbling in hypogastrium in the morning, with distress, followed by characteristic stool.
Stool. Profuse, black, foetid stool, running out in a steam. Stool fish hard, black and lumpy, then mushy.
Compare. Arsenicum Bryonia, Cinchona, Iris Podo,.
THERAPEUTICS.
Its therapeutic range is confined to bilious conditions, and hepatic diseases in general, especially when the characteristics blackish stools are present. Sick-headache from hepatic derangement. Bilious headache, constipation, bitter taste. Jaundice with clay-colored stools. Dysentery or typhoid, with black, tar-like stools. Bilious fever. Chronic congestion and other chronic disorders of the liver. Chronic abdominal complaints caused by derangement of portal system, even ascites and anasarca.
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).