Synonym. Mercurius chlorid. Common names. Sub-chloride of Mercury. Calomel. Preparation. Triturations.
GENERAL ANALYSIS.
Acts powerfully upon the liver and upon mucous membranes, especially upon the mucous lining of the intestinal tract. In the liver it causes, primarily, an irritation resulting in an excessive secretion of bile, and, later, if the drug be long continued, in congestion and enlargement of that organ. On the mucous membranes it causes a catarrhal inflammation. Its most important symptom is excoriating, grass-green stools, without tenesmus.
CHARACTERISTIC SYMPTOMS.
Mind. Languor. Prostration. Apprehension.
Head. Headache; in morning. Pain or heaviness across forehead.
Eyes. Conjunctiva red. Scrofulous ophthalmia; ulceration of the cornea; chronic blepharitis.
Ears. Pallid as a corpse. Swelling. Inflammation of the lips.
Mouth. Inflammation of the tongue. Tongue black. Constant flow of dark putrid saliva; intolerable odor. Offensive breath; salivation; sore gums; mouth filled with ulcers.
Throat. Ulceration. Swallowing difficult. Granular pharyngitis.
Stomach. Loss of appetite in the morning. Profuse vomiting.
Stool and Anus. Scanty, bloody, mucous, with bile and constant desire, without tenesmus. Dark-green watery, with griping (Magnesia carb.). Anus sore and burning. Dysentery; small stools of mucus and blood, covered with bile.
Skin. Flabby and ill-nourished. Swollen glands. Phagedenic ulcers. Copper-colored eruptions.
Compare. Mercurius sol., Kali mur.
THERAPEUTICS.
The clinical range of Mercurius dulc., from a homoeopathic stand- point, is limited, but it is a remedy of great value when well indicated. The conditions calling for its use have already been detailed. Its most important use is in the treatment of infantile diarrhoea, with grass-green excoriating stools and very little tenesmus. It is all the better indicated in both children and adults where the liver is enlarged and where there is ulceration of the buccal mucous membrane, very offensive breath, swollen glands, ptyalism, etc. The common use of Calomel in physiological doses for a torpid liver with white stools is not homoeopathic. This action is mechanical and may be justifiable in some instances, as any other mechanical measure may be, but its constant abuse in all classes of cases, as is so often witnessed, cannot be justified.
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).