Natural order. Gramineae. Common name. Corn silk. Habitat. Temperate zones. Preparation. Tincture from the silk terminals of common field corn.
GENERAL ANALYSIS AND THERAPEUTICS.
Acts directly upon the urinary tract, producing irritation and catarrhal inflammation. Probably owing to the presence of maizenic acid the drug has the power of neutralizing excessive alkalinity of the urine. It also increases the flow of urine. It may thus act physiologically in lithaemia, phosphatic gravel, cystitis, etc., by diluting and neutralizing irritating agents in the urinary tract. Has been used successfully in catarrhal cystitis; suppression and retention of urine; dysuria; renal lithiasis; nephritic colic; gravel; gonorrhoea; enlarged prostate (Sabal ser.) with retention of urine, also in organic heart disease, with much oedema of the lower extremities and scanty urination.
Compare. Sabal ser., with which it is often used in combination by Eclectics.
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).