Natural order – Ophidia. Common name – Coral snake of Brazil. Preparation – Trituration of the venom.
GENERAL ANALYSIS AND THERAPEUTICS.
General action and uses similar to that of other snake poisons. The chief symptoms indicating its uses are that all discharges are very black, and there is a characteristic cold feeling of various parts.
CHARACTERISTIC SYMPTOMS
Mind. Depressed; imagines he hears some one talking; dreads to be left alone. Fear of rain.
Head Violent headache, extending from forehead to occiput. Vertigo, with tendency to fall forward.
Ears Cerumen black and hard, with difficult hearing, or serous, greenish discharge, offensive; buzzing, and illusion of hearing. Sudden attack of nightly deafness, with roaring and crackling in ears. Chronic otorrhoea. Deafness, noises in ears, cracking in ears on swallowing.
Nose. Chronic nasal catarrh, with foetid odor and greenish crusts. Ozaena; yellowish-green discharge; mucous membrane wrinkled; nostrils plugged up with dry mucus. Pains from nose to ears on swallowing. Nostrils stuffed up. Nasal bleeding. Pain at root of nose. Eruption about nose.
Respiratory Organs. Coldness in chest after drinking. Haemorrhage from the lungs, black as ink and watery; stitches in apex of right lung. Fainting caused by stooping. Cough, with terrible pain through lungs. Sensation of a sponge in oesophagus.
Stomach Cold things disagree. Stomach feels cold. Desire for buttermilk. Nausea and vomiting. Acidity of stomach, with faint feeling. Sudden pain in stomach. Fruits and ice water lie very cold. Spasm of oesophagus; pharynx constricted; foods and liquids suddenly arrested and then fall heavily into the stomach. Sensation as if food turned like a corkscrew on swallowing.
Female Organs. Dysmenorrhoea, with black blood. Discharge of black blood between menses. Itching of vulva and vagina.
Generalities. Prostrating diarrhoea during pulmonary tuberculosis. Spasms of oesophagus; of pharynx. Spasms followed by paresis.
Sleep. Dreams about dead persons.
Skin. Glands and skin of axillae affected. Itching with tetter. Tips of fingers peel off.
Limbs. Icy cold feet. Arms and hands swollen, bluish. Knee joints feel sprained. Pricking under the nails.
Fever Cold perspiration all over. Typhoid, when ulcers have eaten into tissues, and black blood is discharged.
Compare Arsenicum, Crotal., Lachesis, Carbo veg., Acid Muriaticum, Rhus tox.
Conditions. Useful in rheumatic constitutions.
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).