‘AMERICAN HEMLOCK. 129 
at the mouth, and died in an hour and a half. The 
other two were affected with vomiting, stupor, dil- 
atation of the pupil, great paleness and universal 
distress ; which symptoms disappeared in one in 
twenty four, and in the other in thirty six hours, 
It was supposed that the first boy had swallowed 
about a drachm of the root, and the others about 
half that quantity. A specimen of the plant was 
sent to me at the same time with the account, and 
proved to be the Cieuta maculata. Dr. Stock- 
bridge’s letter, which was published in the New 
England Journal, contains two other cases of the 
effect of this root, in one of which it proved fatal. 
Shortly after the publication of the above facts, 
an article appeared in the New York Medical Re- 
pository, containing an account by .Dr. Ely of 
Dutchess county, of the effects of an unknown 
poisonous root, supposed to be the white helle- 
bore. Three small boys, who had gone into a 
meadow in search of sweet flag root, had dug up 
and eaten another root by mistake. Two of 
them died in convulsions in about an hour after 
they had swallowed it. They discharged much 
blood and froth from the mouth and nose; their | 
eyes were fixed, with the pupils dilated, and a rapid 
motion of the eye lids. ‘The third boy vomited, 
and recovered. When taken to the place the next 
