5-2 
PHYSIOLOGICAL ACTION.—R. bulbosus has a peculiarly powerful irritant 
action upon the skin, whether applied locally or internally. Murray states* that 
a slice of the fresh root (bulb?) placed in contact with the palmar surface of a 
finger brought on pain in two minutes ; when taken off, the skin was found with- 
out signs of extra circulation or irritation, and the itching and heat passed away ; 
in two hours it nevertheless returned again, and in ten hours a serous blister had 
formed, followed by a bad ulcer, which proved very difficult to heal. 
Early English practitioners used the bulb to produce vesication when a “last- 
ing blister” was judged necessary, but were very chary of prescribing the drug 
internally, so great was their dread of its properties. 
Four persons who partook of the bulbs, boiled in a chicken-broth, suffered 
from violent burning in the hypogastric region, great anxiety about the region 
of the heart, pressure at the pit of the stomach, with painful soreness of that 
organ when pressed. 
A lady who applied the bruised plant to the chest as a counter-irritant, became 
ill-humored, fretful, cross and disposed to quarrel, and suffered from soreness and 
smarting of the eyelashes .some time before its action was felt at the region nearest 
the application. 
Violent attacks of epilepsy are recorded as having been induced by this 
plant; a sailor who inhaled the fumes of the burning plant was attacked with this 
disease for the first time in his life; it returned again in two weeks, passed into 
cachexia, nodous gout, headache, and terminated in death+ 
The specific symptoms caused by this drug, so carefully collated by Prof. 
_ Allen, show a decided irritant action upon the brain and spinal cord, as well as 
_ the mucous membranes generally. 
DESCRIPTION OF PLATE 5. 
1. Whole plant, Salem, Mass., June 25th, 1885. 
a Reval, Sais ae 
3. Anther. | 
‘4. Fruit. e 
eee Achenium. ee 
_ 6. Longitudinal section of achenium. 
fo (3, s and 6 enlarged.) Po 
Mat. Med., viii, 257-269 
