STRAMONIUM. 19 



involuntary weeping, symptoms that were frightfully increased 

 by partaking of coffee ; they rapidly disappeared after taking a 

 few ounces of strong vinegar (Hahnemann's Lesser Writings, 

 trans, by Dr. Dudgeon, p, 379). 



The Thorn-apple (Datura Stramonium) causes extraordinary 

 waking dreams, unconsciousness of what is going on, loud 

 delirious talking like a person speaking in sleep, with mistakes 

 respecting personal identity. A similar kind of mania it cures 

 specifically. It excites very specific convulsions, and has thus 

 often proved useful in epilepsy; both properties render it service- 

 able in case of persons possessed. Its power of extinguishing 

 recollection should induce us to try it in cases oi weak memory. 

 It is most useful when there is great mobility of fibre, because 

 its direct action in large doses is increased fibrous mobility. 

 It causes (in its direct action) heat and dilatation of pupil, a 

 kind of dread of water, swollen red face, twitching in the 

 ocular muscles, retarded stool, difficult breathing ; in its second- 

 ary action, slow soft pulse, perspiration, and sleep (Id., p. 324). 



Mr. Mash, of Northampton, relates the following case. A 

 woman, aged thirty-six, took two teacupfuls of infusion of 

 Stramonium by mistake for senna. In ten minutes she was 

 seized with dimness of sight, giddiness, and fainting ; in two 

 hours she was quite insensible, pupils fixed and dilated, all the 

 muscles of the body convulsed, the countenance flushed, and 

 the pulse full and slow. The stomach-pump was applied, and 

 in a few hours she recovered, suffering, however, from indis- 

 tinctness of vision and vertigo. 



Sauvage mentions a case of an old man of sixty who became 

 intoxicated, maniacal, and lost the power of speech after taking 



this poison. 



Mr. Spence (Boston Med. and Surg. Journ.) describes the 

 case of three females who had taken infusion of Stramonium- 

 leaves (half an ounce to a pint of water) in mistake for hore- 

 hound. He found them lying in bed, stupid, unable to articu- 

 late, with a certain peculiar wildness of countenance and flushed 



