£10 FLORA HOMtEOFATHICA. 



opinion respecting the Helleborus albus of the ancients. Sib- 

 thorp most unaccountably decides it to have been the Digitalis 

 ferruginea. Schulze, who is too prone to sceptical doubts on 

 botanical questions, expresses himself with great hesitation 

 regarding it, but on the whole inclines to the Adonis vernalis. 

 Woodville and Dierbach are quite undecided; on the other 



hand, Mathiolus. DodonamR. fl. "RanKin TTill n-nd St*nVhrm*P 



it as the Veratrum album. L. 

 GeofFroy also, no mean authority on these subjects, maintains 

 that the description of Dioscorides agrees very well with the 

 characters of the White Hellebore ; and from the similarity of 

 the effects produced by the administration of the E. Xevkqs, as 

 described by the ancient writers on toxicology, to the known 

 effects of the Veratrum album, I had no hesitation, some time 

 ago, in recognising their identity ; and it now gives me pleasure 

 to discover that Sprengel, in his annotations on Dioscorides, 

 comes to the same conclusion. It is further deserving of remark, 



H 



of hydrophobia. I had called the attention of the profession to 

 this fact in the London Medical and Physical Journal, July, 

 1828; about eighteen months afterwards the Savadilla Vera- 

 trum, a Mexican species of Hellebore, was much cried up in 

 this case." 



According to Wibmer, quoted by Russell {On Epidemic 

 Cholera), it is one of the oldest poisons, and supposed to have 

 been used by the Gauls and other nations in their gallant war- 

 fare against the Romans, So that to it Horace probably alludes 

 in his famous ode, in which he introduces the " venenatis gra- 

 vida sagittis." This rests on the authority of Pliny, Celsus, and 

 Dioscorides. 



Hahnemann (On the Helleborism of the Ancients*) states that 



* The reader is referred to this treatise, translated by Dr. Dudgeon, for an 

 elaborate history of the Veratrum album. In a note, Dr. Dudgeon writes, " This 

 essay is too valuable to be cast aside unread, if we would wish to form a just esti- 

 mate of the learning and genius of Hahnemann." 



