VERATRUM ALBUM. 211 



it occupies the first rank among the medicines of the ancients, 

 thus being one of the most ancient as well as efficacious of 

 remedies. He also proves that the Veratrum album of the 

 ancients and the moderns are identical, by comparing the 



symptoms produced by each; "in the face of such re 



markable resemblance of the symptoms caused by these two 

 plants, who can deny that the very same plant which now 

 grows in our gardens was that which the ancients made use 

 of for the production of helleborism ? Where, I ask, can 

 another plant be found which shall show these same peculiar 

 effects on the human body that are produced by the White 



Helleb 



The ex- 



ternal character of the plant resembles that described by the 

 ancients, the name is the same as that given to it by the Romans, 

 it has the same properties now as formerly, there is the same 

 danger attending its use now as formerly; it is undoubtedly 

 the same plant." 



Hellebore, is the H. orientalis {Lam.) 



H 



lancholia and quartan fevers, Aretseus in cases of elephantiasis, 

 Dioscorides and the Arabian physicians as an emetic, and they 

 agree in stating that it will produce convulsions in an over- 



Macer 



Rhases praises its effects in epilepsy and mania ; Conrad Gesner 

 employed it extensively in the same diseases. It was one of the 

 ingredients in the eau medicinale in the cure of gout. Gredmg 

 tried it in twenty-five cases of mania and melancholia with varied 

 success ; at present it is rarely employed, principally owing to 

 its uncertain action, its chief uses being in affections of the 

 nervous system, as melancholia, mania, and epilepsy. In some 

 chronic skin diseases, scabies, tinea capitis, etc. In gout and 

 amaurosis, and, as a sternutatory, in some chronic affections of 

 the brain (hence its German name Niesswurzel, or Sneezeroot). 

 Descriptiox.— This plant is a hardy perennial, flowering 

 from June to August, The root is tuberous, fleshy, brown 



