ATROPA BELLADONNA. 63 
veins; the injection acted promptly, and the patient fell mto a 
stupor, the convulsions, anxiety, and oppression entirely ceasing. 
She began to be able to swallow liquids, though with difficulty ; 
some slight hopes of recovery were entertained, but the symp- 
toms soon became severe, and terminated in death. (Blackett on 
Effect of Atropa, p. 32.) 
Mr. Green, of Wenlock,'in Shropshire, often found, in using 
Belladonna as an embrocation, that he was obliged to discontinue 
it, from its producing vertigo and great irritation of the nervous 
system. 
Van Swieten relates a case where a lady applied a Belladonna 
leaf to an ulcer beneath the eye, suspected to be cancerous. In 
a few hours the pupil was dilated even when exposed to a strong 
light. The nightshade was removed and the vision returned. 
The experiment was repeated several times, and Ray was a 
witness to it. 
Belladonna has been employed to allay pain and nervous 
irritation, as in neuralgia, prosopalgia, and tic-douloureux. As 
an antispasmodic, to relieve rigidity and spasmodic contraction 
of muscular fibres. As a topical remedy, in a case of angina 
pectoris, unconnected with organic disease, the application of 
Belladonna plaster to the chest (before the ulceration caused by 
tartar emetic had healed) produced alarming poisonous symptoms, 
which, when subsided, the symptoms of angina had quite dis- 
appeared, (Davies’ Lecture on Diseases of Lungs and Heart.) 
In hooping-cough, with great relief. In maladies of the eyes, 
dilatation of pupil, iritis, and other inflammatory diseases of that 
organ, and to diminish the morbid sensibility of this organ to 
the influence of light. As a resolvent and discutient in enlarge- 
ment of the lymphatic glands, scirrhus, and cancer. 
Description.—The Atropa Belladonna is a perennial plant; 
flowering in June. The root is branched and spreading; a 
fleshy, pulpy, and juicy white when fresh internally, greyish 
when dry ; of a mawkish, slightly bitter taste, and faint peculiar — 
odour. The whole plant is fetid when bruised, of a dark and 
a2 ; 
