ATROFA BELLADONNA. 83 
whilst that which is adduced against it is positive; for he con- 
ceives that twenty cases of failing to prevent the disease are more 
conclusive than one thousand cases of its non-occurrence. He 
quotes the following in its favour. Bayle (Bibl. Thérap., tom. ii. 
p. 904) has collected from various sources 2,027 cases of per- 
sons who took this medicine, of these 1,948 escaped. Oppen- 
heim (Lond. Med. Gazette, vol. xiii. p. 814) gave it to 1,200 
soldiers, and only twelve became affected. Also Hufeland and 
Koreff, who admit, from their own personal observations, the 
efficacy of the remedy. Against it, he mentions Lehman, 
Bach, Wendel, Muhrbeck, and Hoffman, who say that it has 
failed in their hands, but he does not mention the particulars ; 
and he quotes the remarkable failure mentioned by Dr. Sigmond 
(Lancet, 1836—7, vol. ii. p. '78), of a family of eleven persons 
who took the supposed specific, yet every individual contracted 
the disease.* 
CuinicaL OssErvarions.—According to Noack and Trinks 
(1.c.), Belladonna produces phenomena similar to those of Aconite, 
not directly, however, by exciting the central points of the ner- 
vous system into a more expansive activity, which, by a process 
of reaction, produces phenomena of inflammation in the peri- 
pheral tissues. Belladonna is especially suitable to plethoric, 
scrofulous, irritable individuals; persons disposed to affections 
of the head and brain, congestions, and ‘spasms, in whom the 
nervous system is highly susceptible of impressions, and the 
circulatory system is easily excited; to the sanguine choleric 
temperament; to the organism of the child and the female, 
and such constitutions as are analogous to those organisms. 
* On referring to the cases mentioned by Dr. Sigmond, he says: “In one 
family in which I had occasion to know that it was administered under the aus- 
Pices of an eminent physician”—i. e., he knew a physician who said he had given 
it. Not very good evidence upon which to reject any assertion, however absurd. 
Besides, independent of the knowledge that the medicinal action of Belladonna very 
materially alters by keeping, we may just as well reason that it is useless to yaeci- 
nate, because it is not a complete preventive of the smallpox. 
