94 FLORA HOMCOPATHICA. 
him beside himself. An oile (I say) is made of the seed thereof, 
which if it be but dropped into the eares is ynough to trouble 
the braine. But strange it is of this oile, that if it be taken in 
drinke it serveth as a counterpoison. See how industrious 
men have ben to prove experiments, and made no end of 
trying all things, insomuch as they have found meanes, and 
forced very poysons to be remedies.” 
The Arabian physicians followed Dioscorides in ee descrip- 
tion and application of this plant, and reject the Hyoscyamus 
niger as a medicinal drug; but this latter has gradually taken 
the place of the white during the last two hundred years, until 
at the present time the Hyoscyamus albus is scarcely known in 
the Dispensatories and Pharmacopqias of modern times. Dr. 
Grey thinks that the Hebenon of Shakespeare, “with juice 
of cursed Hebenon,” was a poetical modification of Henbane. 
That it was considered as a poison in Shakespeare’s time we 
havesu‘ficient evidence. In Drayton’s “ Barons’ Wars,” we have 
“the pois’ning Henbane and the mandrake dread.” It was 
a- belief also, even of the medical professors of that day, that 
poison might be introduced into the system by being poured 
into the ear. Ambrose Paré, the celebrated French surgeon, 
was charged with having administered poison in this way to 
Francis Il. It has also been supposed that Shakespeare’s 
Hebenon is the juice of ebony. (Vide note to Knight’s Shake- 
speare, Hamlet, act i. sc. v.) But the Observations of Pliny, 
as mentioned above, translated by Holland in 1601, and the know- 
ledge that Hyoscyamus will produce an eruption like tetters on 
the skin, would not escape the observation of Shakespeare ; 
hence it may be concluded that “‘ Hebenon” is Henbane. 
_ As a medicine it fell into disuse, until the time of Baron 
Stérck, in 1772, who published several cases of different dis- 
eases, in which an extract prepared from the juice of this plant 
had been found very efficacious. These diseases were, internal 
spasms and convulsions, palpitations of the heart, madness, 
melancholy, epilepsy, inveterate headaches, hemoptysis, and a 
