108 ORD. VI. Umbellate. CONIUM MACULATUM. 
publication in 1760; and his claim to this distinction is the stronger, 
as his facts only have since’ been able to support its reputation to 
any very considerable extent; nay it never succeeded so well as 
when under his own direction, or confined to the neighbourhood in 
which he resided,“ and to the practice of those physicians with 
whom he lived in habits of intimacy and friendship.* To enumerate 
all the diseases. in which he sets forth the powerful efficacy of 
Cicuta, in four successive books on the subject, would be to give 
a catalogue of most of the chronic diseases with which human 
nature is afflicted. And Bergius, though he experienced no 
advantage by employing it in true cancerous affections, _ still 
recommends its use in “ Ulcera sordida & siphilitica, Scabies, 
Morbi cutis, Gonorrhoea, Leucorhoea, Phthisis, Impotentia virilis, 
Rheumatismus chronicus, Scrophula;” and he considers its Virtus 
to be “ narcotica, resolvens, suppurationem promovens, diuretica.” 
To estimate with precision the medicinal utility of Hemlock is no 
very easy task. Had Dr. Stéerck’s publications upon this subject 
contained but few and less extraordinary proofs of its good effects 
in certain obstinate and painful diseases, the virtues of Se might 
have been held in greater estimation than they actually are:' while 
those authors, who have as generally condemned this medicine as 
uniformly useless or dangerous, seem to have done it equal 
* The general inefficacy of Hemlock experienced in this country, induced 
physicians at first to suppose that this plant, in the environs of Vienna and Berlin, 
differed widely from ours, and this being stated to Dr. Stoerck, he sent a quantity 
of the extract, prepared by himself, to London, but this was found to be equally 
unsuccessful, and to differ in no respect from the English extract. 
* Collin, Locher, Quarin, Leber, &c. 
' That it should be of some estimation in many of the diseases, in which it is” 
recommended by Stoerck, appears from the numerous authorities cited by Murray, 
_ who concludes with these words: ‘+ Et sic quidem in multis ‘pertinacissimis 
PEE spissa, obstructa reserandi et sanguinem depurandi, eflicacia auxilio 
uit. c 
