/ 
476 ORD. XXVI. Multisilique. HELLEBORUS NIGER. 
is now almost entirely abandoned.£ At present it is looked upon 
chiefly as an alterative, and in this light is frequently employed 
in small doses for attenuating viscid humours, promoting the 
“uterine and urinary discharges, and opening inveterate obstruc- 
tions of the remoter glands:* it often proves a very powerful 
emmenagogue in plethoric habits, where steel is ineffectual, or 
improper." It is also recommended in dropsies,* and some 
cutaneous dliseases.* The watery extract of this root, made after 
the manner directed in the pharmacopceias, is one of the best and 
safest preparations of it,’ when designed for a cathartic, as it 
contains both the purgative and diuretic parts of the Hellebore; 
it may be given in a dose from ten grains to a scruple, or more. 
A tincture of this drug is also ordered in the pharmacopezias, 
which is preferred for the purposes of an alterative and de- 
‘ obstruent; of which a tea-spoonful twice a day may be considered 
as a common dose. 
* Whether our Hellebore be the same species as that said to grow in the island 
of Anticyra, and about Mount Olympus, so frequently alluded to by the Latin 
oets, is no easy matter to determine. F rom the accounts of Tournefort and 
Bellontus, who botanized these places, a species of this plant was found in great 
plenty, which the former supposes to be the Hellebore of Hippocrates; it differs 
from the species here figured, by having a large branched stem, and also by its 
effects, for he found that a scruple of the extract brought on violent spasms and 
convulsions. Many plants however are known to vary as much by a removal 
from their native soil and climate. 
® Duncan’s Ed. New Dispensatery. Lewis’s Mat. Med. 
* Mead, (mon. et prec. med, p. 138) speaks of it as the most potent of all 
emmenagogues; but Home (clin. exper, & hist. p. 836) and Pasta (Dissertaz. 
mediche sopra i mestrui delle Donne, p. 192 found it often successful. 
* By Avicenna, Gesner, Klein, Milman, and Bacher whose famous fontc pills 
are “y prepared: Ext. Helleb, Nig. Myrrhe Solute aa 3j pulv. Card. bened. 
3iij M. F. s. a. Massa aére sicco exsiccanda, donec formandis pilulis apta sit, 
singul. ad gran, semiss. * In the lepra Grecorum. Vide Areteus Oper. ed 
Boerh. p. 136. Schmidel Diss. de lepra in Haller’s collect. Disp. pract. T. 6. p. 
$3. And Hildanus mentions the case of a girl who was cured of an obstinate 
scabies of the face by this extract. l. c. ' The irritating power of its active 
matter Leing considerably abated ” the boiling. Lewis’s M. M. 
