42 POISONOUS PLANTS 



in the Fetid Hellebore. The corolla is wanting, 

 but represented by a number of little honey-tubes. 

 There are many stamens and about three carpels, 

 which become pod-like follicles when ripe. 



Both of our native species are powerfully cathartic, 

 and so acquired an early reputation as remedies 

 for certain complaints. Irregular practitioners 

 have employed them with fatal results, issuing 

 from violent internal inflammation. Thus a child 

 died after taking two dessert-spoonfuls of the 

 infusion of the Fetid Hellebore. 



Several cases are known of adults having been 

 poisoned by taking it as a cathartic medicine. 



Besides human beings, cows have died from 

 eating the trimmings of the Fetid Hellebore mixed 

 with other herbage when thrown out from a shrub- 

 bery into the field where they were. 



Christmas-rose {H. niger) has long been 

 cultivated as a garden plant, and was formerly used 

 medicinally; but it has been discarded from the 

 Pharmacopoeia as too uncertain and dangerous in 

 its action. Human beings have only been injured 

 by the ill-advised and careless use of the plant 

 as a drug, especially by unqualified practitioners. 

 The roots are said to possess the greatest activity ; 

 but the leaves are also poisonous when used in the 

 form of an infusion. Half-a-drachm of the aqueous 

 extract killed a man aged fifty in eight hours. 



Numerous other cases besides the above, taken 



