CLASS V. ORDEft I.] HYOSCYAMUS, 277 



The whole plant is poisonous, with the exception, according to 

 Smith, of the seeds, which abound in oil, and he says he has eaten 

 them with impunity when a youth. This appears, however, from the 

 accounts of some authors, to want confirmation, and that they are 

 poisonous, but in a diminished degree. Dr. Archibald Hamilton 

 has described (in the Edin. Pkijs. and Lit. Essays, vol. ii. p. 268.) 

 the case of a young medical student, who took about twenty-five 

 grains ot the seeds, he was seized in half au hour with lassitude and 

 somnolency, and successively with dryness of the throat, impeding 

 deglutition, convulsive movements of the arms, incoherency, total 

 insensibility of the skin, and loss of recollection. These symptoms 

 continued about twelve hours, and then slowly receded. From which 

 ir will seem that the seeds are not to be taken with impunity, but are 

 dangerous, as the rest of the plant. Other cases of a similar result 

 are on record, and we find in PyVs Magazine the case of two boys, a 

 few minutes after eating the seeds, were attacked with convulsions and 

 heat in the throat; one of them, who could not be made to vomit, died 

 in the course of twelve hours. The seeds and capsules smoked like 

 tobacco, are a favourite remedy with some people for the cure of the 

 tooth-ache ; but if relief is to be obtained by this means, the leaves 

 will be found better to answer the purpose. The roots are equally as 

 poisonous as the rest of the plant ; Ovfila, indeed, says they are more 

 so, but vary in their activity at different seasons of the year. Mr. 

 Wilmer, in his Treatise on the Poisonous Vegetables of Great Britain, 

 has given an account of six persons of one family who were poisoned 

 by eating the cooked roots for dinner of hyoscyamus, by mistake for 

 those of parsnips. Some of them were delirious, and danced about 

 the room like maniacs; one had the appearance of being drunk, and 

 one woman became profoundly and irrecoverably comatose. Emetics 

 could not be swallowed, stimulating injections had no effect, the appli- 

 cation of various external stimulants failed to rouse her, and she 

 expired the following morning. 



The symptoms produced by an over dose of the plant, are giddiness 

 and stupour, insensible eye, and dilated pupil, difficulty of breathing, 

 frequently locked jaw and distorted features, the pulse small and 

 intermittent, with coldness and palsy of the extremities. Emptying 

 the stomach of its contents, either by means of the stomach pump, or 

 by emetics, afterwards administering purgatives,and laxative injections, 

 and giving the patient vinegar and water, are the means found to give 

 relief, and restoration speedily follows. 



Medicinally henbane is used either in the form of extract or tincture, 

 and in doses of from two to six grains of the former, and from twenty 

 to sixty drops of the latter, usually inducing pleasant sleep, and may 

 be administered in all cases where opium is indicated, frequently pro- 

 ducing the desired effect, without the unpleasantness which opium 



