( 383 ) 
On the Poisonous Properties of Hemlock, and its Alkaloid Conia. 
By Roserr Curistison, M. D., F.R.S. E., Professor of Ma- 
teria Medica in the University of Edinburgh. 
(Read th December 1835.) 
Few poisons are of greater interest, in a historical or scienti- 
fic point of view, than Hemlock. It has been known ever since 
the most classic periods of antiquity, being generally believed to 
have been the zwvaov of NicanDER and Tueorurastvus, and com- 
monly thought to have been the poison with which state-crimi- 
nals were despatched in ancient Athens. Since that period it 
has occupied a prominent place in all works on Toxicology ; and 
it has been immemorially familiar as a deadly poison to the vul- 
gar in every part of Europe, where there is scarcely a country or 
even a province which does not produce it in abundance. For 
nearly a century, too, since the writings of Baron S'rorcx of Vi- 
enna in 1762, it has been constantly in the hands of the physi- 
cian as a remedy, and has been currently employed at different 
times in the treatment of some of the most common, as well as in 
some of the most malignant, of all the maladies to which the hu- 
man body is liable. 
To its importance, as thus indicated, the attention which it 
has received from scientific men, and more especially from the 
chemist and the physiologist, has been by no means commensu- 
rate. There is scarcely a chemical analysis of hemlock worth 
mentioning till Grszxz, in 1827, succeeded in concentrating its 
active properties in a compound with sulphuric acid, of such en- 
ergy, that two grains killed a small animal in fifty-five minutes ;* 
* Journal de Pharmacie, xiii. 266; or, Archiv des Apothekervereins in Nérd- 
lichen Deutschland, xx. 97. 
6 
