216 FLOWERS OF WASTE PLACES, ETC. 



Loaves-of-bread is a child's name for the fruit. 



" Hunting from the stackyard sod 

 The stinking Henbane's belted pod 

 By youth's warm fancies sweetly led, 

 To christen them his Loaves of Bread." 



Ben Jonson includes it in the list of witches' potions. If a hare be 

 sprinkled with its juice in Piedmont, they say all the other hares will 

 be scared away as if by some invisible power. Gerarde says: "The 

 root boiled with vinegar, and the same holden hot in the mouth, easeth 

 the pain of the teeth. The seed is used by mountebank tooth drawers, 

 which run about the country to cause worms to come forth of the teeth 

 by burning it in a Chafing-dish of coles, the party holding his mouth 

 over the fume thereof; but some crafty companions to gain money, 

 convey small lute-strings into the water, persuading the patient that 

 those small creepers came out of his mouth or other parts which he 

 intended to cure." 



Leonato reproaches Don Pedro in Much Ado About Nothing for 

 sighing for the toothache, which, he adds, " is but a tumour or a worm". 

 The same notion is met with in Germany, where they say: 



" Pear Tree, I complain to thee, 

 Three worms sting me ". 



In the same region it is held to attract rain and to produce sterility. 

 Perhaps it is referred to in Macbeth: 



" Have we eaten of the same root 

 That takes the reason prisoner ". 



Another writer says: 



" Henbane, insane, mad, for the use thereof is perillous, for if it be 

 eate or drinke it breedeth madnesse, or slowe lyknesse of sleepe". 



It formed with opium the drug Dwale in mediaeval times. It 

 induces sleep, and was used for operations before modern anaesthetics 

 were discovered. The seeds were heated in a tile, and the vapour 

 inhaled for the toothache or "worm in the teeth ". It is narcotic, and 

 used for coughs, epilepsy, and convulsions. The leaves have been 

 smoked for the toothache. It is an anodyne and antispasmodic. 



ESSENTIAL SPECIFIC CHARACTERS: 



225. Hyoscyamus niger, L. Stem erect, branched, leaves large, 

 hairy, viscid, oblong, clasping, flowers yellow, with purple veins, 

 drooping, fruit enclosed in enlarged calyx, erect, plant poisonous. 



