THORN APPLE, 26l 



of several other deleterious plants which we have had occasion to 

 notice, was first ventured upon and recommended by Baron Stoerck, 

 who gave an extract prepared of the expressed juice of the plant, 

 with advantage, in cases of mania, epilepsy, and some other con- 

 vulsive affections. But as the success of this plant, even in the 

 hands of the Baron, was not remarkable enough to claim very 

 extraordinary praise, his account of the efficacy of the stramonium 

 probably would not have procured it a place in the Materia Medica 

 of the Edinburgh Pharmacopoeia, had its character rested solely 

 upon his representation. Odhelius tells us, that of fourteen patients 

 suffering under epileptic and convulsive affections, to whom he gave 

 the stramonium in an hospital at Stockholm, eight were completely 

 cured, five were relieved, and only one received no benefit. Bergius 

 relates three cases of its success, viz. one of mania, and two of con- 

 vulsions. Reef, a Swedish physician, mentions its utility in two 

 cases of mania. Wedenberg cured four girls, affected with convul- 

 sive complaints, by the use of this medicine. Other instances of 

 the kind might be added. Greding, however, who made many 

 experiments, with a view to ascertain the efficacy of this plant, was 

 not so successful ; for out of the great number of cases in which he 

 employed the stramonium, it was only in one instance that it 

 effected a cure ; and he objects to the cases stated by Dr. Odhelius, 

 on the ground that the patients were dismissed before sufficient 

 time was allowed to know whether the disease would return again 

 or not. In this couutry we are unacquainted with any practitioners 

 whose experience tends to throw any light on the medical character 

 of this plant. It appears to us, that its effects as a medicine are to 

 be referred to no other power than that of a narcotic : and Dr. 

 Cullen, speaking on this subject, says, " I have no doubt that nar- 

 cotics may be a remedy in certain cases of mania and epilepsy ; but 

 1 have not, and I doubt if any other person has, learned to distin- 

 guish the cases to which such remedies are properly adapted. It 

 is therefore that we find the other narcotics, as well as the stramo- 

 nium, to fail in the same hands in which they had in other cases 

 seeemed to succeed. It is this consideration that has occasioned my 

 neglecting the use of stramonium, and therefore prevented me from 

 speaking more precisely from my own experience on this subject." 

 The extract of this plant has been the preparation usually em- 

 ployed, and from one to ten grains and upwards, a day ; but the 



S3 



