390 HEMLOCK. 



writers, assert that it has just the opposite quality. Avicenna* 

 recommended a plaister of it for resolving tumours of the testes 

 and female breast, and for preventing the coagulation of milk in 

 the latter. It is chiefly, however, to the enterprising Baron 

 Storckf that we are indebted for a knowledge of the therapeutical 

 effects of this important plant, and though some of his state- 

 ments are doubtless exaggerated, many of them have been 

 confirmed. He employed it in various indurations of the 

 viscera, scirrhus, ulcers, tumours, cataract, gout, diseased bone, 

 syphilis, leucorrhoea, jaundice, phthisis, &c. Although British 

 practitioners have not found it equal to the cure of cancer, it has 

 proved very efficacious in allaying the pain and correcting the 

 fetid discharge from cancerous sores ; also in chronic rheuma- 

 tism, glandular swellings, and various fixed and periodical pains. 

 Dr. Bigelow;}; speaks highly of its effects in jaundice, and in 

 some cases of tic doloureux. 



As a sedative it is a good substitute for, or adjunct to, opium, 

 relieving the irritability of the system in cancer, and procuring 

 sleep in many nervous diseases. In hooping-cough, combined 

 with ipecacuanha, it is a valuable remedy ; likewise, in the pro- 

 tracted coughs which supervene to pleurisy and other affections 

 of the chest ; and in phthisis, either alone or combined with ipe- 

 cacuanha or sulphate of zinc, it will allay the irritability of the 

 lungs, and mitigate the suflferings of the patient. Like 

 other powerful medicines, it acts very differently on some in- 

 dividuals, in consequence of idiosyncrasy, and instead of afford- 

 ino" relief, produces dimness of the eyes, giddiness, singing in 

 the ears, head-ache, and even convulsions. 



The powder of the leaves properly dried is the bes-t form of 

 administering Hemlock, until some mode of attaining uniformity 

 in the preparation of the extract be discovered. The commencing 

 dose is two or three grains, gradually increased until slight 

 vertigo forbids us to proceed. " Hufeland recommends the 

 fresh expressed juice, from twelve to sixty drops for a dose." § 



* Canon. Med., ed. F. Paulinus, torn. i. lib. ii. cap. 669. See also PHnii 

 Hist, lib.xxvi. c. 22. Lemery, in Ehrhart Diss, de Cicuta, § 11. 



f Libellus de Cicuta, 1 & 2. — Supplementum. — Libellus quo contin. 

 exper. passim. 



+ American Med. Botany, vol. i. pt. ii. p. 120. 



§ Thomson's Dispensatory, p. 302. 



