406 



WATER-HEMLOCK. 



such should occur, the treatment recommended under Water- 

 Dropwort, Nightshade, or Hemlock, is to be followed. 



Medicinal Properties and Uses. — The properties of this 

 plant as an internal remedy, can scarcely be said to have been 

 essayed by any practitioner, although both as a poison and a 

 therapeutical agent, an investigation of its powers would be 

 not less useful than interesting*. It is presumed to be 

 analogous to the Conium, or Common Hemlock, and still more 

 energetic in its effects than that vegetable, for which, indeed, 

 it is substituted in the Danish Pharmacopoeia. We have se- 

 veral accounts of its empirical use externally. Thus in an ende- 

 mic disease prevalent in Westphalia, called Varen> resembling 

 wandering gout, in which abscesses are formed, a cataplasm of 

 the root has been applied with success f . The Siberians use it 

 in the same form as a remedy for venereal herpes ; and in pains 

 affecting the back and ischiadic region, they rub the part with 

 the bruised root, taking great care not to touch the spine, lest the 

 malady should be aggravated \. In the same manner the Kam- 

 schatdales use it in lumbago, by rubbing the affected part before 

 the fire §. In Norway also, it is used as an external remedy 

 for gouty pains 1 1. 



* Bergius, (Mat. Med. i. p. 214,) has the following account of his expe- 

 rience with it. " I have never exhibited the Cicuta in its recent state, 

 but I have given pills made of the expressed and inspissated juice, and the 

 powdered leaves to a female labouring under cancer of the breast. I began 

 with a small dose, which was gradually increased to three drachms daily, 

 but no sensible effect was produced. I prescribed for another person a 

 saturated decoction of the dried herb to be applied externally ; he by mis- 

 take drank the whole, amounting to four pints, within two hours, 

 but experienced no ill effects." From this it is evident that the dried 

 plant is effete, and if any good effect is obtained it must be from the fresh 

 root, or its milky juice. 



f Wyer in Smetii Miscell. Med. lib. iv. p. 240. 



$ Gmelin Fl. Siber, torn. i. p. 202. 



§ Hist, of Kamschatka, p. 220. 



|| Gunner, /. c. 



