138 The Black Hellebore. 



manner they blessed their cattle with Hellebore, and kept them 

 free from the spells of the wicked. For these purposes it was 

 dug up with many religious ceremonies, as that of first drawing 

 a circle round the plant with a sword, and then turning down to 

 the East, an humble prayer was made by the devotee to Apollo 

 and Esculapius for leave to dig up the root, and the flight of the 

 eagle was particularly attended to during the ceremony of the 

 rites, it being considered so ominous as to predict the certain 

 death of the person who took up the plant in the course of the 

 year. In digging up the roots of some species of Hellebore, it 

 was thought necessary to eat garlic previously, to counteract 

 the poisonous effluvia of the plant ; yet we find that the root was 

 afterwards dried and pounded to dust, and snuffed up in the 

 nostrils in the manner of snuff, as it is related that when Car- 

 neades undertook to answer the books of Zeno, he sharpened his 

 wit and quickened his spirit by purging his head with powdered 

 Hellebore. 



Notwithstanding the great reverence with which the ancients 

 regarded this plant, it was considered by most of their writers as 

 a rough medicine ; and as many people are in the habit of giv- 

 ing the powders of Hellebore to their children for the worms, we 

 shall show its dangerous properties by mentioning the case of 

 Martyn : — " Some years ago, when the ground was covered with 

 a deep snow, a flock of sheep in Oxmead, near Fulborn, in Eng- 

 land, finding nothing but this herb above the snow, ate plenti- 

 fully of it. They soon appeared terribly out of order, and most 

 of them died, a few being saved by timely giving them some 

 oil, which made them cast up this herb. I went to the spot, and 

 as he pointed out the herb that poisoned them, I found it to be 

 the species of Hellebore called Niger Fcetidus"— our common 

 Bear's Foot, which is also a European herb, deriving its name 

 from the offensive odor it exhales. This is the most acrid species 

 in the genus ; the leaves are the portion used, and although these 

 are milder than the foot-stalks, yet when given to children, as we 

 mentioned before, for worms, the most violent and distressing 

 effects, sometimes terminating in death itself, ensue. In the 

 hands of science it is hard to manage. It may be given either 

 in powder or decoction. The dose for a child of from three to 

 six or seven years old, is from five grains to a scruple of the 

 dried leaves, or half a wine glass op a tea made by boiling a 



