HELLEBORUS NIGER. 
63 
four to eight, and the capsules or pods, contain many oval, shining, 
blackish seeds ; the leaves are compound, pedated, composed of 
seven leaflets, and stand upon long radical foot-stalks ; each leaflet 
is elliptical, smooth, thick, and serrated towards ihe top. 
Sensible Qualities. The taste of the fresh root is acrid and 
bitter, and of a nauseous smell ; its acrimony, Dr. Grew observes, 
is first felt on the lip of the tongue, and then spreads itself imme- 
diately to the middle, without being much perceived in the inter- 
mediate part. On chewing the roots for a few minutes the tongue 
seems benumbed, and affected with a kind of paralytic stupor, as 
when burnt by eating any thing too hot. The fibres are more acri- 
monious than the head of the root, whence they issue.* By long 
keeping, it loses both its sensible qualities and medicinal activity. 
Orfila ranks the black hellebore among the acrid vegetable poisons :f 
and gives an account of several experiments made with it on dogs, 
from which he draws the following conclusions. That the powder- 
ed root applied to the cellular texture is rapidly absorbed, 
carried into the circulation, and gives rise to violent vomitings, and 
different lesions of the nervous system, which the animals speedily 
sink under, and which seem to bear an analogy to those produced 
by narcotics. That it acts in the same manner when introduced 
into the stomach ; but its effects are slower and less violent, and it 
may even happen that those animals are not destroyed which are 
allowed the power of vomiting, whereas death is the constant result 
of the application of the powdered root to the cellular texture. 
That the poisonous property of the Hellebore, resides in that part 
which is soluble in water. Such are the^conclusions drawn by Orfila 
after some very careful experiments, and which, in connexion with those 
of other writers seem sufficient to establish the black hellebore as 
a certain, though perhaps not a very active poison ; many writers, 
however, consider it a safe and perfectly innocent medicine. But 
it is also to be observed, that several instances are recorded of other 
plants being mistaken for the one of which we are treating; viz. the 
Adonis Vernalis ; Actsea Spicata; Helleborus Viridis ; Veratrum Al- 
bum, or white hellebore ; the Aconitum Neomantanum, &c. The 
last of these is a very virulent poison ; it may be distinguished 
by its roots being nearly globular, and sending out many very brittle 
fibres, of a greyish brown colour, about the thickness of a man's 
finger, and frequently divided. 
* Dr. Grew ou Tastes. Vide Anatomy of Plants, p, 283. 
f Orfila, Toxicology. 
