Chap. 25.] 
HELLEEOBE. 
101 
the patient going without his evening meal the previous day. 
"White hellebore, too, is administered in a sweet medium, 
though lentils or pottage are found to be the best for the pur- 
pose. There has been a plan also, lately discovered, of splitting 
a radish, and inserting the hellebore in it, after which the 
sections are pressed together ; the object being that the strength 
of the hellebore may be incorporated with the radish, and mo- 
dified thereby. 
At the end of about four hours it generally begins to be 
brought up again ; and within seven it has operated to the full 
extent. Administered in this manner, it is good for epilepsy, 
as already^*' stated, vertigo, melancholy, insanity, delirium, 
white elephantiasis, leprosy, tetanus, palsy, gout, dropsy, in- 
cipient tympanitis, stomachic affections, cynic spasms,^^ sciatica, 
quartan fevers which defy all other treatment, chronic coughs, 
flatulency, and recurrent gripings in the bowels. 
CHAP. 25. TO WHAT PEESONS HELLEBOEE SHOULD JTEVER JJE 
ADMINISTERED. 
It is universally recommended not to give hellebore to aged 
people or children, to persons of a soft and effeminate habit of 
body or mind, or of a delicate or tender constitution. It is given 
less frequently too to females than to males ; and persons of a 
timorous disposition are recommended not to take it : the same 
also, in cases where the viscera are ulcerated or tumefied, and 
more particularly when the patient is afflicted with spitting of 
blood, or with maladies of the side or fauces. Hellebore is ap- 
plied, too, externally, with salted axle- grease, to morf)id eruptions 
of the body and suppurations of long standing : mixed with 
polenta, it destroys rats and mice. The people of Gaul, when 
hunting, tip their arrows with hellebore, taking care to cut 
away the parts about the wound in the animal so slain : the 
flesh, they say, is all the more tender for it. Flies are destroyed 
with white hellebore, bruised and sprinkled about a place with 
milk : phthiriasis is also cured by the use of this mixture. 
This he has stated to be attended with danger, in the case of black 
hellebore, should the dose be too strong. 
20 In c. 21 of this Book. 
^ 2' Twitchings of the mouth, which cause the patient to show his teeth, 
like a dog. 
