6 
IIELLEBORUS FCETIDUS. 
promote counter-irritation in intestinal inflammation. It is em- 
ployed by the farriers of the olden days for the cure of poll-evil ; 
and it has found advocates in these modern days both at the 
College and in the country ; but it is a dangerous edge tool, and I 
would caution young practitioners against its general adoption, and 
advise them to trust more in these cases to the free use of the 
knife and washing the parts well with the solutions of metallic 
salts, particularly the oxymuriate of mercury. 
In respect to the deleterious effects of the leaves of the stinking 
hellebore as an anthelmintic, a case came under my observation 
a short time ago, where a gentleman, from his horse not carrying 
condition, gave it three half-pints of the leaves chopped small, and, 
after being digested in some water, mingled in a bran mash. 
This the animal took the first night without any perceptible incon- 
venience ; he, therefore, on the second night administered similarly 
two half pints. The following morning they found the animal very 
ill from violent inflammation of the mucous membranes of the 
bowels, accompanied with constant and violent tenesmus, and a 
constant discharge of frothy mucous ; but there was no effort to 
vomit, its effects being more concentrated upon the large intes- 
tines. We did not see it till eleven o’clock A.M., when we found 
the vital powers fast sinking, and it died shortly after. 
I consider the use of hellebore root for pegging calves and 
cows as often fraught with danger, where animals are of bad habit 
of body, from its tendency to produce erysipelas and gangrenous 
inflammation. 1 recollect a case where an ox, belonging to the 
Right Hon. Earl Talbot, had been pegged with the hellebore 
root. The animal being in high condition, it brought on most exten- 
sive inflammation of a chronic character in this instance, the swel- 
ling occupying, when I was called in, the upper part of the front of 
the neck, down to below the point of the sternum, the wound pre- 
senting a yellow sloughing appearance, accompanied with a foetid 
discharge. I was not aware at the time of the hellebore root hav- 
ing been employed ; but, fortunately for my patient, I adopted an 
antiphlogistic treatment, under which, with fomentations and mild 
applications to the part affected, the inflammation subsided, the 
sloughs came out, and a healthy granulating action ensued. Had 
I mistaken the indication of cure, and given ale and bark, my 
patient would very soon have been placed hors de combat. 
The veratrum album, or white hellebore, belongs to Class 3d, po- 
lygamia ; Order , 1st monsecia. 
well as for the cure of murrain. It is hardly necesssary to add, it is an ope- 
ration —among some others practised in olden days — of little account or effi- 
cacy, and such as a scientific practitioner of the present day would scarcely 
think of resorting to. — Ed. Yet. 
