Poisonous Effects and Morbid Appearances. — That Hellebore is a violently acrid poison, the 
subjoined accounts will prove. 
Experiments on animals have shown, that when administered in doses of two or three drachms to 
dogs, death ensues in the course of sixteen or eighteen hours. Smaller animals are killed by its exhibition 
in much less time: for example, ten grains of the extract introduced into the windpipe of a rabbit destroyed 
life in six minutes. But with this, as with many other poisons, the effects are greater when applied to 
serous surfaces and inserted into wounds, than when taken into the stomach. 
“Six grains of powdered hellebore were sprinkled over a wound made in the interior of the thigh of a 
small young dog. There was no visible symptoms at the expiration of eight hours. The next day, twenty 
hours after the operation, the animal was lying down upon his side, and in a state of great dejection ; he 
was quite sensible to external impressions: he could be moved like an inert mass of matter, and could not 
by any means keep himself on his legs. He died three hours after. No sensible lesion was perceived in 
the digestive canal, or in the lungs.” — Orfila. 
Morgagni has recorded a case in which although but half a drachm of the extract was taken, it had a 
fatal termination in sixteen hours. The post mortem examination showed inflammation of the digestive 
canal, especially of the large intestines ; and similar appearances were found in two cases in which this plant 
had been administered, through the presumptuous ignorance of a quack-doctor. The chief facts are as fol- 
lows : — as communicated by M. Ferary to the Society Medicale d’Emulation at Paris. 
“ Two persons took a decoction of this root in cyder. Three quarters of an hour after taking it, 
alarming symptoms were developed, without exciting suspicion of the real cause. One of the men, there- 
fore, took another dose, when vomiting, delirium, horrible contortions, accompanied with immediate coldness 
supervened, and death at last ensued. On dissection, sixteen hours afterwards, the appearances in each 
were found precisely similar, except that in the one who took the largest quantity they were more strongly 
marked. The lungs were gorged with blood. The mucous membrane of the stomach was considerably in- 
flamed, of a blackish brown colour, and reduced almost to a gangrenous state.”* 
In some cases the stomach and intestines, but particularly the rectum, are highly inflamed, — a circum- 
stance which will be observed in those who have died from taking the Colchicum autumnale, that thus, in 
its poisonous effects, very much resembles black hellebore. Slight congestions have also been noticed in the 
lungs, and the bladder has been observed to be red and thickened. 
“ A man, who appeared to be nearly fifty years old, being in the hospital on account of melancholia, 
was about to depart, when he took some extract of black hellebore. In the beginning of the night, at the 
seventh or eighth hour after taking it, he was attacked with sickness and pains of the abdomen, which were 
allayed by warm broth. About the fifth hour of the night, those affections returned, and again appeared to 
be relieved. He lay down an hour afterwards, having vomited two or three spoonsful of a greenish matter. 
So quietly did he then rest, that none of the patients in the nearest beds heard him ; but at the eighth hour, 
they were attracted to his bedside by a peculiar noise from his mouth ; and found him dead. He had taken 
about half a drachm of the extract; a quantity which had been administered to others with impunity. He 
had, however, neglected to drink copiously of whey ; a precaution it was customary to recommend. 
Medical Properties and Uses. — Before the grand discoveries which chemistry has made on the 
properties of metallic substances, the most violent vegetable medicines were boldly administered, and this 
plant has been highly extolled by Avicenna, Gesner, Klien, Milman, and others, in mania, dropsy, cutaneous 
diseases, and worms. As an emmenagogue, it is occasionally given with success ; but this property, as well 
as its hydragogue virtues, are reasonably supposed to depend on its powerful cathartic effects : effects which 
it sometimes exerts so violently, as to be seldom prescribed; and were it expunged from the list of our 
materia medica, we could easily fill up the vacancy by indigenous plants of greater utility. The slender 
fibres of the root only are used. To produce its full effect as a purgative, the dose should be from ten grains 
to a scruple ; but it is very seldom prescribed in substance. The most common form is that of decoction, 
made with two drachms of the root to a pint of water. Of this an ounce or more is given every three or 
four hours. The extract which is made by evaporating the decoction to a due consistence, is the basis of 
Bacher’s celebrated hydragogue pills, composed of extract of black hellebore, myrrh, and powdered carduus 
benedictus, in the proportion of half a drachm of the first two ingredients, and five grains of the last, beat 
into a mass, and made into pills, each weighing a single grain. These pills, which formerly obtained a place 
in our Pharmacopoeias, in doses from one to six, three or four times a day, were strongly recommended on 
the continent in dropsical cases, and were believed to unite an evacuant and tonic power. Hence they were 
supposed particularly adapted to those cases where general debility and relaxation of the system occur. 
Under the hands of their inventor, they acquired so great reputation, that after a trial in the military 
hospitals of Paris, the receipt was purchased by the French king, and published by authority. But like 
many other nostrums, since their composition became knowm, Bacher’s pill has by no means supported the 
reputation which it had when kept a secret. 
Dose. — The dose of extract is from grs. iij. to 9j; of the tincture from gtt xxx. to 3j. every six hours, 
in a mucilaginous vehicle. 
Off. Prep. — Extractum Hellebori Nigri, E.D. Tinctura Hellebori Nigri, L.E.D. olirn. Tinctura 
Melampodii. 
* Beck’s Elements of Medical Jurisprudence- 
