VERATRUM ALBUM. THE WHITE HELLEBORE. 
Class XXIII. POLYGAMIA.— Order I. MONCECIA. 
Natural Order, MELANTHACEJE. THE COLCHICUM TRIBE. 
White Hellebore is a native of the mountainous districts in most parts of Europe, from Norway to 
Greece, but not of Great Britain. This stately plant, accompanied by the Gentiana lutea, makes a mag- 
nificent appearance in rich pastures on the Alps of Switzerland, where they both grow in the greatest 
abundance. It is a hardy perennial, in our gardens, where it has been cultivated from time immemorial, 
flowering from June to August. 
The root is tuberous, fleshy, brownish externally, and furnished at the base with long, simple, white, 
cylindrical fibres. The stem is from two to four feet high, stout, erect, simple, hairy, and terminating in a 
large branching downy panicle, with alternate spikelets, of innumerable greenish white flowers, having little 
or no scent. The leaves are large, elliptical and entire, surrounding the stem at the base, plaited longitu- 
dinally, smooth, of a fine green colour, the uppermost becoming oblong lanceolate bracteas. The perianth 
consists of six sub-petaloid pieces, of a pale green colour, which are oblong, lanceolate, veined, spreading, 
of a coriaceous texture, and accompanied by an elliptical, lanceolate, downy bractea. The filaments are six, 
closely surrounding the germen, shorter than the corolla, diverging, and terminated by quadrangular anthers ; 
the germens are three in each hermaphrodite flower, oblong, with spreading styles, which are terminated 
with bifid stigmas. The capsules are three, oblong, compressed, 2-celled, bursting at the inner edge, and 
containing many oblong, compressed, imbricated seeds, winged at each end. 
The Green Veratrum (Y. viride ) a North American species, greatly resembles in its foliage and habit 
the White Hellebore, but the panicle is larger and greener, its branches longer and more cylindrical, spiked, 
not racemose, each flower being nearly or quite sessile. The sepals are also broader ; their margins being 
thickened and mealy about the base. The Veratrum nigrum, , or Black Hellebore, agrees with the Veratrum 
album in habit and leaves, but is somewhat taller, and is remarkable for the very dark purplish-brown, 
almost black hue of its flowers, which exhale a faint cadaverous odour. It is a native of dry mountainous 
situations in Siberia, Hungary, Austria and Greece ; flowering in July. 
Qualities and Chemical Properties. — When recent, this root has a disagreeable odour : as 
met with in the shops, scarcely any. To the taste it is acrid, nauseous, and bitter, excoriating the mouth 
and fauces ; while the powder, if applied to wounds, produces effects on the animal economy of a highly 
deleterious nature ; as may be seen by referring to its poisonous effects. If applied to the membrane lining 
the nose, it proves a violent sternutatory. 
On analysis, the root of the Veratrum album yielded to M.M. Pelletier and Caventou, 1. A fatty matter 
composed of oil, adipocire, and an acid similar to the sebacic, but uncrystallizable ; 2. Yellow extractive 
colouring matter; 3. Acid gallate of veratrine ; 4. Gum ; 5. Fecula; 6. Woody fibre; the ashes containing 
carbonates of potass and lime, sulphate of lime and silica. 
It is on the Veratrine that its poisonous effects depend ; and these successful chemists, amongst many 
other brilliant discoveries, have remarked that almost all the individuals of this family of plants exert a 
common action over animals, owing to this principle pervading them. They first analysed the seeds of the 
Veratrum Sabadilla ; isolating the veratrine, in which they recognised all the alkaline characters. They 
ultimately discovered it in the root of Colchicum autumnale, and in that of our plant. 
Etmuller, in the preface to his work on Surgery, states that this root, when applied to the abdomen, 
produces violent vomiting. Van Helmont also says, that a royal prince died in three hours after taking a 
scruple of this poison, which induced convulsions. 
Medical Properties and Uses. — Like most other violent remedies from the vegetable kingdom, 
white hellebore was often employed by the ancients in formidable and obstinate diseases, as mania, melan- 
cholia, dropsies, epilepsy, canine madness, elephantiasis, chronic eruptions, &c. They considered it safer 
when it excited vomiting ; Hippocrates wishing this to be its first effect : and experiments on animals prove 
that they were perfectly correct : as may be seen by referring to Ex. No. 1 and 2 in Orfila’s Toxicology. 
Women and children, the aged and debilitated, and those affected with diseases of the chest, were considered 
as unfit objects for its administration ; and as it is asserted to be capable of affording relief, when no sensible 
evacuation was produced, its violence was generally moderated by other combinations. 
At one time, and that very lately, it was believed by many that the V. album was the active ingredient 
of that celebrated medicine for gout, the Eau Medicinale. Although this opinion appears fallacious, it led 
to its employment in that disease conjoined with opium, and we recollect many years ago to have seen it 
