202 
Selected Articles. 
ART. LXIV. OBSERVATIONS ON THE MEDICAL PROPERTIES OF 
THE VERATRUM VIRIDE. By Charles Osgood, M. D. of Providence, 
Rhode Island. 
Some of the popular names of this plant are American hel- 
lebore, swamp hellebore, Indian poke, Indian Uncas, poke 
weed, bear weed, itch weed, tickle weed. Beside these, there 
are others of a more local character, and of those already 
enumerated, there are several which are equally applied to 
other plants, It is indigenous — found in almost every part of 
the United States, the product of swamps and wet meadows — 
top annual, and root perennial. It appears early in the spring, 
and is one of the first plants which attract our notice at the 
commencement of returning vegetation. It is often found 
associated with the Ictodes fatidus, particularly on the mar- 
gin of small streams in low boggy lands. Both require the 
same soil, and grow with equal luxuriance. Its flowering sea- 
son in the northern and middle states is in June; in the south- 
ern as early as May. This plant in its botanical characters 
is closely allied to the Veratrum album or white hellebore, a 
distinguished medicinal plant found in most countries of Eu- 
rope. Its botanical description is fully given in most of our 
works upon that subject. The root, the part employed in 
medicine, is bulbous, the upper portion tunicated like an 
onion, the lower half solid, sending forth a large number of 
strong, whitish radicles. This root has a strong acrimonious 
taste, leaving its pungency in the mouth and faucus a consi- 
derable time after being masticated. The decoction, though 
intensely bitter, is less acrimonious than the root in substance. 
The proper time for collecting this, as well as most other 
medicinal roots, is in the fall of the year, after the decay of 
the top. Its medicinal properties are then most active, and 
appear to be the most permanent. When kept over more than 
one season, its active properties become impaired ; it should 
therefore be gathered every year, and preserved in a dry 
place. 
