308 
American  Helenicce. 
J  Am.  Jour.  Pbarm. 
\    July  1, 18T2. 
About  thirty  species  are  recorded  of  the  genus,  all  natives  of  the 
Cape  Colony,  and  the  flowers  are  mostly  yellow  or  purple,  always 
turning  black  in  drying. — Pharm.  Journ.,  Lond.,  May  11,  1872. 
AMERICAN  HELEN JCiE  (SNEEZE  WEEDS  ) 
By  J.  M.  Bigelow,  M.  D. 
Bead  before  the  Detroit  Academy  of  Medicine,  Feb.  27,  1872. 
1.  Helenium  autumnale^  Linn. — Grows  all  over  the  United  States, 
from  Maine  to  Florida,  Texas,  New  Mexico,  California  and  Oregon. 
In  part  3  of  the  United  States  Dispensatory,  Wood  and  Bache  speak 
of  it  as  being  a  good  sternutatory.  Rafinesque,  in  his  Medical  Flora, 
giving  an  account  of  the  plant,  says  it  is  tonic,  febrifuge  and  errhine, 
and,  on  the  authority  of  Clayton  and  Schoepf,  says  it  has  been  used 
in  intermittents.  Prof.  Diesbaeh,  of  Heidelberg,  ranks  it  among  the 
febrifuges.  It  is  known  and  employed  all  over  the  country  as  a  val- 
uable errhine.  The  whole  plant,  reduced  to  a  powder,  acts  as  such, 
but  the  flowers,  especially  the  central  florets,  are  more  powerful.  Dr. 
Benj.  Barton,  of  Philadelphia,  has  highly  extolled  it  as  a  substitute 
for  the  more  acrid  errhines,  either  alone  or  united  with  other  ingredi- 
ents. It  may  be  used  in  diseases  of  the  head,  deafness,  amaurosis, 
headache,  hemicrania,  rheumatism  and  congestion  of  the  head  and 
jaws.  The  shocks  of  sneezing  are  often  useful  in  these  cases  when 
other  remedies  hardly  avail.    Cattle  never  eat  it. 
2.  Helenium  parviflorum,  Nutt. — Found  in  Georgia  and  probably 
in  other  Southern  States.  It  is  a  very  distinct  and  well  marked  spe- 
cies, but  scarcely  bitter  to  the  taste. 
3.  Helenium  tenuifolium,  Nutt.— Fields  and  roadsides  of  Missis- 
sippi, Louisiana  and  Arkansas,  where  it  is  a  common  and  troublesome- 
weed.  According  to  Dr.  Hale,  it  imparts  a  bitter  taste  to  the  milk 
of  cows  that  feed  upon  it.  The  plant  is  also  found  in  Texas,  New 
Mexico  and  Sonora.  It  is  the  plant  referred  to  by  Drs.  Galloway 
and  Lewis,  of  Kosciusko,  Miss.  That  it  possesses  powerful  poisonous 
properties  will  appear  from  their  statements,  which  we  take  the  lib- 
erty of  adopting  in  their  own  words.    Dr.  Galloway  says  : 
"  The  first  effect  that  is  observable  after  a  horse  or  mule  has  swal- 
lowed a  bit  of  the  weed,  is  a  twitching  of  the  eyes  and  a  dodging  of 
the  head,  as  if  to  avoid  some  imaginary  blow.  I  suppose  this  to  be 
caused  by  flashes  of  light  or  some  similar  disturbance  of  the  vision. 
