168 
ON BLACK HliLLEBORE. 
writers was given in honour of a shepherd by the name 6( 
Melampiis, who administered the drug to the daughters of 
Proetus. ♦ 
Medical Effects. — Black hellebore is a powerful irri- 
tant; if applied externally in the fresh state, it produces 
rubefaclion and vesication ; taken internally, it nauseates, 
vomits, and produces more or less purgative action upon 
the bowels. Even when given in moderate doses, it is harsh 
and drastic in its effects, and is generally regarded as unsafe 
in this way. Orfila found in animals that it produced in- 
flammation of the stomach, and insensibility and paralysis 
of the nervous system, followed by death. [Tax. Gen.) Its 
use at the present time is as an emmenagogue ; as such it 
was recommended by Dr. Mead» It produces a stimulating 
impression upon the pelvic organs. Details with respect to 
the different modes of operating, according to the dose or 
the disease in which it has been employed, would be out 
of place in this essay. We may, however, present the 
summary of Bergius, with respect to the difference in modes 
of action, depending upon the freshness or otherwise of the 
drug. "Virtue of the recent, poisonous, rubefacient, vesi- 
catant ; of the recently dried, emetic, purgative, emme- 
nagogue, antiphthiriac, sternutatory; ofMhat long kept, 
scarcely purgative, alterative and drastic." The reputa- 
tion possessed among the ancients by hellebore, was princi- 
pally in connection with its use in mania ; and as it grew 
abundantly in Anticyra, that island was classically famous 
for its cures, hence (he figurative reference which is fre- 
quently met with. Horace, in referring avarice to a species 
of insanity, thus satyrically alludes to hellebore and its piace 
of growth: 
' Danda est ellebori multo pars maxima avaris 
Nescio an Anticyram ratio ill is destiriet omnem. 
Prepakations. — Two preparations are officinal, the 
Tincture and Extract of the U. S. Pharmacopoeia. With 
regard to them, Mr. Procter has furnished the following 
note: 
