OCR Text |
Show 184 HENBANE, tract in the dose of one grain or two; but Dr. Cullen observes, that he seldomdiscovered its anodyne effects till he had proceeded to doses of eight or ten grains, and sometimes to fifteen, and even to twenty. From the writings of Dioscorides and others, it appears that different species of henbane have been long used in thepractice of medicine. By Celsus it was applied externally as a collyrium in ophthalmia; for allaying the pain of the toothach; and he gave it internally as an anodyne. Heledius first gave the seeds of henbane in hemoptoe (spitting of blood), and the same was afterwards successfully employed by Forrestus_ and our Boyle. Clauder .employed the same means in dysentery with advan. tage, and Turguet for epilepsy: but the danger of the remedy (for Turguet gave from eight to twenty-five grains) soon brought it into, disuse. It was at length revived by Dr. Stork of Vienna, who madean Exrracr by evaporating the expressed juice of the plant; and in convulsions he gave two grains, increasing the dose to five, six, even to ten andsixteen grains a day. He conquered an epilepsy by giving six grains a day of the same remedy. Taller says, that he also cured several persons afilicted with this disease by mixing together a grain of the extract of hyoscyamus, with the same quantity of the misseltoe and peony root, and giving at first one grain a day, each day angmenting the dose by a single grain until it was increased to twenty, when it was continued a week ; after that twenty grains twice a day every other day, and on the alternate days only twenty grains, for another week, and then forty grains for two days, after which it was reduced to five grains every day. Stork afterwards gave it in both furious and melancholy madness with success, administering dailyat first two, then four to eight grains of the extract. In hemoptysis he gave three grains. Convulsions were also cured by him in the same manner, ag well as a bad palpitation of the heart. He applied it also in wandering rheumatic pains, in indurations of the breast from retained milk, painful swellings, whe« ther scirrhous or not, all scrofulous and cance rous ulcers, if inflamed and the blind piles. The remedy employed, besides the extract internally, was under the form of a cataplasm of HENBANE. 185 the bruised leaves, mixed with bread and milk; of an ointment made with the powder of the leaves, with wax andoil; of a simple powder, sprinkled on the sore, or as a decoction with milk. Schenkbecher, as Haller reports, gave an ounce of the extract during the space of twelve days for a vertigo, which disappeared in consequence, and without the smallest injury to the patient. Gesner cured with it a very strong hysteric affection. After all these testimonies in its favour, it would be wrong in us at once to discard the hyoscyamus from amongst our cata. logue of valuable medicinal plants, although it must be confessed that several practitioners have complained of not reaping the same successful issue in practice as has been related; and even the great Dr. Cullen affirms: ** We have frequently employedit, but have never found it of anygreat virtue, not more thanis to be met with in opium ;” yet still we may hesitate in passing our final judgment, at the same time advising a very cautious use of a remedy that, injudiciously administered, might prove of the highest injury to the community; always anxious to dissuade from em- ploying powerful poisonous remedies, except it be in cases truly deplorable, when indeed it may be perhaps justified, as leaving only the choice of two evils. |