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Show COMMON MEMLOCK. COMMON HEMLOCK. the flowers are produced in umbels, which are both universal and partial, and composed of several striated radii. The universal involucrumconsists of five or seven leaves, these are lanceolated, whitish at the margin, and bent downwards; the partial involucrum is composed of three or four leayes, which are placed on the outer side of the radial stalk; the petals are five, oval, white, and curl inwards at their points; the stamina arefive, white, about the length of the corolla, and crowned with whitish anthere ; the styles are two, filiform, inclining outwards, and terminated by round stigmata; the fruit is oval, striated, consisting of two irregularly hemispherical striated brownish secds. The hemlock is obviously distinguished from our other umbelliferous plants byits large and spotted stalk, by the dark and shining green colour of its bottom leaves, and particularly by their disagreeable smell when bruised, and which, according to Stéerck, resembles that of mice.—Curt. Flor. Lond. The Cherophyllum bulbosum has a spotted stem, but its swelled joints, and rough seeds, distinguish it from the hemlock. gratulated each other on a remedy for this mostterrible distemper having been at last discovered. But, alas! how were: they dis. appointed when they found, after the cicuta had been administered to many hundreds of unhappy‘patients, not one true eancer had been cured by any practitioner whatever. Many hundred pounds weight of this extract were made, and given to patients labouring under various disorders, in the space of the last twenty-five years. ‘¢ The following are the principal observations that I made,” says Dr. Donald Monro,‘ on the eflects of this medicine during that period. I did not see, nor hear, of its having cured one true cancer, either occult or ulcerated. It sometimesalleviated the pain, and in some few cases it was imagined to have lessened the tumor a little, on first using ; but this effect soon ceased, andthe tumor continued to increase as’before. In some fewcases of ulcerated cancers it mended the discharge, and changed it from a thin ichorous state, to a thicker consistence, like to that which we call laudable pus ; but, notwithstanding, the disorder increased, and at last-terminated fatally. The physicians and surgeons of the other hospitals in London have often told me that they had made the same observations on the use of the hemlock in cans eerous disorders as I had. The cicuta produced better effects in scrophulous thanin the cancerous disorders ; some few very small tumors were thought to have beendiscussed byits use; but I never saw it remove any tumor that was large and hard, though given in large quantity for weeks or months daily. In scrophulous sores of the extre- 318 HISTORY. It is common near waste grounds and dunghills, and flowers in July. MEDICAL VIRTUE. This plant, like the former, is a most deadly poison, and the Athenians often made those condemned to death drink a cup-full of its juice to put an end to life. ‘The ancients, however, believed it to be a good discutient and anodyne external application, and used it both in fomentations and poultices ; andit has been continued to be employed as an external application to this 319 mities it often mended the discharge whenit was continued for day. some time. Rayand others mention the powder of the root of the hemlock as an efficacious remedy in scirrhi of the liver and spleen; effect when it was administered along with the bark, than when it was given byitself ; many of the sores came to a better state but none of the modern physicians were bold enough to give In many scrophulous cases it had a much better than I ever expected to have seen them; and in three cases, Where there was reason to suspect that the bones were affected, the sores healed by continuing the use of these two medicines either it, or any of its preparations, as a medicine, till in the year 1760, that Dr. Stoerck, of Vienna, published a treatise in which he mentions his having cured a number of cancers by for four or five months. means of an extract made with the juice of the leaves, whichhe in many such cases, but neither of them produced such good gave from a fewgrains to a drachm or morein the day. Immediately on the arrival of this publication in Great Britain, large quantities of the extract, made according to Dr. eflects as when they were given at the same time. Stoerck’s directions, were prepared by private apothecaries, and tract, and it was thought to assist the operation of the bark and of mercury in some cases. at most hospitals within the kingdom; and practitioners con- I tried the cicuta and bark separately “The discharge from some sorelegs, and from some otherfoul ulcers, was mended by the patient’s taking freely of this ex- |