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Show 3 COMMON HEMLOCK. vs ‘¢ Tt was given to a number of out-patients labouring underthe COMMON HEMLOCK. the end of June, when the plant isin flower. 321 Pick off the little chincough, but it did not produce such good effects as were ex- leaves, arid throw away the leaf-stalks. pected. The observations on the various success of the cicuta in Ire. land, given by the late Dr. Rutty, in the third volume of Medical Observations and Inquiries, agree in most respects with what is here mentioned ; only that he relates a case where a sore on the upper part of the sternum, which was suspected to have been cancerous, was cured by taking freely of the cicuta. In the same volume of Observations the late Dr. Fothergill men. tions three cases: 1. Of a gentleman who laboured under a very painful ulcer of the nose, which had spread and corroded a great part of the integuments of one of the eyelids. 2. Of another gentlemen who had a violent pain on one side of his face, about the antrum highmorianum. 3. Of a lady who had large angry pimples on her face, and a numberof small steatomatous tumors onherscalp, and at the same time laboured under the fluoralbus; who all three received great benefit from the use of the cicuta. And he says that it cured a rheumatic pain in the arm, which leaves in a hot sun, or in a tin dripping-pan or pewterdish be« fore the fire, Preserve them in bags made of strong brown paper; or powder them, and keep the powder in glass phials, ina drawer or something that will exclude the light, for the light soon dissipates the beautiful green colour, and with its cos lour the medicine loses its efficacy. Fromfifteen to twenty-five grains of this powder may be takentwiceor thrice a day. I have found it particularly useful in chronic rheumatisms, and also in many of those diseases which are usually supposed to arise from acrimony. The nature of this book does not allow minute details of the virtues of plants, but I can assure the mez dical practitioner that this is well worth his attention.”—Bot. Arrang. 2d ed. p. 280. And the respectable Haller says, * it has often succeeded where other remedies have failed, and if it has not always succeeded in cancer, it has always allayed the distress of that most afilicting disorder.” had continued long; and that. he had seen it of service where there were symptoms of tubercles beginning to formin the lungs. Dr. Bergius mentions ‘‘ that it has no effect in curing the true cancer, but that it has beenof service in scrophulous complaints, and in venereal, when joined with mercury; and that it is sometimes of use in cutaneous disorders. “ It is right to begin with giving small quantities of this extract, and to increase the dose gradually ; I have generally be+ gun with giving four or five grains to an adult three or four times in the day, and graduallyincreased the dose to ascruple ; I seldom exceeded a drachm in the day, except in a few cases, where I gave it the length of two; though I have seen some practitioners give half an ounce in that tine; and in one case or two I saw above an ounceof it given in the twenty-four hours. ‘¢ In some few instances I imagined that it hurt the general health of the patients, and in one or two cases that it hastened death ; though the use of the cicuta had been laid aside some time before the patients died, and they sunk so gradually as to leave it mere matter of conjecture what had been the cause of their death.” Some practitioners, however, speak more favourably of this plant. Dr. Withering says: “‘ Let the leaves be gathered about Drythese selectedlittle PREPARATIONS; Ivspissarep Juice or Hemuock. (Succus Cicuta Spissatus.) Express the leaves of hemlock, gathered when the flowers are just appearing, and allow the juice to stand six hours, until the feces subside ; then reduce the decanted juice to the thickness of an extract with a moderate heat. This is a very corivenient form forthe exhibition of those substances which are sufficiently succulent to afford a juice by exPression, and whose virtues do not reside in any very volatile matter. By inspissation the bulk of the requisite dose is very much diminished ; they are reduced to a form convenient for making upinto pills; and they are much less apt to spoil than the simple expressed juices. The mode of their preparation is not yet, however, reducedto fixed principles. Some direct the Julces to be inspissated as soon as they are expressed ; others allow them previously to uidergo a slight degree of fermenta- lion; some defacate them before they proceed to inspissate them ; and, lastly, the nature of the soil, of the season, aud many other circumstances, must materially alter the quantity or nature of the product. In moist years Baumé got from thirty pounds of elder berries four or five pounds of inspissated juice; and in dry years only two, or two and a half. From hemlock he x . |