OCR Text |
Show 58 WHITE HELLEBORE, OR VERATRUM. WHITE HELLEBORE, OR VERATRUM. employed it in a great number of cases (twenty-eight) of the matiacal and melancholic kind ; the majority of these, as might be expected, derived no permanent benefit; several, however, wererelieved, and five completely cured bythis medicine. be tried in very small doses, in a diluted state, and to be gra« dually increased according to the effects. It was the bark of the root, collected in the spring, which he gave in powder, beginning with one grain: this dose was gradually PRESCRIPTION. J. 1. Take of powdered white hellebore flowers of sulphur = essence of lemon liog’s lard = "=)9=7):- increased according to its effects. With some patients one or two.grains excited nausea and vomiting, but generally eight grains were required to produce this effect, though in a few instances a scruple, and even more, was given. We may also remark, that he sometimes used the extract prepared after Stoerck’s manner. In almost every case which he relates, the medicine acted more orless upon all the excretions : vomiting and purging were very generally produced, and the matter thrown off the stomach was constantly mixed with bile; a florid redness frequently appeared on the face, and various cutaneous efflorescences wpon the body ; andin some, pleuretic symptoms with fever supervened, so as to require bleeding, nor were the more alarming affections of spasms and convulsions unfrequent. Critical evacuations, we are told, were oftem veryevident, many sweated profusely, in some the urine was considerably increased, in others the saliva and the mucous discharges: also uterine obstructions, of long continuance, were often removed by this drug, Veratrum has likewise been found useful in epilepsy, and other convulsive complaints *; but the diseases in which its efficacy seems least equivocal are those of the skin +, as scabies and different prurient eruptions, herpes, morbus pediculosus, lepra, scrophula, &c., and in manyof these it has been suc. cessfully employed both internally and externally. As a powerful stimulant, and irritating medicine, its use has been resorted to only in desperate cases, and then it is first to of wine as a remedyfor the ague ; the disease continued thirty-th ree weeks, when it was said to have been cured by a decoction of white hellebore; but as copious and repeated bleedings, with other means, were employed, the cure cannot whollybe ascribed to the hellebore. de Therapia Maniz, Erl, 1785, p. 37, * Greding, 1. c. p-207.. + See Agassiz, Diss. See also Smyth in Medical Communications, vol. i. Its success in these complaints is mentioned both bythe ancient and modern writers, Smyth relates three cases, See l. c. 859 = drachms 2, + = |, ounce 1, scruples 2, ounces (2: Make into an ointment. Smear all the joints for three nights with this, wash it off in the morning with soap and water, and take flowers of sulphur mixed with honey or treacle, so as to keep the body open; repeat the smearing for three times at the interval of two days, and the most inveterate itch is certain te disappear. |