moptysis; and a troublesome cough, which accompanied the lastmentioned complaint, was completely appeased by the repeated use of the extract, which in several disorders was often found to produce sleep more powerfully than opium. The success of hyoscyamus in these cases, (many of which were said to be of long duration, and to have resisted the effects of other remedies) is also confirmed by Collin, who extended the dose of the extract, hyoscyami, to twenty-four or thirty grains per diem. But from the experiments made of this medicine by Greeding, who tried it in forty cases of melancholia, mania, and epilepsia, the result was very different: yet while his practice shews that no benefit is to be expected in these three diseases, it tends to prove that this medicine is a useful anodyne: and as it usually opens the body, it may be advantageously substituted for opium, where the astringency of the latter becomes an objection to its use. Dr. Cullen says, "that in epilepsy, and various convulsive affections, for which Baron Stoerck particularly recommends the extract of henbane, we have very frequently employed it, but have never found it of any great virtue, nor of more than what we have found in opium. We have, indeed, found the hyoscyamus to be often an agreeable anodyne and soporiferous medicine; and we have frequently found it such in persons who, from particular circumstances, did not agree with opium, and particularly because it was less binding to the belly than opium. We judge, however, that it is more ready in full doses to give delirium than opium is, and therefore we found it in many cases to give turbulent and unrefreshing sleep; and notwithstanding its laxative qualities, for which we had employed it, we have been obliged to lay it aside." Stoerck and some others recommend this extract in the dose of one grain or two; but Dr. Cullen observes, that he seldom discovered its anodyne effects till he had proceeded to doses of eight or ten grains, and sometimes to fifteen, and even to twenty.

The leaves of henbane are said to have been applied externally with advantage in the way of poultice, to resolve scirrhous tumours, and to remove some pains of the rheumatic and arthritic kind.

[Haller. Phil. Trans. Lewis. Woodv.

SECTION V.

Thorn Apple.

Datura Stramonium.-LINN.

THIS is found in the wastes of our own country, with spinous, erect, ovate, labrous leaves. It rises about a yard high, with a strong, perpendicular round hollow stalk, branching luxuriantly and to a great extent. At night the upper leaves become erect, and inclose the flowers, which have sometimes a tinge of purple or violet: the flowers consist of a single funnel-shaped petal.

This plant has been long known as a powerful narcotic poison; its congener, the D. Metel, is thought to be Eτguxvos μavixos of Theophrastus and Dioscorides, and is therefore the species received by Linnæus into the Materia Medica. The stramonium, in its recent state, has a bitterish taste, and a smell somewhat resembling that of poppies, or as called by Bergius, narcotic, especially if the leaves be rubbed betwixt the fingers. By holding the plant to the nose for some time, or sleeping in a bed where the leaves are strewed, giddiness of the head and stupor are said to have been produced.

Instances of the deleterious effects of this plant are numerous, especially of the seeds, some of which we shall relate for the purpose of stating the symptoms which they produce. A man, aged sixty-nine, labouring under a calculous complaint, by mistake boiled the capsules of the stramonium in milk, and in consequence of drinking this decoction was affected with vertigo, dryness of the fauces, anxiety, followed with loss of voice and sense; the pulse became small and quick, the extremities cold, the limbs paralytic, the features distorted, accompanied with violent delirium, continual watchfulness, and a total suppression of all the evacuations; but in a few hours he was restored to his former state of health.

Every part of the plant appears to possess narcotic power, but the seeds are the only part, of whose fatal effects we find instances recorded. Their soporiferous and intoxicating qualities are well known in eastern countries; and if we can credit the accounts of some authors, have been converted to purposes the most licentious and dishonourable. The internal use of stramonium, as well as that

of several other deleterious plants which we have had occasion to notice, was first ventured upon and recommended by Baron Stoerck, who gave an extract prepared of the expressed juice of the plant, with advantage, in cases of mania, epilepsy, and some other convulsive affections. But as the success of this plant, even in the hands of the Baron, was not remarkable enough to claim very extraordinary praise, his account of the efficacy of the stramonium probably would not have procured it a place in the Materia Medica of the Edinburgh Pharmacopoeia, had its character rested solely upon his representation. Odhelius tells us, that of fourteen patients suffering under epileptic and convulsive affections, to whom he gave the stramonium in an hospital at Stockholm, eight were completely cured, five were relieved, and only one received no benefit. Bergius relates three cases of its success, viz. one of mania, and two of convulsions. Reef, a Sweedish physician, mentions its utility in two cases of mania. Wedenburg cured four girls, affected with convulsive complaints, by the use of this medicine. Other instances of the kind might be added. Greding, however, who made many experiments, with a view to ascertain the efficacy of this plant, was not so successful; for out of the great number of cases in which he employed the stramonium, it was only in one instance, that it effected a cure; and he objects to the cases stated by Dr. Odhelius, on the ground that the patients were dismissed before sufficient time was allowed to know whether the disease would return or not. In this country we are unacquainted with any practitioners whose experience tends to throw any light on the medical character of this plant. It ap pears to us, that its effects as a medicine are to be referred to no other power than that of a narcotic: and Dr. Cullen, speaking on this subject, says, "I have no doubt that narcotics may be a remedy in certain cases of mania and epilepsy; but I have not, and I doubt if any other person has, learned to distinguish the cases to which such remedies are properly adapted. It is therefore that we find the other narcotics, as well as the stramonium, to fail in the same hands in which they had in other cases seemed to succeed. It is this consideration that has occasioned my neglecting the use of stramonium, and therefore prevented me from speaking more precisely from my own experience on this subject."

The extract of this plant has been the preparation usually employed, and from one to ten grains and upwards, a day; but the

powdered leaves, after the manner of those directed of hemlock, would seem, for the reason there given, to be a preparation more certain and convenient. Greding found the strength of the extract to vary exceedingly; that which he obtained from Ludwig, was a much more powerful medicine than that which he had of Stoerck.

Externally the leaves of stramonium have been used as an application to inflammatory tumours and burns; in the latter a remarkable instance is noticed by Gerard.

The leaves have lately been dried and smoked as a remedy for the asthma; in many cases there has been evident advantage. But so far as our observations have extended, the plant loses this part of its benefit by use: the patient who has smoked it for some months, or even weeks, no longer finding his respiration improved hereby.

[Woodville. Fowler. Ludwig. Editor.

SECTION VI.

Vomic Nut.

Strychnos Nux Vomica,–LINN,

THIS is a large tree which sends off numerous strong branches, covered with dark grey smooth bark. The young branches have swelled articulations, or a knotty jointed appearance, scandent, and covered with bark of a dark green colour. The leaves arise at the joints in pairs, upon short footstalks, and are ovate, broad, pointed, entire, with three or five ribs, and on the upper side of a shining green colour. The flowers terminate the branches in a kind of fasciculated umbel. Calyx small, tubular, five toothed. Coro! monopetalous: tube cylindrical, or rather inflated at the middle, very long, and at the limb cut into five small ovate segments. Filaments five, short, fixed at the mouth of the tube, and furnished with simple anthers. Germ roundish, supporting a simple style, terminated by a blunt stigma. Fruit a round smooth large pulpy berry, externally yellow, and containing round depressed seeds, covered with downy radiated hairs.

It is a native of the East Indies, and, according to the Hortus Kewensis, was introduced into England in 1778, by Dr. Patrick

Russell; but it has not yet been cultivated with success in this country.

The nux vomica lignum colubrinum, and faba sancti Ignatii, have been long known in the Materia Medica as narcotic poisons, brought from the East Indies, while the vegetables which produced them were unknown, or at least not botanically ascertained.

By the judicious discrimination of Linnæus, the nux vomica was found to be the fruit of the tree described and figured in the Hortus Malabaricus under the name Caniram, since called Strychnos. To this genus also, but upon evidence less conclusive, he likewise justly referred the colubrinum. But the faba sancti Ignatii he merely conjectured might belong to this family, as appears by the query an Strychni species? which subsequent discoveries have enabled us to decide in the negative; for in the Supp. Plant. it constitutes the new genus Ignatia, which Loureiro afterwards confirmed, changing the specific name amara to that of philippinica. The strychnos and ignatia are, however, nearly allied, and both rank under the order solanaceæ.

We have thought it necessary to enquire thus far into the botanical origin of these productions, from finding that by medical writers they are generally treated of under the same head, and in a very confused and indiscriminate manner.

The seed of the fruit or berry of this tree is the officinal nux vomica: it is flat, round, about an inch broad, and near a quarter of an inch thick, with a prominence in the middle on both sides, of a grey colour, covered with a kind of woolly matter, and internally hard and tough like horn; to the taste it is extremely bitter, but has no remarkable smell. It consists chiefly of a guminy matter, which is moderately bitter; the resinous part is very inconsiderable in quantity, but intensely bitter; hence rectified spirit has been considered its best menstruum.

Nux vomica is reckoned amongst the most powerful poisons of the narcotic kind, especially to brute animals, nor are instances wanting of its deleterious effects upon the human species. It proves fatal to dogs in a very short time, as appears by various authorities. Hillefeld and others found that it also poisoned hares, foxes, wolves, cats, rabbits, and even some birds, as crows and ducks; and Loureiro relates that a horse died in four hours after taking a dracht of the seed in an half-roasted state. The effects of this baneful drug