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3. Solanum Nigrum.-Garden Night-shade.

Root annual, branched, whitish, hung with numerous small fibres. Stalk above a foot in beight, alternately branched, formed into angles by a foliaceous membrane, swelled at the base of each branch, rough, and of a dingy purple colour. Leaves on footstalks, alternate, irregularly ovate, sinuated, or indentated, and clothed with soft hairs. Flowers in a species of umbel, upon a common lateral flower-stalk. Calyx divided into five small short perinanent segments. Corolla separated into five segments, which are oval, pointed, spreading, and of a whitish colour. Filaments five, short, downy, terminated by yellow oblong contiguous antheræ. Germen roundish, supporting a tapering downy style, furnished with a round stigma. Fruit a round two-celled berry, changing from a green to a black colour, and containing several kidney-shaped yellowish seeds.

It is common about rubbish, dunghills, and in neglected gardens, producing its flowers during all the summer months.

The smell of this plant is faint and disagreeable; to the taste it manifests no peculiar flavour, being simply herbaceous. It appears to possess the deleterious qualities of the other night shades in a very considerable degree; even the odour of the plant is said to be so powerfully narcotic as to cause sleep *.

The berries are equally poisonous with the leaves. Three chil dren, upon eating them, were suddenly seized with cardialgia and delirium, accompanied with spasms, and remarkable distortions of the limbs t: and to poultry they proved fatal in a short time ‡.

The plant, or rather the leaves which were boiled and eaten by a mother and four children, produced swellings of the face and limbs, followed by inflammation and gangrene; but the husband, who likewise ate of this vegetable at the same time, found no con sequent disorder §.

Its deleterious effects appear still more certain from the experi ments of Messrs. Gataker and Bromfield; the latter asserts that in doses of one grain it had a mortal effect upon one of his patients ||.

Boccone. Museo di fis. p. 284. + Vide Wepfer De cicut. p. 226. Haller, 1. c. § Rucker. Commer. Noric. 1731, p. 372. It ought to be remarked, however, that Dioscorides and Theophrastus mention it as an esculent plant; and Guerin (De vegetat. venen. Alsatiæ, 1766,

As this species of night-shade is thought to be the ErρUVOS KYIS of Dioscorides *, its external use was resorted to in ancient times as a discutient and anodyne in various affections of the skin, tumefac. tions of the glands, ulcers, and disorders of the eyes; nor does the utility of this practice want the confirmation of later experience +.

Of its internal use we find very little evidence in the writings of the ancients; though, according to Casalpinus, it appears not to have been wholly neglected.

Its medicinal powers in modern times appear to be equally doubt. ful. Gataker strongly recommended it, externally and in solution as an excellent restorative lotion for old sores and cancerous ulcers, &c. and internally as an aperient and good diuretic: but Bromfield was never able to obtain these effects in any sufficient degree. [Dioscorid. Linn. Wepfer. Lewis. Woodville.

SECTION IV.

Black Henbane.

Hyoscyamus Niger.-LINN.

. THERE are eight species of henbane, chiefly natives of the Levant and Palestine; but the one before us is also common to our own country. The root is biennial, long, compact, white, and beset with many fibres: the stalk is erect, round, woody, branched, and rises about two feet in height: the leaves are large, cut into irregular lobes or pointed segments, of a sea-green colour, undulated, woolly, and at their bases embrace the stem: the flowers are pro⚫ duced in irregular clusters at the tops of the branches; they are

p. 66,) relates that he drank an infusion of fifteen grains of the solanum nigrum without suffering any consequent complaint; and that an epileptic patient took from half a dram to two drams of the expressed juice of the plant, without perceiving any narcotic symptom to follow; nor with some soldiers, to whom a still larger dose was given, together with two drams of the juice of the berries, was any other effect produced than that of an increased quantity of urine. See Murray, l. c.

* Mat. Med. lib. 4, c. 71.

With the Arabians it is a common application to burns and ulcers. See Forskol. Descript, Plant. c. 2, p. 46. Ray also speaks highly of its effects in indurations of the breast. See Hist. 1. c.

De Plant. 213.

funnel-shaped, consisting of a short tube, with an expanded limb, which is divided into five obtuse segments, of an obscure yellow colour, and beautifully painted with many purple veins : the calyx is divided into five short pointed downy segments: the five filaments are tapering, downy at the base, inserted in the tube of the corolla, and furnished with large oblong antheræ : the germen is roundish : the style slender, longer than the stamina, and terminated by a blunt stigma: the capsule is oval, marked with a line on each side, and divided into two cells, which contain many small irregular brown seeds. It is a native of England, and grows commonly amongst rubbish, about villages, road-sides, &c. and flowers in June.

The smell of hyoscyamus is strong and peculiar, and the leaves, when bruised, emit somewhat of the odour of tobacco. This smell is still stronger when the leaves are burnt; and on burning they sparkle with a deflagration, somewhat resembling that of nitre, but to the taste they are mild, and mucilaginous." Henbane is a powerful narcotic poison, and many instances of its deleterious effects are recorded by different authors.

Out of the many instances of this kind, we shall only advert to some of them, in order to shew that the roots, seeds, and leaves of this plant, have separately produced poisonous effects. Dr. Patouillat, physician at Toucy in France, relates that nine persous, in consequence of having eaten the roots of the hyoscyamus, were seized with most alarming symptoms; "some were speechless, and shewed no other signs of life than by convulsions, contortions of their limbs, and the risus sardonicus; all having their eyes starting out of their heads, and their mouths drawn backwards on both sides; others had all the symptoms alike; however, five of them did now and then open their mouths, but it was to utter howlings. The madness of all these patients was so complete, and their agita tions so violent, that in order to give one of them the antidote, I was obliged to employ six strong men to hold him while I was getting his teeth asunder to pour down the remedy." And what is remarkable, Dr. P. says, that on their recovery, all objects appeared to them as red as scarlet, for two or three days +.

* Phil. Trans. vol. 40, p. 446.

+ Further accounts of the effects of these roots are given by Wepfer de Cicut, &c. p. 230. Simon Pauli Quadr. p. 384. Blom in Vet. Ac. Handl.

1774. p. 52.

Respecting the seeds of henbane, we have an account given by Sir Hans Sloane *, of four children who ate them by mistaking the capsules, in which they were contained, for filberts. "The symp toms that appeared in all the four were great thirst, swimmings of the head, dimness of sight, ravings, profound sleep, which last in one of the children continued two days and nights t."

The leaves of hyoscyamus, we are told, were boiled in broth, and eaten by seven persons, (five men and two women) who soon became affected with symptoms of intoxication. Dr. Stedman says, “ I saw them about three hours after having eat it; and then three of the men were become quite insensible, did not know their comrades, talked incoherently, and were in as high a delirium as people in the rage of a fever. All of them had low irregular pulses, slavered, and frequently changed colour: their eyes looked fiery, and they catched at whatever lay next them, calling out that it was going to fall 1."

Henbane is poisonous to birds and dogs; but horses, cows, goats, and swine, it does not affect.

There cannot be a doubt, however, that this plant, like others of the same natural order, under proper management, may be safely employed, and be found in many cases to be an active and useful remedy. Hyoscyamus was well known to the ancients, and its effects as an anodyne were experienced by Dioscorides; and with this intention it has been used both internally and externally by several subsequent writers, particularly by Celsus; and in hæmorrhagic diseases the sem. hyoscyami were successfully given by Plater, Forestus, and Boyle.

It appears, however, that for a long time past the employment of henbane, in the practice of medicine, was wholly laid aside, till Baron Stoerck published several cases of different diseases, in which an extract, prepared from the juice of this plant, had been discovered to be an efficacious remedy. These diseases are stated by the Baron to be internal spasms and convulsions, palpitations of the heart, madness, melancholy, epilepsy, inveterate head-aches, hæ

Phil. Trans. vol. 38, p. 99.

+ See also Essays and Observations, phys. et lit. vol. 2, p. 243. Helmont. Ort. Med. p. 306. Ephemer. Germ. annis 7 et 8, &c.

Phil. Trans. vol. 47, an. 1750. For additional facts see Haller, 1. c. Spielmanni Diss. de veget, ven. Alsat.

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 hyoscy amus in these cases, (many of which were said to be of long dura. tion, and to have resisted the effects of other remedies) is also con firmed 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 substi tuted 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 hyo scyamus to be often an agreeable anodyne and soporiferous medi cine; 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. Woody.

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