Edin. Hyoscyamus; Folia, Dub.

The leaves and seed of Henbane.

Syn. Jusquiame (F.), Bilsenkraut (G.), Bilsenkruid (Dutch), Fandensnosser (Dan.), Giusquiamo nero (I.), Beleno (S.), Yosciamo (Port.), Belmort (Swed.), Bielun (Pol.), Khorassanie Ajooam (H.), Sickran (Arab.), Khorasanie onsum (Tarn.), Buzirulbury (Pers.), Adas-pedas (Malay), Adas (Jav.).

Common henbane, is an indigenous annual, frequent on waste grounds, and at the sides of roads, particularly on a calcareous soil, flowering in July. The root is long, tapering compact, and fibrous; the stem erect, woody, round, and branched, rising about three feet in height. The leaves are alternate, sessile, and embracing the stem; large, the lower ones being above a foot in length; deeply sinuated, undulated, woolly, and of a sea-green colour. The flowers are in terminal, recurved, leafy, simple spikes; and each is simple and erect. The calyx is permanent, pitcher-shaped, with a regular, five-cleft border reticulated with veins; the corolla straw-coloured, and beautifully pencilled with a net-work of purple veins. The filaments are inserted into the tube of the corolla, tapering, downy at the base, and supporting purple anthers. The style is purplish, with a blunt round stigma. The capsule is globular, invested with the body of the calyx, bilocular, and closed with a convex smooth lid.

It contains numerous small, irregular, brown seeds.2

The whole of the plant is covered with soft white hairs, feels clammy and slightly adhesive, and is poisonous when eaten.

Qualities.-The odour of the recent leaves is strong, somewhat foetid, and narcotic 3; and the taste mucilaginous and slightly acrid: but, when dry, they have scarcely either odour or taste. The virtues of the plant are completely extracted by diluted alcohol. The watery infusion is of a very pale yellow hog-bean.

2 The seeds abound with oil, and may be eaten with impunity. The roots, which resemble parsnips, have occasionally been eaten, and fatal effects produced; although they are less active than the leaves. These roots, when moulded in the turning loom, and strung in the form of beads, are sold under the name of Anodyne Necklaces, and are worn by infants to allay the irritation of teething- a humiliating instance how deeply error is rooted in the human mind !

3 In the recent state the odour of the leaves occasions stupor and delirium.

colour, and insipid; and has the narcotic odour of the plant. It is not altered by the acids. The alkalies change the colour to a deep greenish yellow, which, on the addition of an acid, disappears, and a brownish, flocculent precipitate is produced. It is copiously precipitated by solutions of acetate of lead, white; by nitrate of silver, black: sulphate of iron strikes with it a pale olive colour, and a dark precipitate is slowly formed. Thence henbane appears to contain resin, mucus, extractive, a peculiar alkaline salt, and gallic acid. MM. Meissner and Brandes have examined the nature of this alkaline salt, which they have named Hyoscyamia; and have ascertained that on it depend the peculiar virtues and the poisonous properties of the plant. The seeds contain a larger proportion of this alkaloid than either the leaves or the roots; it is in the form of a malate. It crystallizes in long prisms, and forms neutral salts with the acids.1

Medical properties and uses.-Henbane is narcotic. Its operation is very similar to that of opium, increasing at first the strength of the pulse, and producing some sense of heat; effects which are followed by proportional diminution of excitement, and sleep. In some habits it occasions diaphoresis or diuresis, and sometimes a pustular eruption; at other times it purges; and, in over doses, produces sickness, stupor, dimness of sight, hard pulse, delirium, and coma, with dilatation of the pupils; until the pulse, gradually becoming weak and tremulous, petechias make their appearance, and death ensues. Dissections show the effects of inflammation in the stomach, bowels, and the membranes of the brain. After an emetic is given, and the stomach fully cleared, vinegar is the best antidote.

Although the effects of henbane as an anodyne were known to the ancients 2, yet they were ill understood, and the use of the drug was almost completely relinquished till the time of Baron Stoerck, who may be regarded as having introduced it into practice. It may be employed in all the cases in which the use of opium is indicated, where the latter disagrees with the habit, or where its constipating effect is wished to be avoided. In painful and spasmodic affections, hysteria, rheumatism, and gout, much benefit has resulted from its use; and we have found that it is particularly serviceable, when united with colocynth or other powerful cathartics, in colica pictonum. We have long employed it, with decided advantage, in mania, in combination with camphor. It is used externally to lessen and allay the irritation of very sensible parts; thence fomentations of the leaves have been found servieeable in scrofulous and cancerous ulcers, haemorrhoids, and other painful swellings; and Hufeland recommends the leaves and marshmallow flowers boiled in milk, with the addition of a few grains of acetate of lead, as a topical application in scrofulous ophthalmia. Smoking the leaves, like tobacco, is said to allay the pain of toothach.

Its effects in dilating the pupil, when an infusion of it is dropped into the eye, are similar to those of belladonna, and thence it is also employed as a preparative to the operation for cataract. It is used, generally, in the forms of extract and tincture only; but should not be prescribed in combinations with alkalies, as these destroy its narcotic powers in twenty-four hours.

1 Rep. de Budmer, 1821.

2 "Hyosciamus in potu cibove sumptus, qualem ebriorum mentis alienationem infert."-Dioscorid. Alexif. xv. 407.

Officinal preparations.-Extractum Hyosciami, L. E. D. Tinc-tura Hyosciami, L. E. D.