He also went and saw the body,
and investigated the whole case in a way that has done that young
gentleman great credit; and from him I have been favoured with this
account. Had the medical attendant but known the difference between the
two plants when he was called in first, there was a chance of the child
being saved to its distressed parents. And here was certainly a striking
instance of medical men neglecting so far the study of botany, as not to
know one of the most useful as well as one of the most dangerous plants
of the present Pharmacopoeia.
641. HELLEBORUS foetidus. BEARSFOOT.--The country-people are in the habit
of chopping up the leaves of this plant and giving it to children for
removing worms; but it is a dangerous medicine, and should be made use
of with great caution. It is also recommended as a medicine for the same
purpose in horses. As much of the chopped leaves as will lie on a
crown-piece, given amongst a feed of corn for three days, and remitted
three days, and repeated thus for nine doses, has been known to remove
this disease.
"I heard a melancholy story of a mother in this city; viz. that a
Country Colleagh gave some of this plant to her two sons, one of six,
the other of four years of age, to kill worms; and that before four in
the afternoon they were both corpses."-Dr. Threlkeld, in a short account
of the plants in the neighbourhood of Dublin.
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