Colonial North America: Countway Library of Medicine

619

Helleborus Fetida. Or Bears foot or Garden Hellebore, is a native of the United States growing in lowlands the stalk is about 3 feet high and flowers in May, leaves of a dark green same colour as the flowers, smell is verry offensive, taste bitter and nauseous, it operates as a cathartic, the dose is 5, 10 or 15 grains of the pulv. leaves repeated three or four nights in succession, and is a verry efficacious medicine, in combination with Ethiops Mineral it formed Dr Dewitt's celebrated vermifuge powder. Much caution is necessary in the exhibition of this medicine as it is verry poisonous. It has been used in other diseases as asthma and Hypocondriasis.