In large or poisonous doses it sometimes gives rise to coma (such as opium does), and sometimes to convulsions or violent delirium. Kercher relates the following sin gular instance of delirium from its use: Two priests ate hemlock-root by mistake; they became raving mad, and fancying that they were geese, plunged into the water. For three years they were afflicted with partial palsy and violent pain.
It may be administered internally in the form of powder (of the leaves), tincture, or extract, while externally it may be applied as a soothing application to ulcers, painful piles, etc.. in the form of ointment or poultice. The conia being volatile, often escapes from the powdered leaves and from the extract, and of the three preparations named, the tincture is the best. The succus conii, or preserved juice of hemlock, prepared by Bentley and other pharmaceutical chemists, is more certain in its action than any of the pharmacopceial preparations.
In cases of poisoning by hemlock, the evacuation of the stomach is the first thing to be attended to. Among the ancient Greeks poisoning by hemlock was a common mode •:if death for condemned criminals, and this it was that Socrates died; but whether it was the juice of the common hemlock or the water hemlock that was used, is unknown.
-WATER HEMLOCK, Or COWEANE ecicitta virosa), is also an umbelliferous plant, of a genus having much vaulted umbels, a 5-toothed calyx, and almost globose fruit, each carpel with five broad flattened ribs and evident single . Water hemlock grows in ditches, the margins of ponds, and wet grounds in Europe and the n. of Asia. It is more common in Scotland than in England. It has a large fleshy white root, covered externally with fibers; an erect much branched stem, 2 to 5 ft. high; tripinnate leaves, with linear-lanceolate regularly and sharply serrated leaflets, no general involucre or only a single small leaflet, partial involucres of many short narrow leaflets, and white flowers. It is a virulent narcotic acrid poison. Serious accidents have occurred from eating the root. Another species, C. macutata, is common in North America, growing in marshy places. It has a spotted stem, like that of true hemlock, the name of which it very generally receives in North America. The leaves are tri-ternate, the leaflets ternate. It is a very poisonous plant, and is the cause of many deaths.—Oicuta, in Latin, seems to have been the name of the same plant called condom by the Greeks, but it is not known whether this or the previous plant was so denominated.