CONIUM (cspotted hemlock”, the full grown fruit of Conium maculatum gathered while green. Conium maculatum is a stout, erect biennial, three to six feet high, with a much branching, smooth, furrowed, dark green hollow stem, covered with purplish spots, very widely present throughout Europe and natural ized in the eastern United States. It commonly in wet places, wayside brooks, swamps and dark, moist gardens. All parts of the spotted hemlock are active, but the poison ous principle confine is found most abundantly in the full-grown but unripe seed, the principle being a volatile alkaloid. Only fresh hemlock is of any service, and much of the lack of uni formity of results in the use of this drug as a. remedy has come from the neglect of this pre. caution on the part of the manufacturers of the drug.. The composition of coninm is complex. It contains a slight amount of volatile oil and two or three alkaloids, the most important of which is confine. Coniine is present in small amounts only. It is a strongly basic, colorless, oily liquid, with a penetrating odor and a sharp taste resembling tobacco. It boils at 166° C.; its chemical formula is C311..,NH,CH.CkLCH2. It has been made synthetically, being one of the first of the alkaloids thus synthetized. The physiological action of corium is 'practically iilmtiral with the ,action of qoaiine. The ,gen
eral effect is paralysis of the motor end organs of voluntary muscles; it is thus a motor de pressant. It is an irritant to the stomach, in creasing the salivary secretions. Its effect on the heart is slight; its effect on the nervous sys tem is very little save in extreme poisoning, when blood changes cause changes in the ner vous system. The early symptoms of poisoning are heaviness of the muscles of the legs, and of the eyelids, ptosis, staggering gait, muscular re laxation and muscular paralysis; paralysis of the vocal chords causing derangement of speech; dilatation of the pupil; and finally paralysis of the muscles of respiration with asphyxia, convulsions and death. Treatment of the,poisoning is by means of the stomach-pump, strychnine, coffee. Alcohol and rapid elimina tion by hot baths are desirable.
The therapeutics of conium is restricted. It is very questionable whether it is of use in any affection other than habitual motor spasms of voluntary origin such as spasmodic tics, torti collis and other like affections. It is certainly of very little value in spasmodic affections not associated with voluntary action such as chorea, epilepsy, myoclonus, etc.