American Materia Medica, Therapeutics and Pharmacognosy

general use for this purpose.
Where there is burning of the skin, sensitiveness in distinct areas,
especially of the nates and thighs or flashes of heat, hellebore is specific.
It is given from five to twenty drops in four ounces. of water; a teaspoonful
every hour.
Physiological Action—This is a drastic hydragogue cathartic. It is
exceedingly irritating and produces a profound revulsive or derivative
effect.
Therapy—In apoplexy or in sudden paralysis from cerebral hyperemia,
or from rupture of the cerebral vessels, a profound derivative influence
may be at once obtained from an active dose of croton oil. In acute
cerebritis, or in meningitis, or in violent delirium, or furious mania in
adults, it is sometimes beneficial. Its use in accordance with present
methods of treatment is very limited, many physicians finding no place
for it at all.
Its external use produces active counter-irritation. This pronounced
influence was once thought a necessary measure in pneumonitis and
pleuritis, and it was freely used in inflammatory rheumatism, and in
sciatica and other persistent neuralgias. It was used in cerebral and
cerebro-spinal meningitis, and in cases of excitable delirium and acute
mania.
Its influence is too irritating and prostrating for dropsical cases which are
usually enfeebled from disease.
HERACLEUM. Heracleum lanatum.
Synonyms—Masterwort, Cow Parsnip.
CONSTITUENTS—
The root contains a volatile oil, and a crystallizable substance
containing heraclin.
PREPARATIONS—
A tincture, and a fluid extract. The dose of the tincture is from five
to sixty minims. Fluid extract from two to twenty minims.
Specific Symptomatology—Blood dyscrasia, with general local
Ellingwood’s American Materia Medica, Therapeutics and Pharmacognosy - Page 247