With regard to the treatment, the Arabians recommend oily emetics, with soda, pepper, salt, strong wine, &c. Avicenna (iii, 6, 2, 8); Rhases (Cont. xxi); Alsaharavius (Pract. xxx. 2.)
Schulze is satisfied that the corion or coriandrum of the ancients was the same as our coriander. He appears, however, to have rather overrated its deleterious properties. It is only in particular states of the body that it proves at all injurious. (Toxicol. vet. vii.) Sprengel also is satisfied as to the identity of the ancient and modern coriander. (Comment. in Dios.)
SECT. XL.—ON PSYLLIUM OR FLEAWORT.
Fleawort when drunk occasions coldness of the whole body and torpor, with relaxation and lowness of spirits, which are relieved by the same remedies as those given to persons who have drunk coriander.
Commentary. All the authorities agree in representing its effects as being similar to those produced by coriander. They treat the case then upon general principles with wine, pepper, and other such stimulants.
Schulze finds some difficulty in acknowledging that the plantago psyllium, L. is the true psyllium of the ancients, and yet he admits that no other plant has so good a claim to be identified with it. We see no grounds for scepticism on this point.
SECT. XLI.—ON CONIUM OR HEMLOCK.
Hemlock, when drunk, brings on vertigo and dimness of vision, so that the person can no longer see even to a small distance; there is hiccough, disorder of the mind, and coldness of the extremities, and at last he is suffocated in convulsions, the breath in the arteria aspera being stopped. At first, therefore, as in other cases of poisoning, we must bring it up by vomiting, and afterwards, by means of an injection, evacuate whatever part had passed into the intestines; and then, as our great remedy, we have recourse to undiluted wine, giving it at intervals, during which we must administer the milk of cows or of asses, or wormwood with pepper, wine, and castor; and rue and mint, with wine, and a dram of cardamom or of storax; or of pepper, with nettle-seeds in wine; or the tender leaves of bay tree; and in like manner laserwort, or the juice thereof, with common wine or must; and sweet wine drunk alone answers well.
Commentary. Theophrastus seems to have been acquainted with the sedative properties of hemlock, for he recommends pepper and rosemary as antidotes to it. (H. P. ix, 24); and Athen. (Deip. ii, 73.) The operation of this poison in the case of Socrates is well described by Plato in his ‘Phædo.’ Socrates, after swallowing the poisoned cup, walked about for a short time as he was directed by the executioner: when he felt a sense of heaviness in his limbs he lay down on his back; his feet and legs first lost their sensibility, and became stiff and cold; and this state gradually extended upwards to the heart, when he died convulsed.