Botanical Origin—Helleborus niger L., a low perennial herb, native of sub-alpine woods in Southern and Eastern Europe. It is found in Provence, Northern Italy, Salzburg, Bavaria, Austria, Bohemia, and Silesia, as well as, according to Boissier,[4] in Continental Greece.
Under the name of Christmas Rose, it is often grown in English gardens on account of its handsome white flowers, which are put forth in midwinter.
History—The story of the daughters of Prœtus, king of Argos, being cured of madness by the soothsayer and physician Melampus, who administered to them hellebore, has imparted great celebrity to the plant under notice.[5]
But admitting that the medicine of Melampus was really the root of a species of Helleborus, its identity with that of the present plant is extremely improbable. Several other species grow in Greece and Asia Minor, and Schroff[6] has endeavoured to show that of these, H. orientalis Lam. possesses medicinal powers agreeing better with the ancient accounts than those of H. niger L. He has also pointed out that the ancients employed not the entire root but only the bark separated from the woody column; and that in H. niger and H. viridis the peeling of the rhizome is impossible, but that in H. orientalis it may be easily effected.
According to the same authority the hellebores differ extremely in their medicinal activity. The most potent is H. orientalis Lam.; then follow H. viridis L. and H. fœtidus L. (natives of Britain), and H. purpurascens Waldst. et Kit., a Hungarian species, while H. niger is the weakest of all.[7]
Description—Black Hellebore produces a knotty, fleshy, brittle rhizome which creeps and branches slowly, forming in the course of years an intangled, interlacing mass, throwing out an abundance of stout, straight roots. Both rhizome and roots are of a blackish brown, but the younger roots are of lighter tint and are covered with a short woolly tomentum.
In commerce the rhizome is found with the roots more or less broken off and detached. It is in very knotty irregular pieces, 1 to 2 or 3 inches long and about ²/₁₀ to ³/₁₀ of an inch in diameter, internally whitish and of a horny texture. If cut transversely (especially after maceration), it shows a circle of white woody wedges, 8 to 12 in number, surrounded by a thick bark. The roots are unbranched, scarcely ⅒ of an inch in diameter. The younger, when broken across, exhibit a thick bark encircling a simple woody cord; in the older this cord tends to divide into converging wedges which present a stellate appearance, though not so distinctly as in Actæa. The drug when cut or broken has a slight odour like that of senega. Its taste is bitterish and slightly acrid.
Microscopic Structure—The cortical part both of the rhizome and the rootlets exhibits no distinct medullary rays. In the rootlets the woody centre is comparatively small and enclosed by a narrow zone somewhat as in sarsaparilla. A distinct pith occurs in the rhizome but not always in the rootlets, their woody column forming one solid bundle or being divided into several. The tissue contains small starch granules and drops of fatty oil.
Chemical Composition—The earlier investigations of Black Hellebore by Gmelin, and Feneuille and Capron, and of Riegel indicated only the presence of the more usual constituents of plants.
Bastick, on the other hand, in 1852 obtained from the root a peculiar, non-volatile, crystalline, chemically-indifferent substance which he named Helleborin. It is stated to have a bitter taste and to produce in addition a tingling sensation on the tongue; to be slightly soluble in water, more so in ether, and to dissolve freely in alcohol.