The ancients described two varieties, the white and the black. The first, according to Theophrastus, was found on a part of Mount Œta called Pyra, on which the body of Hercules was burnt. It is not certain whether they confounded our hellebore with our veratrum. Pinel supposes that the veratrum album was their hellebore, as it is not probable that the veratrum nigrum should have been thus confounded. Tournefort, in his travels in the Levant, fancied that he had discovered the root of the ancients in one that the Turks called zopteme, which answered in its character to the description recorded in older writers.
Howbeit, it was considered a powerful purgative and emetic, especially indicated in the treatment of mental affections. Celsus forbade its exhibition in summer and during the winter, or whenever febrile symptoms were prevalent. This precaution, however, applied to all purgative medicines; and to this day, in several parts of the continent, similar injunctions are usual; and even in France practitioners of the old school prepare a patient several days before any opening medicine is given,—a learned precaution, that has but too frequently rendered every medicine useless.
The exhibition of this drug was a matter of so much importance amongst the ancients, that it was specifically termed helleborism; and it was considered of so powerful a nature in mania, that the treatment of the malady was called navigare Anticyras, since it was near the town of Anticyras that the plant was generally gathered. If this process of helleborism proved efficacious, it is more than probable that its beneficial results proceeded from the violent evacuations that preceded it. The following was the mode adopted with the helleborised: The patient was first well fed for several days until the decline of the moon, when a powerful emetic was given to him; five days after a similar dose was prescribed, and then good living ordered for a month: at the expiration of this invigorating respite, emetics began again to work him every three days. After the last attack on his digestive head-quarters, he was bathed, fed again, and hellebore was given after he had been submitted to several hours’ friction with olive oil. The emetics were invariably administered on a full stomach, which was cleared either by medicine or the excitement of the beard of a quill poked down the unfortunate patient’s throat. At other times, (by way, no doubt, of variety,) rejection was excited by making the patient eat a pound or more of horseradish; after which he was walked about for some time; and then, after a short repose, the fingers or the quill were brought into action. After this operation he was lulled to sleep by a regular shampooing. It appears that, despite of all these practices, the stomachs of the ancients were sometimes so pertinaciously retentive, that more powerful means to relieve them were adopted; and when the longest feather that could be plucked from a goose proved unavailing, gloves dipped in the oil of cyprus were put on, and the fingers thus inuncted replaced the feathers. When this failed, the obstinate sufferer was made to swallow a quart or two of honey and hot water, in which rue had been infused; and when this proved ineffectual, he was slung in a hammock to produce the sensation of sea-sickness. In some cases it appears that, despite this practice, the patient thought proper to faint. On such occasions little wedges of wood were driven between his obstinate and rebellious teeth clenched against medicine, so as to allow the introduction of the goose-quill, while cephalic snuff of the precious hellebore and euphorbia was blown up his nostrils to produce sneezing. The last trial to relieve him was tossing the ill-fated wight in a blanket. After this experiment the patient was left to nature or to his friends, if he would not recover. These friends immediately proceeded to give him punches in the stomach, roll him about the floor, and endeavour to restore him to his senses by driving him out of them by every possible noise that could frighten him, if his frightful condition was at all susceptible of any thing left in the arsenal of medicinal ingenuity.[45]
Small doses of hellebore seem to have been taken not only with impunity, but were supposed to assist the mental faculties. According to Valerius Maximus and Aulus Gellius, orators were in the practice of using this stimulus before their disputations. Such, it is said, was the habit of Carneades, whose doctrines might well have been applied to this very day to many theories, since he denied that any thing in the world could be perceived or understood.
Hellebore is to this day an ingredient in many of the fashionable pills vended by successful quacks. This introduction, at any rate, shows that their compounders have candour enough to think (although they may not acknowledge it) that the intellectual faculties of the purchasers of their nostrums do stand in need of some medicinal aid.
SYMPATHIES AND ANTIPATHIES.
The constant effects produced by causes which do not appear connected with them, are phenomena both of organic and inorganic nature which have long fixed the attention of philosophers, and have not yet been satisfactorily explained. This operation between distant bodies cannot be traced to any medium of communication. It arises from an attractive and a repulsive power that cannot be defined. Almost every substance evinces inclinations or antipathies; is attracted with more or less strength by one body, indifferent towards a second, and constantly avoiding a third; nay, bodies appear to act where they are not present, and where no communication can exist. We are as ignorant of the nature of these phenomena as of those of gravitation, magnetism, and electricity. Still, although this medium of communication is not evident, it must be admitted by inference that there must exist a connecting channel, although its nature be unknown.
The ancients called sympathy consensus, and the moderns have also defined it a consent of parts; nor is this definition incorrect, since sympathy arises from the relative ties that mysteriously unite our several organs, however distant and unconnected they may appear; thus establishing a beauteous harmony between all the functions of the animal economy. Sympathies must therefore constitute the chief study of the physiologist: on this alone can the physician ground his investigation of the various disorders to which flesh is heir. Symptoms arise from sympathies: without a knowledge of the one we can never attain a clear insight in the other.
Sympathies are of a physical or a moral nature. The first consist, as I have already stated, of a consent between the different parts of the organism; the latter of certain impressions, unaccountable, unconquerable, that harmonize in a multiplicity of phenomena various individuals, or that induce them, without their being able to assign any reason or motive to warrant the repugnance, to avoid each other, and not unfrequently to entertain a feeling of disgust or horror. A secret voice has spoken,—organism instinctively obeys. Moral sympathies have been defined as faculties that enabled us to partake of the ideas, the affections, or the dislike of others; although this sentiment is by no means reciprocal, and we often dislike those who fondly love us. So far sympathy is instinctive; yet, like many instincts, it is more or less under the control of our reason. We often acquire an artificial partiality to substances that we naturally disliked. Our senses may be considered the instruments of our sympathies; yet senses are regulated by education and habit. Oil, olives, tobacco, and various other substances, are naturally, one might say instinctively, unpleasant to most individuals; yet by custom they are not only relished, but ardently wished for when they cannot be obtained. It is the same with our relative partiality or aversion towards individuals; and indifference is often turned into affection, while the most ardent love is not far remote from hate, when vanity more especially, removes its boundaries.