In medicinal doses it commonly induces pleasant sleep. This indeed has been denied by M. Fouquier, who infers from his experiments that it never causes sleep, but always headache, delirium, nausea, vomiting, and feverishness.[[1818]] I have certainly seen it sometimes have these effects; but much more generally it has acted as a pleasant hypnotic and anodyne.
Its effect in large doses have been well described by M. Choquet as they occurred in two soldiers who ate by mistake the young shoots dressed with olive oil. They presently became giddy and stupid, lost their speech, and had a dull, haggard look. The pupils were excessively dilated, and the eyes so insensible that the eyelids did not wink when the cornea was touched. The pulse was small and intermitting, the breathing difficult, the jaw locked, and the mouth distorted by risus sardonicus. Sensibility was extinct, the limbs were cold and palsied, the arms convulsed, and there was that singular union of delirium and coma which is usually termed typhomania. One of the men soon vomited freely under the influence of emetics, and in a short time got quite well. The other vomited little. As the palsy and somnolency abated, the delirium became extravagant, and the patient quite unmanageable till the evening of the subsequent day, when the operation of brisk purgatives restored him to his senses. In two days both were fit for duty.[[1819]]
In a treatise on vegetable poisons, Mr. Wilmer has related the history of six persons in a family, who were poisoned by eating at dinner the roots of the hyoscyamus by mistake instead of parsneps. Several were delirious and danced about the room like maniacs, one appeared as if he had got drunk, and a woman became profoundly and irrecoverably comatose. Emetics could not be introduced into the stomach, stimulant clysters had no effect, external stimuli of every kind failed to rouse her, and she expired next morning at six.[[1820]] The roots in this instance were gathered in the winter time,—a fact, which does not quite coincide with the conclusions of Orfila, that the plant must be in full vegetation before the energy of the root is considerable.
From these and other cases, the abstracts of which are to be seen in Orfila’s Toxicology, or in Wibmer’s Treatise on the Operation of Medicines and Poisons, it follows that hyoscyamus in a poisonous dose causes loss of speech, dilatation of the pupil, coma, and delirium, commonly of the unmanageable, sometimes of the furious kind. In general a stage of delirium precedes coma; and sometimes as the coma passes off, delirium returns for a time. It has been known to act powerfully in the form of clyster.[[1821]] It has also been known to act with considerable energy even through the sound skin, as appears from a case which occurred to Wibmer. He was called to a lady affected with great stupor, dilated pupils, flushed face, loss of speech, full hard pulse, and swelling of the abdomen; and he found that these symptoms were owing to several ounces of henbane leaves having been applied to the belly in a poultice, on account of strangury and tympanitis. She was still capable of being roused by speaking loudly close to her ear; and under proper treatment she recovered.[[1822]]
Henbane seldom causes any distinct symptoms of irritant poisoning. In several, however, of the cases related by the older modern authors some pain in the belly, a little vomiting, and more rarely diarrhœa, appear to have occurred.[[1823]] Plenck quotes, from a Swedish authority, an instance of its having produced burning in the stomach, intense thirst, watching, delirium, depraved vision, and next day a crowded eruption of dark spots and vesicles, which disappeared on the supervention of a profuse diarrhœa.[[1824]] The same author alludes to cases where it proved fatal; but this event is rare in the present day, obviously because the precursory stage of delirium gives an opportunity of removing the poison, before the stage of coma is formed. A fatal case, which occurred to Mr. Wibmer, has been mentioned above; and another has been related in Pyl’s Magazin. Two boys a few minutes after eating the seeds were attacked with convulsions and heat in the throat; and one of them, who could not be made to vomit, died in the course of the ensuing night.[[1825]]
The accidents it has occasioned have commonly arisen from the individuals confounding the root with that of the wild chicory or with the parsnep, the latter of which it somewhat resembles.
Of the other species of the hyoscyamus, the H. albus has been known to cause symptoms precisely the same with those above described. Professor Foderé has given a good example of its effects on man, as they occurred in the crew of a French corvette in the Archipelago. The plant was boiled and distributed among the whole ship’s company, as several of the sailors said they knew it to be eatable and salubrious. But in no long time they were all seized with giddiness, vomiting, convulsions, colic, purging, and delirium of the active kind. They were all soon relieved by emetics and purgatives.[[1826]]
Dr. Archibald Hamilton has described a case of the same nature, which was caused by the seeds of this plant. A young medical student, who took about twenty-five grains of the seeds, was seized in half an hour with lassitude and somnolency, and successively with dryness of the throat, impeding deglutition, convulsive movements of the arms, incoherency, total insensibility of the skin, and loss of recollection. These symptoms continued about twelve hours, and then slowly receded.[[1827]]
Three other species, the H. aureus, physaloides and scopolia are represented by Orfila to be equally deleterious.
The alkaloid hyoscyamus possesses in an intense degree the active properties of the plant. It has not been hitherto examined in this respect with much care. But extremely minute quantities produce excessive enlargement of the pupil, when put within the eyelids in the form of neutral salt.