Œnanthe crocata belongs to the large family of the Umbelliferæ which furnishes us with Conium and Cicuta. It grows in marshy localities in England and France. In Botanical works of the 16th and 17th centuries it was often confounded with Cicuta virosa, an error which has even been made in more recent times, in fact, only one Botanist of the 19th century described the plant with sufficient exactness for its recognition, and that was DeLobel, who published his Botany in 1851. It is one of the largest plants of the family, being 3 to 5 feet high. Our tincture is from the fresh root.
Historical.—Œnanthe was known to Galen and Dioscorides, and numerous citations might be made to show that the drug was used from the earliest times in various affections, affections that nearly every drug was tried in, but it is in the "Cyanosura Materia Medica of Boecler, published in 1729," that we first find a hint as to its true action. "Those who ate much of it were taken with dark vertigos, going from one place to another, swaying, frightened, turning in a circle as Lobilus pretends to have seen."
Hahnemann, in his "Apotheker Lexicon" (Leipzig, 1793), says of the drug: "It is said that the whole plant is poisonous and causes vertigo, stupefaction, loss of force, convulsions, delirium, stiffness, insensibility, falling of the hair, and taken in large quantities will cause death."
He says further: "That, administered with great circumspection, it should prove useful in certain varieties of delirium, vertigos and cramps."
This is interesting coming from Hahnemann at the time when he had discovered the law, but had not as yet given it to the world.
Œnanthe was considered in the last century as one of the most pernicious plants of Europe, especially for cattle, who, having eaten it, can neither vomit nor digest it and they soon die in convulsions; this from the root, however, as they eat the leaves with impunity. It is interesting to note that animals poisoned with it decompose rapidly.
Much of the following study is taken from a series of excellent papers on the drug, which have been appearing for over a year in "Le Journal Belge D'Homœopathie," from the pen of Dr. Ch. DeMoor, of Alost, Belgium.
General Action.—From a very large collection of observations of cases of poisoning with Œnanthe, dating from 1556 to the present time and recorded in "Allen's Encyclopædia," the "Cyclopædia of Drug Pathogenesy," and in the article of Dr. DeMoor, above mentioned, we find that Œnanthe crocata produces, almost invariably, convulsions of an epileptiform character and which are marked by the following symptoms:
Swollen, livid face, sometimes pale.
Frothing at mouth.