Orfila has made some important remarks as to the effect of season and vegetation on the energy of the root as a poison. The root he maintains is the most active part of the plant; but in the spring it is nearly inert. Thus the juice of three pounds of the root collected near the end of April, when the plant has hardly begun to shoot, killed a dog in somewhat less than two days; while a decoction of an ounce and a half collected on the last day of June, when the plant was in full vegetation, proved fatal in two hours and a half.
The extract of the leaves, procured from different shops, was found by Orfila to vary greatly in point of strength, some samples being absolutely inert.[1] The causes of these differences have been ascertained experimentally by Brandes to be, that the herb loses its active principle in part by decomposition in the process of simple desiccation, and also when long kept; and that the greater part is also similarly decomposed in preparing an extract, unless the process be finished quickly, and at a low heat.
The seeds of hyoscyamus are poisonous, as well as the leaves and root. Indeed the whole plant is so. The seeds contain much more hyoscyamia than the leaves.
The effects of hyosciamus on man differ somewhat from those on animals, and vary greatly with the dose.
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.[2] 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.[3]
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
