HEPATITIS

Hemlock is a powerful sedative, and often serviceable as a substitute for or accompaniment to opium. In allaying morbid irritability of the system attended by any local or general exce of vascular action, as in certain stages of phthysis, in the coughs that are apt to hang about patients who have suffered from pulmonic inflammation, in glandular tumours and unhealthy sores, hemlock is often preferable to opium. It has also been found very useful in chronic rheumatism, and occasionally in the treatment of whooping cough. A poultice composed of a mixture of finely powdered fresh hemlock with bread and water, or of the extract of hemlock, is applied to allav the pain of irritable ulcers and cancerous sores: it is sometimes singularly effectual, at others it seems inert, and sometimes appears to increase irritation. The virtues of hemlock reside in a peculiar alkaline principle, which has been termed conia, combined in the herb with a distinct acid, the coneic acid. [s. 562]