employed, in small doses, for
attenuating viscid humours, promoting the uterine and urinary
discharges, and opening inveterate obstructions of the remoter glands:
it often proves a very powerful emmenagogue in plethoric habits, where
steel is ineffectual or improper. An extract made from this root with
water, is one of the mildest, and for the purposes of a cathartic the
most effectual preparation of it: this operates sufficiently, without
occasioning the irritation which the pure resin is accompanied with. A
tincture drawn with proof-spirit contains the whole virtue of the
Hellebore, and seems to be one of the best preparations of it: this
tincture, and the extract, used to be kept in the shops. The College of
Edinburgh used to make this root an ingredient in the purging cephalic
tincture, and compound tincture of jalap; and its extract, in the
purging deobstruent pills, gamboge pills, the laxative mercurial pills,
and the compound cathartic extract.--Lewis's Mat. Med.

Similar Plant.--Helleborus viridis.

214. HELLEBORUS foetidus. BEARSFOOT. Leaves. L.--The root is a strong
cathartic; it destroys worms, and is recommended in different species of
mania. It is commonly substituted for that of the Helleborus viridis,
which is a more dangerous medicine. Hill's Herbal, p. 32. Great care
ought to be used in the administering this plant: many instances of its
dreadful effects are related. (See Poisonous Plants.)

Similar Plant.--Helleborus viridis.

215. HORDEUM distichon. PEARL BARLEY. Seeds. L. E.--Barley, in its
several states, is more cooling, less glutionous, and less nutritious
than wheat or oats; among the ancients, decoctions of it were the
principal aliment, and medicine, in acute diseases. The London College
direct a decoction of pearl barley; and both the London and Edinburgh
make common barley an ingredient in the pectoral decoction.

216. HUMULUS Lupulus. THE HOP.--The flowers and seed-vessels are used in
gout and rheumatism, under the form of infusion in boiling-water. The
powder formed into an ointment with lard, is said to ease the pain of
open cancer. A pillow stuffed with hops is an old and successful mode of
procuring sleep in the watchfulness of delirious fever.

217. HYOSCYAMUS niger. HENBANE. Leaves and Seeds. L. E.--Henbane is a
strong narcotic poison, and many instances of its deleterious effects
are recorded by different authors; from which it appears, that any part
of the plant