HISTORICAL.--_OEnanthe_ 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. _OEnanthe_ 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'Homoeopathie," from the pen of Dr. Ch. DeMoor, of Alost, Belgium. GENERAL ACTION.--From a very large collection of observations of cases of poisoning with _OEnanthe_, 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 _OEnanthe 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. Contraction of chest and oppressed breathing. Dilated pupils or irregular. Eyeballs turned upward. Coldness of the extremities. Pulse weak. Convulsions are especially severe, at first tonic then clonic. Locked jaws. Trembling and twitching of muscles. _OEnanthe_ also produces a delirium in which the patient becomes as if drunken, there is stupefaction, obscuration of vision and fainting. The Greek name of the plant signifies "wine flower," and so-called on account of its producing a condition similar to wine drunkenness, and there is a difference, so I have heard, between wine and other beverages in this respect. Hiccoughs are also produced by the drug.