A young woman, about eighteen years of age, was harassed by severe convulsive and hysteric paroxysms, almost incessantly, insomuch that her friends estimated the number at seven hundred in the course of a few weeks; her abdomen was remarkably tumefied and tense, and there was a singular bloatedness of the whole surface of her body, and the slightest touch would occasion intolerable pain. At length her extremities became rigid and immovable (_sic_), and her jaw was so completely locked that she was unable to articulate, and liquids could only be introduced through the vacuity of a lost tooth. She had been treated with a variety of anti-spasmodic and other medicines, by an experienced physician, without relief. Having prepared a strong infusion of the dried root of skunk cabbage, I directed half a teacupful to be given every few hours, without any other medicine; the favorable effects of which were soon observable, and by persisting in the use of it about ten days the muscular contractions were removed, the jaw was relaxed, and her faculty of speech and swallowing, with the use of all her limbs, were completely effected. Another young woman had been exercised with the most distressing paroxysms of hysteria for several days, without obtaining relief by the medicines prescribed, when the skunk cabbage infusion was so successfully directed that her fits were immediately arrested, and in a few days a cure was completely effected. The brother of this patient was seized with violent convulsions of the whole body, in consequence of a cut on his foot; the skunk cabbage was administered, and he was speedily restored to perfect health. A woman was affected with violent spasmodic pains, twenty-four hours after parturition; six doses of skunk cabbage entirely removed her complaints.--_American Modern Practice_, p. 530. _Barton._--The smell from spathe and flowers is pungent and very subtle. Experience leads me to believe they possess a great share of acridity; _having been seized with a very violent inflammation of my eyes_ (for the first time in my life), which deprived me of the use of them for a month, by making the original drawings of these plates. The pungency of the plant was probably concentrated by the closeness of the room, in which many specimens were at the time shut up.--_Veg. Mat. Med._, 1, 128. [The italics are not in the original text.] The seeds are said to afford more relief in asthmatic cases than the root; and this I believe very probable, for they are remarkably active, pungent, and, as has before been mentioned, exhale the odor of Asafoetida.--_Op. cit._, p. 131.