Wolfsbane immediately after being drunk occasions a sensation of sweetness on the tongue, with a little astringency; vertigo supervenes, more especially when the person attempts to rise up, and it brings on a watering of the eyes; there is heaviness of the chest and abdomen, with eructation of much flatus. In these cases the medicine must be brought up by vomits, and the contents of the bowels evacuated by a clyster. We must also give draughts from marjoram and rue, or from horehound with wine, or from wormwood, or from rocket, or from southernwood, or mezereon, or ground-pine. Opobalsam, too, taken to the amount of one drachm, with wine, will likewise answer with them; also the rennet of a kid, or of a hare, or of a fawn, with vinegar, and the dross of iron, or iron itself, or gold, or silver, may be dissolved in wine, and the liquid taken, and lye with wine, and the broth of a boiled cock, or the broth of fat flesh taken with wine. The ground-pine, which is said to be a specific in Heraclea of Pontus, where wolfsbane grows, is called holocleron, but ionia in Athens, and sideritis in Eubœa. * * * * * COMMENTARY. The symptoms, as described by Nicander, are astringency of the lips, palate, and gums, gnawing pains at the stomach, singultus, flatulence, running from the eyes, double vision, as from intoxication. His remedies seem to have been principally emetics and calefacients. Thus he recommends a handful of quicklime to be drunk with a hemina of wine, also southernwood, spurge, ground-pine, marjoram, opobalsam, the metallic preparations mentioned by our author, and the like. The accounts of the treatment given by Dioscorides, Aëtius, and Actuarius agree exactly with our author’s. Avicenna, Rhases, and Haly Abbas, in like manner, recommend emetics, clysters, and calefacient medicines internally. Diogenes Laertius states, upon the authority of Eumelus the historian, that Aristotle the philosopher despatched himself with a draught of aconite. (Vita Aristot.) Pliny relates that this poison proves fatal when applied to the genital organs of women. (H. N. xxvii, 2.) The ancients have described several varieties of aconite. See Theophrastus (H. P. ix, 19); Pliny (H. N. xxv, 75); Schulze (Toxicol, vet.); Schneider (in Nicand. Alexiphar.); and Sprengel (Rei. Herb. Hist.) These modern authors in general are disposed to think that it was the _iris tuberosa_. Sprengel, however, in the notes to his edition of Dioscorides, is decided that the second species of Dioscorides (Mat. Med. iv, 78) is the _aconitum napellus_; but respecting the first species, he is in great doubts. All agree that the aconitum of Theophrastus is different from the A. of Dioscorides and the other toxicologists. We may be permitted to add, that the symptoms of poisoning by aconitum, as given by Nicander, agree so well with those reported lately of cases of poisoning by the _aconitum napellus_, that we cannot doubt their identity.