Though known and employed by the ancients both as a poison and medicine, and famous as one of the instruments used by the Athenians for the execution of those condemned to death, it seems to have been wholly neglected for many centuries, and did not again come into notice till brought forward with so many other narcotics by Baron Storck.

The indications which it is calculated to fulfil are, to relieve pain, relax spasm, and compose nervous irritation in general. it has been supposed to induce sleep; but, in those cases in which it has seemed to produce this effect, it probably operated by merely controlling the nervous disturbances which pi-evented sleep. Not a few, also, from the time of Storck down to the present, have been disposed to ascribe to it extraordinary deobstruent and alterative properties, rendering it useful in a great number of diseases.

1. To relieve pain, it is habitually used by many in neuralgic affections, either alone or combined with other narcotic extracts, as those of belladonna, stramonium, and hyoscyamus. Though not a very powerful agent in these cases, I believe that it often does good, and serves an excellent purpose as an adjuvant to other measures.

In nervous and chronic rheumatism, it may be employed with advantage for the same purpose, especially in connection with alteratives adapted to this affection.

In carcinomatous tumours and sores, and in various other painful swellings and ulcerations, as the scrofulous and syphilitic, for example, it has been found useful by relieving pain, and quieting nervous irritation, and has been considerably used as an adjuvant. in these complaints, it has been employed both internally and topically.

2. With a view to its antispasmodic effect, it has been given in hooping-cough and other spasmodic coughs, and in asthma; and may be added to other medicines in the more severe affections of this kind; as epilepsy, chorea, etc., in which, however, little efficiency must be expected from it.

3. To relieve irritation, it may be substituted for opium when that narcotic is forbidden, in all kinds of cough, including that of chronic catarrh and phthisis. it may not only be used internally in these affections; but may also be administered by inhalation. Sir C. Scudamore recommended the tincture of conium, in connection with iodine, for inhalation in phthisis. As conia, in the form in which it exists in the leaves, does not rise with boiling water, it cannot be that principle which acts in this case; but by adding a little aqua potassae or other alkali to the conium, the volatile alkaloid may be extricated, and thus received into the lungs. But the first trials with the remedy in this form should be conducted with caution. in the treatment of coughs, it should generally be given with expectorants, as tartar emetic, ipecacuanha, squill, and seneka.

Insanity is supposed to be occasionally much benefited by conium, which has been very extensively used in that complaint. it probably operates by composing nervous disquietude, and thus enabling the patient to sleep. if it be, as I deem it, a cerebral sedative, it is very well calculated to meet a prominent indication in the disease, namely, to keep down nervous excitement, without inducing debility.

4. As a deobstruent and alterative, hemlock has been very largely used. it was mainly in reference to its supposed power of curing cancer and similar affections, that it was reintroduced into practice by Storck. That it has any power of this kind few now believe; nevertheless, it is thought by many to prove highly advantageous, in some instances, not only as a general and local anodyne, but also by favourably modifying the condition of the tumours or ulcers, and retarding their progress. This influence we may ascribe to the medicine as the result of its sedative properties, through which it may diminish irritation and inflammation, to which these heterologous formations are liable like other structures. in other less obstinate tumefactions or ulcerations, as the scrofulous, rheumatic, and syphilitic, it has seemed occasionally to produce cures, or at least to aid more efficient alteratives in producing them. in reference to the same supposed deobstruent property, it has been used in goitre, enlargements of the liver, spleen, and pancreas, in chronic abdominal tumours, and especially in tumefactions of the mammae and the testicles, over which it has been supposed to exercise peculiar power. in these complaints, it is used both internally and topically. We may admit its partial efficacy in all of them, without allowing it any other than sedative virtues, which enable it to control in some degree the excitements, general and local, which sustain the morbid action, or in which it may consist. MM. Trousseau and Pidoux recommend it in decided terms, from their own experience, in the form of a cataplasm over the abdomen, in chronic enlargements of the mesenteric glands and other viscera.

From the same sedative property, and without the necessity of supposing any peculiar alterative influence, it may be occasionally serviceable in obstinate cutaneous diseases in which it has been recommended, such as elephantiasis, lupus, etc., to the cure of which, however, it is wholly inadequate.

In addition to the uses above mentioned, hemlock has been employed to check excessive secretion of milk, and as an antaphrodisiac in satyriasis, spermatorrhoea, and nymphomania, in all of which it may prove useful through its sedative property.