This, or an analogous species of Helleborus, was employed as an emmenagogue in the earliest times. Among the moderns, its reputation in this capacity is due mainly to Dr. Mead, who strongly recommended it. Since his times, however, much difference of opinion has existed in relation to its powers. Among the skeptics was Dr. Cullen, who states in his Materia Medica that, in many trials, he had "never found the emmenagogue virtues of this medicine," nor had he met with any practitioners of his country "who had better success." My own little experience with it coincides with that of Dr. Cullen; but I have ascribed my want of success to the impaired condition of the medicine, as kept in our shops at the time when I made trial of it. Others, however, give decided testimony in favour of its efficiency. Dr. Chapman speaks favourably of it in his Elements of Therapeutics (2d ed., i. 21), considering it " useful, when it purges, in painful menstruation, attended with torpor and constipation of the bowels, and, perhaps, with some degree of insensibility of the uterus itself." Dr. Eberle, on the contrary, states that his own experience has led him to a different conclusion. "it does not appear to me," he says, "that its cathartic effects are, under any circumstances, necessary, or even accessary to the attainment of its emmenagogue results. I have been much in the habit of employing this article in amenorrhoea, and it has always appeared to me that, whenever it purged freely, it was less apt to induce the desired effects." (Treatise on Mat. Med., etc., 4th ed., i. 429.) I am disposed to admit that, in moderate doses, twice or three tinges a day, it will occasionally exhibit, as has been asserted, a tendency to act upon the uterus; though I am also quite convinced that the practitioner who uses the root, or its preparations, as found in this country, in the doses ordinarily prescribed, will very often fail. The preparation most commonly employed as an emmenagogue is the tincture, often called tinctura Melampodii, the dose of which is from twenty drops to a fluidrachm, twice or three times a day. if given in a small cupful of infusion of tansy, horehound, rosemary, or other stimulant herb, it would probably prove more effectual than alone. For further information respecting the mode of administering black hellebore, see page 581.