H. nigcr, orientalis, viridis, foetidus, and several other species of hellebore contain the glucosides helleborin, C 36 H 4 .,Oy, anilhellcborc in, C. 21 H 44 15 , the former yielding glucose and hellcboresin, C 30 H 38 4 , and the latter glucose and a violet-coloured substance hcllcborctin, C U H 20 3 . Helleborin is most abundant in H. viridis. A third and volatile principle is probably present in //. foetidus. Both helleborin and helleborei n act poisonously on animals, but their decomposition-products hellcboresin and helleboretin seem to be devoid of any injurious qualities. Helleborein produces excitement and restlessness, followed by paralysis of the lower extremities or whole body, quickened respiration, swelling and injection of the mucous membranes, dilatation of the pupil, and, as with helleborei n, salivation, vomiting, and diarrhoea. Helleborein exercises on the heart an action similar to that of digitalis, but more powerful, accompanied by at first quickened and then slow and laboured respiration ; it irritates the conjunctiva, and acts as a sternutatory, but less violently than veratrine.
Of various species of hellebore examined by him, Schroff found H. oricntalis to possess most medicinal activity ; less energetic in succession were //. viridis, fcetidus, purpurascens, ponticus ( Braun, v. sup.), and nigcr. Pliny states that horses, oxen, and swine are killed by eating "black hellebore;" and Cliristison (On Poisons, p. 876, llth ed. , 1845) writes: " I have known severe griping pro duced by merely tasting the fresh root in January." Parkinson, who questions the virulence of the drug (Tlicat. Botan., p. 216, 1640, fol. ), possibly observed its effects in the dry condition. According to Bergius (Mat. Mcd., ii. 496, Stockh., 1778), the rhizome of H. nigcr, if fresh, is poisonous, rubefacient, and vesi cant ; when recently dried, emetic, purgative, emmenagogue, in- secticidal, and sternutatory : and after long keeping scarcely pur gative, but alterative and diuretic. Bayer also has observed that when dried and powdered it is almost devoid of purgative properties. Poisonous doses of hellebore occasion in man singing in the ears, vertigo, stupor, thirst, with a feeling of suffocation, swelling of the tongue and fauces, emesis and catharsis, slowing of the pulse, and finally collapse and death from cardiac paralysis. Inspection after death reveals much inflammation of the stomach and intestines, more especially the rectum. The drug has been observed to exercise a cumulative action. Its extract was an ingredient in Bacher s pills, an empirical remedy once in great repute in France. In British medicine the rhizome was formerly official (see J. B. Nevins, Transl. New Land. FJuirm., p. 666, 2d ed. , 1854), and the tincture, powder, or, more rarely, the decoction is still occasionally used. Parkinson (op. cit.) mentions the employment of the leaves and juice of II. nigcr "to help the Dropsie, Jaundies, and other evil dispositions of the liver and gall;" and Dr C. D. F. Phillips (Mat. Mcd. and Thcrap., p. 27, 1874) has found the tincture of the rhizome of value in dropsical affections, especially in anasarca resulting from scarlet fever. //. foetidus was in past times much extolled as an anthelmintic, and is recommended by Bisset (Mcd. Ess., pp. 169 and 195, 1766) as the best vermifuge for children; J. Cook, however, remarks of it (Oxford Mag., March 1769, p. 99): " Where it killed not the patient, it would certainly kill the worms ; but the worst of it is, it will sometimes kill both." This plant, of old termed by farriers Ox-heel, Setter-wort, and Setter-grass, as well as //. viridis (Fr., Herbe a seton], is employed in veterinary surgery, to which also the use of //. nigcr is now chiefly confined in Britain.
In the early days of medicine two kinds of hellebore were recognized, the white, or J r eratrum album (vide supra, note), and the black, including the various species of Hcllcborus. The former, according to Codronchius (Comm. . . . de Elleb., 1610), Castellus (Do Hcllcb. Epist., 1622), and others, is the drug usually signified in the writings of Hippocrates. Among the hellebores indigenous to Greece and Asia Minor, H. oricntalis, Lam. (v. supra), the rhizome of which differs from that of //. nigcr and of //. viridis in the bark being readily separable from the woody axis, is the species found by Srhroff to answer best to the descriptions given by the ancients of black hellebore, the e f0opos /ueAas of Dioscorides. The rhizome of this plant, if identical, as would appear, with that obtained by Tournefort at Prusa in Asia Minor (Rcl. d un Voy. du Levant, ii. 189, 1718), must be a remedy of no small toxic properties. Accord ing to an early tradition, black hellebore administered by the soothsayer and physician Melampus (whence its name Melam- podiuin), was the means of curing the madness of the daughters of Prcetus, king of Argos. The drug was used by the ancients in paralysis, gout, and other diseases, more particularly in insanity, a fact frequently alluded to by classical writers, e.g. , Horace (Sal., ii. 3, 80-83 ; Ep. ad Pis., 300). Various superstitions were in olden times connected with the cutting of black hellebore. The best is said by Pliny (Nat. Hist., xxv. 21) to grow on Mt. Helicon. Of the three Anticyras (see vol. ii. p. 127), that in Phocis was the most famed for its hellebore, which, being there used combined with "sesamoides," was, according to Pliny, taken with more safety than elsewhere.
See Hayne, Anney.-Gemtch&e, i. pi. 2 and 7-10, 1805; Sibthorp, Flora Gra-ca, vi. 19, 1840; Stt Vhoiison and Churchill, Afl. Hot., i., pi. xi. and xxi., 1831 ; Wood- vine, Med. Hot., iii. 473-9, 3d ed., 1832; Spuch, Suites a Jiitjfon, Jfist. Nat. des Veg., vii. 312-2_>, 1839; Reu-hei.ljach, Icon. Fl. Germ., iv., pi. ciii.-cxii., 1840; W. D. J. Koch, Synop. Fl. Germ, et Jlelv., p. 21, 2d ed., 1843, and Taschenb. d. Deutsch. u. Sfhweit, Fl., p. 223, 2d ed., 1878; Scliroff, Prager Vierteljahressch.f. d. pract. Ileilk., Ixii. 49-117, and Ixiii. 95-134, 1859; Berg and Schmidt, Off. Gt iradise, iv., pi. xxix. sq., 1863; Syirc, Soirerby s Eng. Bot.,. 5C-59, pi. xliv., xlv., 1863; Marmc and Husemann, Zeitsch. d. rat. Medic^ 3d scr., xxvi. 1-98, 1865, alsoDisA. and T. Husomann, Die Pflanzenstoffe, p. 796, 1871; Qard. Chron., 1874, i. 480: 1877,1. 432, 464; The Garden, vii. 463, and xiv. 178, 451; The Florist, 1875, p. 159; Bentley and Trinien, Afed. PL, pt. 5, No. 2, 1876; Journ. of /fort, and Cotf. Card., Nov. 2"l, 1877, p. 397 ; Von Boeck, Ziemssen s Ct/cl. of the Pract. of Afed., xvii. 741, 1878; and for bibliography of early treatises on helle bore, J. IX Keuss, Repert. Comment., Mat. Med.," xi, 143, 1816; and E. J. Waring, liibtiotheca Therapeutica, ii. 458, New Cav. Soc., 1879.
HELLENISTS ( EAA^vio-ra-:) was the name usually applied by those who called themselves Greeks (Hellenes) to all Grsecizing and more especially to all Greek-speaking foreigners, a class which, after the conquests of Alexander the Great, formed a large and important element in almost every community throughout the civilized world. More particularly the word is applied in the New Testament (Acts vi. 1 ; ix. 29 ; and, according to the textus receptus, also xi. 20, where, however, the best MSS. and critical editions read "EAA-^vas) to Greek-speaking or " Grecian" Jews, who, besides being very numerous in the various countries of the dispersion, had also many synagogues in Jerusalem, and were remarkable there for their zeal. Indeed their presence in the capital of Judaism at all may safely be taken to have implied on their part a more than ordinary interest in the affairs of the ideal theocratic kingdom ; their attitude therefore to Christianity, when that new system first came to be promulgated, could not fail to be very pro nounced on the one side or on the other. The early records show that the apostles made many converts among the Hellenists of the city ; and it is interesting to note that, if the names can be taken as a safe indication, all the seven deacons mentioned in Acts vi. 5 belonged to the " Hellen istic " and not to the " Hebrew " party within the primi tive church. Saul of Tarsus also was a Hellenist ; but whether he belonged to the synagogue of the " Libertines " or to that of " those of Cilicia " is a question which our data do not enable us to decide. In the Vulgate, which translates EXXyvio-rai by the word " Grseci," the distinction so consistently preserved in our authorized version between " Grecians " and " Greeks " is made to disappear.
- ↑ For the microscopical characters and for figures of transverse sections of the rhizome, see Lanessan, Hist, des Droyues, i. p. 6, 1878.
