Illas Acci ebria veratro. [4194]"It helps melancholy, the falling sickness, madness, gout, &c., but not to be taken of old men, youths, such as are weaklings, nice, or effeminate, troubled with headache, high-coloured, or fear strangling,” saith Dioscorides. [4195]Oribasius, an old physician, hath written very copiously, and approves of it, “in such affections which can otherwise hardly be cured.”  Hernius, lib. 2. prax. med. de vomitoriis, will not have it used [4196]"but with great caution, by reason of its strength, and then when antimony will do no good,” which caused Hermophilus to compare it to a stout captain (as Codroneus observes cap. 7. comment. de Helleb.) that will see all his soldiers go before him and come post principia, like the bragging soldier, last himself; [4197]when other helps fail in inveterate melancholy, in a desperate case, this vomit is to be taken.  And yet for all this, if it be well prepared, it may be [4198] securely given at first. [4199]Matthiolus brags, that he hath often, to the good of many, made use of it, and Heurnius, [4200]"that he hath happily used it, prepared after his own prescript,” and with good success.  Christophorus a Vega, lib. 3. c. 41, is of the same opinion, that it may be lawfully given; and our country gentlewomen find it by their common practice, that there is no such great danger in it.  Dr. Turner, speaking of this plant in his Herbal, telleth us, that in his time it was an ordinary receipt among good wives, to give hellebore in powder to ii’d weight, and he is not much against it.  But they do commonly exceed, for who so bold as blind Bayard, and prescribe it by pennyworths, and such irrational ways, as I have heard myself market folks ask for it in an apothecary’s shop:  but with what success God knows; they smart often for their rash boldness and folly, break a vein, make their eyes ready to start out of their heads, or kill themselves.  So that the fault is not in the physic, but in the rude and indiscreet handling of it.  He that will know, therefore, when to use, how to prepare it aright, and in what dose, let him read Heurnius lib. 2. prax. med.  Brassivola de Catart.  Godefridus Stegius the emperor Rudolphus’ physician, cap. 16. Matthiolus in Dioscor. and that excellent commentary of Baptista Codroncus, which is instar omnium de Helleb. alb. where we shall find great diversity of examples and receipts.

Antimony or stibium, which our chemists so much magnify, is either taken in substance or infusion, &c., and frequently prescribed in this disease.  “It helps all infirmities,” saith [4201]Matthiolus, “which proceed from black choler, falling sickness, and hypochondriacal passions;” and for farther proof of his assertion, he gives several instances of such as have been freed with it:  [4202]one of Andrew Gallus, a physician of Trent, that after many other essays, “imputes the recovery of his health, next after God, to this remedy alone.”