Page:Witch-Cult in Western Europe (1921).djvu/280

 times; fourteen of the berries have been known to produce death; a moderate dose will produce wild excitement and delirium.

Hemlock is also a well-known and ancient poison; the fruit may contain as much as 0.9 per cent, of alkaloid, and grain of the alkaloid may produce death. The action of hemlock usually is to produce a gradual motor paralysis, consciousness being unimpaired, and death being caused by paralysis of respiration, but sometimes hemlock may produce delirium and excitement.

There is no doubt, therefore, about the efficacy of these prescriptions and their ability to produce physiological effects. They were administered by being rubbed into the skin, which is not an efficient way of introducing most drugs into the body, indeed some have denied that alkaloids can be absorbed from the unbroken skin; but there is no doubt that alkaloids can be absorbed when rubbed into scratches or into the quick of the nails, and it must be remembered that an unbroken skin is only possessed by those who are free from vermin and who wash regularly, and neither of these conditions would be likely to apply to a mediaeval witch. Cases of poisoning associated with delirium have actually been recorded following the application of belladonna plasters to the skin.

Of the three prescriptions the first is a watery solution and would not be very efficacious when rubbed into the skin, but the second and third are ointments, and if they were rubbed into the skin in sufficient quantities definite physiological results would be produced.

The first preparation, which contains hemlock and aconite, would produce mental confusion, impaired movement, irregular action of the heart, dizziness and shortness of breath.

The belladonna in the second ointment would produce excitement which might pass into delirium.

The third ointment, containing both aconite and belladonna, would produce excitement and irregular action of the heart.

I cannot say whether any of these drugs would produce the impression of flying, but I consider the use of aconite interesting in this respect. Irregular action of the heart in a person falling asleep produces the well-known sensation of suddenly falling through space, and it seems quite possible that the combination of a delirifacient like belladonna with a drug producing irregular action of the heart like aconite might produce the sensation of flying.

2em