Black hellebore

Statema, B. C. P.

Plant

Black hellebore

Elleboro nero

Known today as: The Christmas rose, Helleborus niger; the bark of the root was used.
Kind: Plant, in 3 older authorities
Constituents: hellebrin, protoanemonin
Poisoning: Cardiac glycoside poisoning
Earliest authority here: Hippocratic writers (c. 460–c. 370 BC)
Qualities: Hot and dry in the third degree (Galen). What the degrees mean
In other databases: Plants of the World Online search · GBIF search · Wikidata search
In the Canale glossary: On the Manner of Discerning and Healing the Bewitched, Appendix A: Part Three, Chapter 4: Stronger Purgatives and Compound Medicines

Caution. Hazardous in some form or dose; see the modern assessment below.

Black hellebore: what did Canale use it for?

The strongest purge for melancholic patients, and its extract among the other commended medicines (ch. 4).

Black hellebore: what does modern science say?

Black hellebore was the classical remedy for madness from Hippocrates on. It is a violent purgative and a cardiac poison, and has no place in conventional medicine today.

Black hellebore: is it poisonous?

Yes, in some form or dose. Its poisoning is cardiac glycoside poisoning: Hours. Historical description, not medical advice; in a poisoning, call a poison centre.

Pharmacognosy & Toxicology

Constituents

hellebrin ChEMBLa bufadienolide glycoside
protoanemoninan irritant, in the fresh plant

Mechanism

Hellebrin acts on the heart as the digitalis glycosides do; the saponins and protoanemonin purge violently.

Checked against ChEMBL

hellebrin: No measurement in ChEMBL for “acts on the heart as the digitalis glycosides do” (85 activities recorded, none against the target named); the line rests on its references.

Toxic dose

Uncertain; the root has killed in gram amounts.

Syndrome

Cardiac glycoside poisoning

Standing

No medicinal use.

Nelson, L. S., et al. (2007). Handbook of Poisonous and Injurious Plants. Verified against its record · doi:10.1007/978-1-4939-8926-3

Constituent names open the compound’s record at PubChem, and “ChEMBL” beside a name opens its record at ChEMBL, the European Bioinformatics Institute’s database of bioactive molecules. Where a mechanism line was checked against ChEMBL (ChEMBL 37, read 1 October 2026), the check is shown with the measured value and its source paper, or says plainly that nothing has been measured. Doses are as the references give them, for description only; this is not medical advice. Each source carries the result of its check against Crossref, PubMed, or the authority’s page: see Verification.

What Medicine Makes of It

Melancholy and the DemonThe black bile, the devil’s bath, and depression.
The Purge, the Vomit, and the BathWhat the regimen did to the body.
LycanthropyThe werewolf confessions, and the clinical lycanthropy of the wards.

Black hellebore: what lore surrounds it?

The drug of madness and melancholy stood exactly where Canale’s art had to draw its line: which sufferers were ill, and which bewitched. Hellebore purged the one; the exorcist addressed the other.

Used in These Compounds

Black hellebore is an ingredient of 2 compound medicines in the database. For Club members. Create a free account or sign in.

Black hellebore: what did the older authorities say?

Hippocratic writers: The great purge of Greek medicine, given for madness, melancholy, and obstinate disease.
Myth: The seer Melampus was said to have cured the daughters of Proetus of their madness with it, whence its Greek name melampodion.
Horace: “To Anticyra!”: the Phocian town famous for its hellebore became a byword for a cure for madness.

Sources

[15] Brajanovska, A., & Bauer, B. (2018). Helleborus sp.: an ethnopharmacological and toxicological review. Macedonian Pharmaceutical Bulletin 64(1): 3–9. doi:10.33320/maced.pharm.bull.2018.64.01.001 Book, not indexed
[28] Culpeper, N. (1653). Pharmacopœia Londinensis, or, The London Dispensatory [the Royal College of Physicians’ pharmacopoeia in English, with Culpeper’s commentary]. London: Peter Cole. Text Creation Partnership edition A35381. Read in part · the text read
[82] Maieron, M. A. (2018). On the hellebore trail: an anthropological research into madness. Medicina Historica 2(1): 5–18. Book, not indexed
[118] Walkden, M. (2022). “That they may vomit out their folly”: the gut-mind axis and hellebore in early modern England. Journal of British Studies 61(3): 535–562. doi:10.1017/jbr.2021.189 Verified against its record · doi:10.1017/jbr.2021.189

Verification

Checked

October 1, 2026

Passes

Every sentence read against its sources, in the pass over the remaining 343 entries
The Standing line checked against the authority it names (EMA, WHO, FDA, CITES, Commission E)
Every dated or regulatory claim checked by category across the database
The mechanism read against ChEMBL (ChEMBL 37): curated mechanisms and measured activity

Sources

5 cited: 1 read in part, 2 verified against its record, 2 book, not indexed.

Corrections

None were needed.

What was checked, how, and what was found is set out on the Verification page. A checked source is one whose record was found; it does not make the entry medical advice.

Cite This Entry

Version 1 · first published September 25, 2026

Chicago: “Black hellebore.” In Materia Medica, edited by B. C. P. Statema. Version 1. The Thinking Press, 2026–. Last modified September 25, 2026. https://thethinkingpress.org/materia-medica/black-hellebore.
MLA: “Black hellebore.” Materia Medica, edited by B. C. P. Statema, version 1, The Thinking Press, 25 Sept. 2026, thethinkingpress.org/materia-medica/black-hellebore. Accessed 8 Oct. 2026.
APA: Black hellebore. (2026, September 25). In B. C. P. Statema (Ed.), Materia medica (Version 1). The Thinking Press. Retrieved October 8, 2026, from https://thethinkingpress.org/materia-medica/black-hellebore

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