Margaret Alice Murray

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”