Conium maculatum is native to Asia Minor and the islands of the Mediterranean. It has been naturalized in North and South America and throughout England and other similar locations. It was known to the Greeks, who are said to have used it to execute criminals. It was long known under the name Cicuta, but to avoid confusion with Cicuta virosa, Linnaeus (385) in 1737 restored its classical name, Conium maculatum, or poison hemlock, the word hemlock being Saxon, meaning leek of the border, or shore. Storck (617), of Vienna, in 1760, introduced Conium into regular medicine. Tradition has it that the decoction of this plant was the φαρμακον drunk by Socrates (334).
The History of the Vegetable Drugs of the U.S.P., 1911, was written by John Uri Lloyd.