Europe, to poifon their Arrows. got 



gofa. This author quotes a manufcript of Cienfuegos, his countrynjan, who in x6i8 

 wrote on the botany of Arragon, and in which he relates that in his time the Spaniflj 

 huntfmen ftill ufed to poifon their arrows ; that the poifon in which they dijped them 

 was fo fpeedy in its effefl:, that the leaft wound inflifted on the animal was fufficient t« 

 fecure the huntfman his game. The vegetable from which they prepared it was the 

 Veratrum album, (white hellebore) a plant very cummon on the fields of the Alpine 

 mountains. There was, however, feme fkill required in. preparing the confeftion of 

 the veratrum for" that ufe ; for Cienfuegos adds, that the King of Spain had at that 

 time a huntfman wonderfully fkiiled in that art. 



The fecond work, from which I have received feme information, is the hiftory of 

 the war of Grenada, under Philip the fecond, by Mendoza. This author, Whom 

 the Spaniards highly efteeiii for the purity of his diftion, the impartiality which dif- 

 tinguiflies his writings, and the extent of his knowledge, fays that the poifon ufed by 

 the huntfmen, even in his time (at the beginning of the feventeenth century), was pre- 

 pared on the mountains of Bejar and Guadarrama, with the black hellebore, called in 

 that part of Spain el zvmo de vedegambre. The extrafl: made from it was of a brown 

 red. Another poifonous native plant was ufed for the fame purpofe on the lofty moiin- 

 taiiis of the kingdom of Grenada, which is called Yerva by the inhabitants, a word 

 which denotes an excellent or eminently ufeful plant. It is the aconitura iycoftonum, 

 which grows like the veratrum, on the high mountains. 



The animals wounded by thefe poifoned arrows are affefied in the- fame manner as 

 thofe which have been wounded by the hellebore, or aconite. The fymptoms are a fud- 

 den extreme weaknefs, fliivering cold, numbnefsand blindnefs, with foam at the mouth, 

 and convulfions of the diaphragm. Mendoza affirms, that two plants, which he denotes 

 only by the Spanifii names of Membrillo and Retama, of whofe fignification I am ig- 

 norant, are fuccefsfuUy ufed as counter-poifons. 



After having read thofe two palTages, I was defirous to fee what Haller fays of the 

 plants in his Hiftoria ftirpium indigenarum Helvetise ; or rather, in the French tranflation, 

 he has given of that part of Vicat which relates to the properties of plants. 



If, fays he, the poifon of the veratrum accidentally penetrates to the blood-veffels, 

 without lofs of it^ ftrength, death is the immediate confequente, even though by a very 

 flight wound. This was obferved ^t the time when the ancient Portuguefe ufed to poi- 

 fon their arrows with the- juice of th^t plant. Mathiolus has confirmed this obfer- 

 vation by his ejjperimepts. When death is thus produced, the progrefs of puttefaftion 

 is fo rapid that the flefli of the animal becomes foft as foon as it has ceafed to breathe. 

 Cuiluadinus alfo mentions the poifon the .Spaniards prepared with this plant. 



Two drams of the root of the veratrum, in decoftion, inje£ied into the veins of an 

 animal, have excited immediate convulfions and vomiting, which were followed by 

 death, and foon afterwards by a ftat^of flaccidity." 



3 E- 2 death, 



