182 FLORA HISTORICA. 



from which it was only relieved by the prompt 

 assistance of a skilful medical practitioner. And it 

 is not long since, that some of the thorn-apples 

 beinc thrown from a crarden into a street in the 

 city of Chester, a child, who ate of the seeds, be- 

 came blind and mad, biting, scratching, shrieking, 

 laughing, and crying, in a frightful manner. 



AVe feel it more necessary to caution the un- 

 wary against the dangers of this powerful plant, 

 since it has had its medical virtues so much ex- 

 tolled as to induce the ignorant into a behef that 

 it must natunilly be an innocent and harmless 

 vegetable ; but it should be impressed on the 

 minds of persons in general that those plants which 

 afford the most efficacious medicine in the hands of 

 the skilful practitioner, are the most dangerous in 

 those of the ignorant, and should therefore never 

 be used as a domestic remedy. 



The Stramonium is employed occasionally as an 

 anodyne, on account of its narcotic properties not 

 inducing constipation like opium. Its effects, how- 

 ever, are frequently formidable, and even fatal, 

 when administered by the incautious. 



Swaine mentions a case wherein a decoction of 

 three of the capsules of the Stramonium in milk, 

 produced a paralysis of the whole body, so that the 

 patient became mad. He continued seven hours 

 in this situation, then came to himself, and slept 



