188 FLORA HISTORICA. 



who having found a root that had been grub- 

 bed up before the leaves appeared, was in- 

 duced to bite it, so as to ascertain what it was, 

 and it took such an instant effect upon him as to 

 deprive him of speech even before he could get 

 a remedy, and that his life was only saved by 

 immediate application to powerful medicines. 

 We read in the Philosophical Transactions, vol. 

 38, amio 1732, of a man who was poisoned, in 

 that year, by eating some of this plant in a 

 salad, instead of Celery. Dr. Willis also, in his 

 work, De Anima Brutomm, gives an instance of 

 a man who died in a few hours, by eating the 

 tender leaves of this plant also in a salad. He 

 was seized with all the symptoms of mania. The 

 Aconitum is equally pernicious to animals . Wep- 

 fer informs us that a wolf, which had taken a dose 

 of two drams, would in all probability have died 

 through it, had he not been dissected living as 

 he was, in order to observe the effects of the 

 poison. 



Mr. Waller observes in his Domestic Herbal, 

 that the principal thing to be done in the case 

 of this and other vegetable poisons is, to procure 

 vomiting by any means ; the most speedy and 

 effectual method is to force the finger or a feather 

 down the throat, and keep up a titillation of the 

 fauces. This will generally succeed, when the 



