68-6 
was evidently caused by gradual asphyxia from paralysis of the muscles of respi- 
ration, but the intellect was perfectly clear until shortly before death. 
The sequence of symptoms would seem to show in all of the many cases of © 
poisoning by this plant that the drug acts primarily upon the spinal cord, causing 
a paralysis first of the anterior then posterior branches, and that from below 
upward until the medulla is reached. 
On Animals.—Linnzus states that sheep will eat of the leaves, but horses 
and goats refuse them. Ray says that the thrush will feed upon the seeds, even 
when grain is plenty. Orfila* found that the powder and extract were generally 
harmless when given to animals, but that the juice or leaves of the fresh plant 
produced the most violent symptoms and death. Moiroud+ gave a decoction of 
four ounces of the dried plant to a horse which had eaten three and a half pounds 
of the plant without effect. It caused dejection, stupor, dilation of the pupils, 
trembling, spasmodic trembling of muscles, grinding of teeth and copious sweats, 
It would seem, from experiments upon animals, that Conium i is more poisonous 
to carnivora than to graminivora. 
Post-mortem.—In Dr. Bennett's case, there was slight serous effusion beneath 
the arachnoid membrane. The substance of the brain was soft on section; there 
were numerous bloody points, but the organ was otherwise healthy. The lungs | 
were engorged with dark-red fluid blood; the heart was soft and flabby. The 
- mucous coat of the stomach, that contained a green, pultaceous mass of the herb, — 
was much congested, especially at the cardiac extremity; here there were numer- 
ous extravasations of dark blood below the epithelium, over a space about the 
size of the hand, The intestines presented patches of congestion on the mucous 
coat. The blood throughout the body was fluid and of a dark color. 
DESCRIFTION OF PLATE 68. 
1. Top of a flowering branch divested of three of its sid dete, casein N. Y., June 2gth, Bie 
2. Stalk at the root. Z 
3. Plowin = 7. ms 
4and s. Stamens, 
6. Young fruit. 
7. Section of ovary. 
8. Pollen, x 250. 
(3-6 enlarged.) 
*. Tox, Gén., ii, 309: 7 Pharm. ét., 359- 
