OLEANDER. (U 



mules, and to almost all quadrupeds ; but to men, they are, if 

 drunk with wine with the addition of a little rue, a preservative 

 against the bites of venomous beasts. The weaker animals, 

 goats and sheep, die if they drink a decoction of this plant. 

 Galen and Pliny ascribe the same powers to it; and Theo- 

 phrastus demonstrates its poisonous effects on animals by 

 the following fable. He says that Lucius Apuleius, a famous 

 magician and learned man, was once deceived by the simi- 

 litude of the flowers of this plant to those of the rose. He 

 was wandering about under the metamorphosis of an ass, and 

 seeking for roses, by which food he might be restored to his 

 former shape, when at a distance he saw the Rhododaphne, 

 covered with flowers. Fearing they might escape him, he 

 rushed at them with open mouth, believing them to be true 

 roses. Discovering his mistake, and being aware, from his 

 knowledge of the properties of plants, that the flowers of the 

 Nerium were poisonous to asses, he is seized with trembling 

 and fear, and falls to the earth, with drooping ears. 



The Arabians give a more extended application of this plant 

 as a medicine than the Greeks. Rhases and Avicenna recom- 

 mend the leaves as an application to hard apostemes, and the juice 

 for prurigo, scabies, and other diseases of the skin; in chronic 

 pains of the back and limbs, as a plaster, and as a sternutatory in 

 diseases of the eyes. Gerarde states that " this tree, being out- 

 wardly applied, hath, as Galen saith, a digesting facultie ; but if 

 it be inwardlie taken, is deadly and poisonous, not only to men, 

 but also to most kinds of beasts." Although its poisonous pro- 

 perties have been described by some authors on toxicology, yet its 

 medicinal qualities have never been tested in allopathic medicine 

 since the time of the Arabians. It is said that the honey of bees, 

 which feed on this plant in certain districts, is liable to produce 

 injurious effects, and care should be taken not to place the 

 flowers of the Oleander in a confined apartment, as the vapour 

 from them has been known to cause very unpleasant symptoms. 



Description.— This beautiful shrub, such an ornament to 



