26 NATURAL HISTORY ESSAYS 



upas poison.^ A few words may here be devoted 

 to the upas tree, so indispensable to poets and 

 orators. 



Owing to the exaggerations alleged to have been 

 published by Foersch, a Dutch surgeon, in 1783, the 

 upas tree {Upas Antiar) was formerly credited with 

 most deadly properties. It was supposed to exhale 

 a deadly vapour that killed every living thing in its 

 neighbourhood ; the valley where it flourished being 

 a veritable cemetery of animals slain by the emana- 

 tions of the tree. No bird could roost in its branches : 

 the collection of the sap was a task only fit for con- 

 demned criminals who by undertaking it escaped 

 further punishment. With a view to investigating 

 these stories Horsfield made seventeen experiments 

 on animals, including six on the cobego. The 

 poison, made into a thin paste with water, was 

 dried and inserted on a bamboo dart into a wound 

 simultaneously made. Sometimes the fresh sap was 

 used instead of the paste. Laborious respiration, 

 dizziness, drowsiness, feeble pulse, and spasms of 

 the abdominal and pectoral muscles resulted; the 

 action of the upas poison is thus similar to that of 

 the nux vomica plant from which strychnine is 

 prepared. Unless actually absorbed into the system 

 the upas poison is no more dangerous than any 

 other vegetable solution; Dr. Horsfield showed that 



1 " An Essay on the oopas or poison tree of Java," Asiatic Journal, 

 vols. i. and ii"., 1813. 



