VETICA CEJiJ. '353 



The poison, we are informed, is prepared by tlie natives of 

 Tonquin from the leaves of A. toxicaria, and experiments made 

 by the authors with the leaves of that plant prove clearly that 

 they are the only active ingredient in the arrow poison. 

 {Archkes de Phys., 1891, p. 373.) 



A still more recent investigation of the Ipoh poison by 

 Mr. L. Wray, the Curator and State Geologist of Perak, has been 

 published in the Perak Gazette. He says :— The Samangs get the 

 sap from the tree hy scoring the bark. The sap is heated on a 

 spatula till evaporated, leaving a dark gummy substance in which 

 the arrows are dipped ; 3^ ounces of sap will do for poisoning 100 

 arro nv points. The sap was bitter and biting in taste and 

 decidedly acid to test paper ; when exposed to the air it darkens 

 to a brown colour, and yields when dried 29 per cent, of 

 Ipoh. If this substance is placed on a glass slide and examined 

 under a microscope it is seen to contain numerous crystals of 

 antiarin. Some fruiting specimens of the Ipoh were sent to 

 Eew in 1883, and were pronounced to be identical with the 

 Javan specimens of A. toxica ria. With reference to the two 

 kinds of Upas distinguished by Blume as Arbor toxkaria femina 

 et mm, the latter word in Malay means " gold " ; it is so called 

 from the golden colour of the inner bark. In the innocuous 

 variety, so say the Samangs, the inner bark is blackish coloured, 

 and so they distinguish the poisonous from the non-poisonous 

 trees. They have never mixed arsenic with the sap. One 

 fluid ounce of Ipoh sap was found to yield 10-85 grains of 

 antiarin or 2-482 per cent. The dried Ipoh poison, of which 

 the sap contains 29 per cent., therefore has 856 per cent, of 

 antiarin in it. 0-086 of a grain of the dried poison is enough 

 to kill an animal weighing 20 lbs., when introduced into the 

 circulation. Fowls and pheasants are proof against the poison, 

 but a cat struck with a poisoned dart died within 19 minutes. 

 Mr. Wray's Report has since been published in the Keto 

 Bulldin for October and November 1891. 



Description, — The nuts are sub-globular, the size of a 



4 



marble, of a liglit-bt'own colour, and have a slightly prominent 

 umbilicus; they are enclosed in a sweet greenish-yellow pulp, 



111—45 



