DICOTYLEDONS 37 



These Common Buttercups have very powerful 

 and acrid properties; and their /rnifs, when green, 

 appear to be the parts in which this acridity is 

 most intense. 



Taken internally, the juice or extract oi R, acris 

 causes an intense inflammation of the disfestive 

 organs ; and if the quantity has been considerable 

 it acts as a true acrid poison, followed by very 

 serious results, and it may be, even death. 



A slice of the corm of R. bidbosus is used as a 

 popular remedy for toothache. It is most charged 

 with acridity when the plant is full-grown, before 

 being cut down for hay. As drying dissipates the 

 deleterious principle, although horses and cows 

 never touch buttercups in full leaf or in flower, yet 

 they eat them when dried in hay without any injuri- 

 ous result. They, in fact, then form nourishing food. 



Though the Field Buttercups have an acrid juice 

 which sometimes irritates the hands, if the juicy, 

 bruised stems be grasped too strongly, especially 

 in hot weather, yet it is those which frequent 

 marshes, or the margins of ponds and ditches, which 

 are more deleterious. It is rarely that any one 

 has been poisoned ; but a medical man records the 

 fact of a young lady aged fifteen, who, after having 

 chewed the stems and flowers of the bulbous butter- 

 cup, and sucked the juice, suffered severely for 

 over a week, exhibiting all the symptoms of acrid 

 poisoning and delirium. 



