54 POISONOUS PLANTS 



strength, which accounts for children being poisoned 

 by what was supposed to be a legitimate medicinal 

 dose. Mr. Blyth records among the number of 

 deaths by poisoning during the ten years ending 

 1892, no less than 1379 by opium, including lauda- 

 num, morphia, etc., and 45 by mixtures called 

 Soothing Syrup, Paregoric, etc. 



Field Poppy {P. Rhceas). — We have four wild 

 species of poppy, all with red flowers, and easily 

 recognized ; they all contain the same milky juice, 

 and their smell and taste is so disagreeable that 

 cattle refuse them. They have, however, been 

 occasionally injured by eating unripe poppy-heads 

 when the plant was mixed with clover and sainfoin. 



The only use of the wild poppy is for the colour- 

 ing matter in the petals. Theocritus records a 

 custom among young Greeks, who took the petals 

 probably folded into a little bag, as boys do with 

 rose-leaves now, and holding it between the finger 

 and thumb of the left hand, gave it a sharp tap 

 with the palm of the right hand. If it cracked, it 

 was a proof that their sweetheart loved them. In 

 his third Idyllium the goat-herd tells Amaryllis 

 that his " telephion," as he calls it, would not crack.^ 



1 As antidotes to poisoning by Morphia, Mr. L. Brunton 

 gives the following : — Warm coffee after the stomach is 

 emptied. Ammonia. Arouse by flicking with a towel, or by 

 galvanic battery, and keep awake by walking about and 

 renewal of stimulation if necessary; two to four mins. liq. 



