OUR POISONOUS PLANTS 65 



are on record of the poisonous effects of this plant. 

 In 1758 a person died at Havant, in Hampshire, 

 " from havin/^f taken," says Mr. Watson, " about four 

 spoonfuls of the juice of the root, instead of that of 

 the water-parsnip." In more recent times the case 

 is recorded of a number of convicts, working on the 

 banks of the Thames near Woolwich, who finding 

 a quantity of this plant, and, believing it to be the 

 wild parsnip, partook of it. Shortly afterwards nine 

 of the men were seized with convulsions and six of 

 them died. In this instance, as in several others 

 recorded of poisoning by this plant, all the sufferers 

 were affected with tetanus and delirium. 



Another plant that appears to have caused mischief 

 in former days by being mistaken for a harmless rela- 

 tive is the perennial or dog's mercury. This species, 

 which is a very common plant, closely resembles the 

 annual mercury which, in days when garden vege- 

 tables were scarcer than they are now, was commonly 

 used as a pot-herb, and several cases are on record in 

 which painful results followed a mistaking of the one 

 for the other. Dr. John Hill, in his Family Herbal, 

 says, with his usual exaggeration, " there is not a 

 more fatal Plant, Native of our Country, than this ; 

 many have been known to die by eating it boiled with 

 their Food ; and probably many also whom we have 

 not heard of." Still Ray relates an instance in which 

 a man, his wife, and three children suffered severely 

 from eating it fried with bacon; and as late as 1820 

 several fatal cases occurred from this cause near Wor- 

 cester among a party of Irish vagrants. The plant 

 belongs to the Spurge family, which contains several 

 other injurious species. 



But by far the most dangerous order in the British 



E 



