VEGETABLE POISONS. 19 



The accounts given by other authors 

 agree with the above defcription : and we 

 read of men who have continued in a llate 

 of madnefs from nightfhade feveral days. 

 To children it generally proves fatal. When 

 adults die of this poifon, the fcene is ufaally 

 clofed within 24 hours *. 



Some boys and girls perceiving in a garden 

 at Edinburgh the beautiful berries of the 

 deadly nightshade, and, unacquainted with 

 their poifonous quality, eat feveral ^ in a flicrt 

 time dangerous fymptoms appeared, a fwell- 

 ing of the abdomen took place, they became 

 convulfed : the next morning one of them 



* Wepfer de Cicut. Aquat. p. 226. has given an 

 account of fome dangerous fymptoms which aftecled 

 three children from eating the berries of the folanum 

 vulgar^, common or garden nightfiiade ; but as they 

 all recovered, and as I have not met with an inftance 

 where that fpecies of nightlliade proved fatal, I have 

 on that account omited a defcription of it. Befides 

 the folanum commune, there are other plants in this 

 kingdom which are fufpe£ted to \)e poifonous ; thefe 

 are aconitum hyemale, colchicum vulgare, alkekengi 

 multiflorum foliis hirfutis, fuppofed to be the folanum 

 fomniferum of the ancients. 



C 2 died, 



