1 44 Yew- Trees of Great Britain and Irela7id 



so poisonous a nature. Stuart Wortley's observa- 

 tions need to be confirmed. 



Cases of poisoning in the human subject through 

 taking the leaves of yew are not infrequent. 



The Lancet quotes from L' Ivtparziaie of Florence 

 an account of a girl aged nineteen, who was advised 

 by an old woman to drink each morning a tumbler- 

 ful of a decoction of five or six ounces of the leaves. 

 On the fourth morning the dose was increased to 

 eight ounces. Vomiting ensued, and the patient 

 died eight hours after taking the last dose. Mr. 

 Balding^ of Royston related at the Cambridge 

 Medical Society the case of a girl who had died 

 from the effects of yew leaves, taken for an im- 

 proper purpose. 



A singular case of poisoning by yew leaves is 

 narrated by Dr. P. M. Deas.^ A female patient 

 in the Cheshire County Asylum was seized with 

 an attack of faintness, followed by convulsions 

 resembling epilepsy, and died within an hour. 

 Five grains of yew leaves and some small seeds 

 (? yew) were found in the stomach. She must 

 either have chewed a larger quantity of leaves, and 

 swallowed the juice, or some other cause of death 

 must have existed, for five grains is far too small 

 an amount to prove fatal in so short a time. 

 Taylor^ speaks of a lunatic who died in fourteen 



1 British Medical Journal, 1884, p. 818. - Ibid., 1876. 



•* Medical Jurisprudence. 



