164 Plants used ly the Ant'icnt'tfor Poisoning their ArroivS* 



pared it was the Veratrum album, white hellebore, a plant 

 verv common in the pasture lands of the alpine mountains. 

 To prepare the poison, however, for this purpose required 

 some dexterity. Cienhiegos add?, that in his time the 

 king of Spain had a huntsman who understood it tho- 

 roughly. 



The second work from which I have derived information 

 on this subject is the Historv of the War of Grenada under 

 Philip II., by Mendoza. This author, so highly esteemed 

 bv the Spaniards for the puritv of his style, his impar- 

 tiality, and the extent of his learning, says, that the 

 poison which the hunters of his country employed at the 

 time he wrote, that is at the beginning of the seventeenth 

 century, was prepared in the mountains of Bejar and 

 Guadarrama, and was called in that part of Spain ILl zumo 

 de vedegrtmhrc. It was formed into an extract of a reddish 

 brown colour. Another indigenous poisonous plant, whieli 

 the inhabitants called Yerva, that is to say " the herb," by 

 way of excellence, was employed for the same purpose iu 

 the high mountains of Grenada : it is the ytcon'itum lycoc- 

 touum, or v^olf's-bane, which, like the Fcratrum, grows 

 on the high mountains. The effects produced on the ani- 

 mals wounded by poisoned arrows are, according to Men- 

 doza, the same, whether hellebore or wolf's-bane be em- 

 ployed. They both consist in sudden and great debility, 

 coldness, numbness, and cecity : they foam at the mouth, 

 and are thrown into a state of convulsion. Mendoza says, 

 that two plants, which he indicates only by the Spanish 

 names of JSleinbrUlo and Retama, with the meaning of 

 which I am not acquainted, were employed as antidotes. 



After I had seen these passages, I was desirous of exa- 

 mining what IJaller says of the plants mentioned in his 

 Plistoria Stirpiiim indlgenarum Helueiice, or rather in the 

 French translation which Vicat has given of the part which 

 relates to the properties of plants. 



" If it happens," says he, " that the poison of the Ve- 

 ratrum penetrates to the blood, without having lost any of 

 its force, death immediately ensues, even though introduced 

 by a slight wound : this has been observed when the an- 

 tient Portuguese were accustomed to poison their arrows 

 with the juice of that plant." This observation was con- 

 firmed bv the experiments of Matthioli. When death takes 

 place in this manner, putrefaction makes so rapid a pro- 

 gress that the iiesh of the animal becomes tender as soon as 

 it ceases to oreathe. Guilandinus speaks also of the poi- 

 j?<ju which the Spaniards prepared from this plant. 



Two 



