1859.] ATROPA BELLADONNA. 149 



Sacra/ or a Scripture Herbal, I find, under the title " Ash, " 

 the following, which refers to its virtues : — " The berries of the 

 Quicken-tree, or wild Ash, are bitter and acid, purge waterish 

 humours bravely , therefore good in the scurvy and in dropsies, 

 in diet-drinks, and it is said it will yield a liquor (if tapt as we 

 do Birch in the spring) highly commended in scorbutical and 

 ' splenetical affects.' 



" Some authors confidently aver a serpent will rather creep 

 through a fire than over a twig of Ash." 



The book above referred to is written by W. Westmacot, 

 Med. Prof., and printed by John Salusbury, at the Rising Sun, 

 in Cornhill, 1695. 



The author also refers to the Sorbus pyriforinis, and says of it 

 that " the first to find it in England was my old friend, and most 

 exact botanist, Mr. Pitt, an apothecary of Worcester, since dead, 

 who sent a description of it to the Royal Society, which I shall 

 set down for the encouragement of young botanists ; yet hoping 

 that Mr. Norton, a botanist from London, whom I accidentally 

 saw near Malvern, in Worcestershire, on the 26th of July, ^93, 

 going to search what plants he could find on that mountain (in 

 order to completing a large herbal he was about), may find it 

 and give us a further account of it." 



I should like if some of your readers could give me some parti- 

 culars of the above-named Mr. Newton, and also of the author 

 of ' Historia Vegetabilium Sacra.^ 



I think Mr. Pitt named above has already been noticed in 

 the pages of the ' Phytologist ' as Mayor of Worcester. 



S. B. 



ATEOPA BELLADONNA. 



(2b the Editor of the ' Phytologist.'') 



Several notices have appeared in your interesting Journal re- 

 lating to poisonous plants, and their effects upon persons who have 

 eaten them by mistake. The enclosed account of poisoning by 

 the berries of the Belladonna may be worth recording ; it also 

 shows the locality of the plant, and may assist some of the curi- 

 ous, in ascertaining whether the root of the Belladonna was the 

 insane'root of Shakespeare, referred to in the play of ^ Macbeth.' 

 The berries, in the case reported, certainly produced deleterious 



