10 Ranunculacex [CH. 
and itself gives rise in the plant to Anemonic acid and Anemonin 
(C 10 H 8 4 ), a very poisonous, narcotic substance, stated to be neither 
a glucoside, nor an alkaloid, but a ring ketone with the properties of 
an acid anhydride. 
Symptoms. The symptoms recorded by Cornevin in the poisoning 
of animals by the fresh plants are nausea, coughing, vomiting (if pos- 
sible), stupefaction, muscular tremors, and violent colic, accompanied 
at times by hsematuria and always by diarrhoea and dysentery. There 
are pronounced respiratory and heart troubles. 
Pott confirms the symptoms of hsematuria, diarrhoea, and inflam- 
mation of the stomach and intestines in the case of A. Pulsatilla when 
fed in the green condition. According to Esser, the plant poison affects 
the spinal cord and the brain, the symptoms being similar to those 
produced by Aconitum Napellus. 
REFERENCES. 
16, 63, 81, 191, 197, 198, 213, 233, 240. 
Buttercups (Ranunculus sp.). A number of species of Ranunculus 
are acrid, irritant or severely poisonous, as the case may be. There 
are variations in the poisonous character according to the season, and 
some parts of the plant are more toxic than others. At the time the 
young shoots develop in the spring but little of the poisonous principle 
is present, and some (e.g. R. Ficaria) are not then poisonous, but a 
larger quantity of the poisonous principle forms later, and some species 
are especially dangerous at the time of flowering, after which the toxicity 
decreases with the maturity and state of dryness of the plant. The 
flowers are the most poisonous, and then the leaves and stem. It does 
not seem to have been demonstrated that the seeds of any species are 
dangerous, though Henslow states that the fruits of some species, when 
green, appear to be most intensely acrid. 
Some species of Ranunculus are especially harmful (R. sceleratus, 
R. Flammula, and R. bulbosus), while others are less so (R. lingua, R. 
Ficaria, R. acris). The toxic principle is volatile, and buttercups are 
easily rendered innocuous by drying or boiling so much so that when 
dried in hay they may be regarded as a nourishing food for stock, and 
are readily eaten. Indeed, R. repens is scarcely, if at all, injurious even 
when green, though a case of fatal poisoning to sheep said to be due to 
this species was reported in the Veterinarian in 1844. Fresh R. aquatilis . 
is held to be quite harmless, and has been used as a fodder. "Along 
the banks of the Hampshire Avon, and other places in the same neigh- 
