v] Euphorbiacex 67 
Symptoms. As regards E. Lathyris Chesnut says that on the skin 
the juice causes redness, itching, pimples, and sometimes gangrene. 
The seeds when eaten inflame the mouth and stomach, cause vomiting 
and intense diarrhoea, and if the illness is serious, nervous disorders, 
unconsciousness, collapse, and death. 
The Euphorbias have an acrid effect on the mouth, and severe 
poisoning may follow their use as aperients burning mouth, swelling 
tongue, stomach pains, cold skin, vertigo, fainting or syncope, and 
even death in two or three days (Esser). 
Similar symptoms are given by Cornevin, who states that the 
Euphorbias have an irritating effect on the mucous membrane, especially 
at the back of the mouth. In from three quarters of an hour to two 
hours after eating the plant, or even longer, there is painful vomiting, 
followed by diarrhoeic evacuations, with a lowering of the temperature. 
If the quantity ingested has been sufficient there appear also nervous 
symptoms, vertigo, delirium, muscular tremors, and respiratory and 
circulatory troubles which disappear after abundant sweating if the 
poisoning is not fatal. If it is fatal the symptoms of superpurgation 
and enteritis predominate, but are accompanied by nervous symptoms 
and circulatory disorders. 
Miiller gives in addition loss of appetite, piteous whining (in goats), 
groaning, colic and tympanites ; and Pott, bloating, fever, palpitation 
of the heart, and loss of consciousness. Cows gave a reddish or sharp- 
tasting milk. Milk of affected goats caused diarrhoea in human beings. 
REFERENCES. 
19, 52, 53, 73, 81, 82, 130, 141, 190, 213, 216. 
Dog's Mercury (Mercurialis perennis L.) and Annual Mercury 
(M. annua L.). These two species may be taken together as they have 
similar poisonous properties, and closely resemble one another, though 
the former is a perennial and the latter an annual. The plants have a 
somewhat unpleasant odour, and live stock are not likely to take them 
unless pressed for readily available green food. The loss of one cow and 
severe illness of four others was recorded by Blackhurst in the Veterin- 
ary Journal in 1896 ; Griissow mentioned the loss of cows in the Farmer 
and Stock Breeder Yearbook, 1907; the loss of horses fed on herbage 
cut from a hedge and containing M. perennis was recorded in the 
Journal of the Royal Agricultural Society in 1898 ; the loss of sheep was 
recorded by Henslow. As regards man, Ray records a case in which 
a family of five persons suffered severely from eating M. annua fried 
52 
