BITTER CASSADA. 215 



tious qualities. Yet the jatropha yields a deadly 

 poison, and by means of its deleterious juice, the 

 Indians destroyed many of their Spanish persecutors. 

 Indeed so active is its agency as to occasion death 

 in a few minutes. Yet no effect is externally pro- 

 duced, the poison acts solely upon the nervous 

 system, and shrinks the stomach to half its natural 

 size. It has, therefore, been inferred, that the 

 volatile substance in which the fatal principle re- 

 sides, directs its activity to the nervous web which 

 envelopes the whole body, and especially over the 

 coatings of the stomach, which by its shrinking 

 plainly indicates the nature of the poison that has 

 so fearfully assailed it. 



Who, then, that saw the manioc growing in its 

 native soil, and who, regarding it with a botanic eye, 

 knew that it belonged to a family of deleterious 

 plants, would not turn from the examination of the 

 living specimen, lest he should accidentally imbibe 

 its poison? But circumstances with which we are 

 unacquainted, first led the natives of the country to 

 dissipate its noxious qualities, by the active agency 

 of heat. Chance, perhaps, or rather, we should say, 

 the merciful Creator of the manioc, inclined the 

 hearts of those beside whose doors it grew, to apply 

 the virtues of the plants to purposes equally salutary 

 and beneficial. He made them know, most probably, 

 by means which men call accidental, that the subtle 

 nature of vegetable poisons is readily overcome, and 

 that their activity and fatal powers are liable to 

 vanish at the approach of fire. Nor is this peculiar 

 to the manioc. The leaves of the taro growing in 

 the islands of the South Sea, are extremely poisonous : 



