STRAMONIUM 



it flaunts itself all about his beaten tracks and 

 reminds him of the snake story. No one ever 

 found it in the wilderness.&quot; 



&quot; It looks something like a morning-glory.&quot; 



&quot;That s it. I suppose it tries to imitate the 

 morning-glory round the cow-sheds, and children 

 who mistake it often die. A strange, occult, ser 

 pentine plant with a virus in it. If you put a 

 white man down in Africa or Alaska, up it comes 

 for the first time with its trumpet-flower. Pliny 

 calls it Nepenthe and says the sibyls drank 

 its juice. The negroes along the James River 

 have a superstition that if you put the leaves 

 under your pillow, you will dream of snakes.&quot; 



&quot;All of which is very interesting, Doctor, in 

 materia medica, but will you kindly come to the 

 similitude ? &quot; 



&quot; Doesn t it grow in society ? Haven t you 

 encountered the trumpet-flower in life, so like a 

 morning-glory, with a fang under it ? Haven t 

 you seen men wear it on their breasts and then 

 dream of snakes ? Isn t it rather strange that the 

 earth s flora should spring its Marguerites and its 

 Messalinas flowers that hide away and almost 

 die if you touch them, like the mimosa, and 

 flowers that flaunt themselves at the doorways and 

 hold out brazen corolla like that, always growing 

 where the soil is rank ? &quot; 



&quot; Let me look at it. It has a peculiar odour, 

 slightly fetid.&quot; 



&quot; But it does not shrink if you handle it.&quot; 



&quot; What are its medical results ? &quot; 



201 



