520 HEMLOCK CONINE 



A few minutes later the colt went down upon his knees, 

 appeared to require special efforts to keep himself on his 

 legs, stumbled, and walked slowly when led ; but in two 

 hours the symptoms had entirely disappeared. Moiroud 

 poisoned a horse with half a pound of the dried leaves given 

 as a decoction, and observed nausea, spasmodic twitching 

 of the muscles of the extremities, cold sweats, dilatation of 

 the pupils, and dulness. In Italy asses eating hemlock 

 have sometimes been so thoroughly paralysed that, suppos- 

 ing them to be dead, the peasants have begun to remove 

 the skin (Matthiolus). 



Cattle poisoned lie as if lifeless, with slow, feeble pulse, 

 cold extremities, and dilated pupils. Sheep become giddy, 

 listless, and sometimes die. When other food is scarce 

 lambs will crop hemlock with fatal results. Fifteen grains 

 of the succus injected into the blood-vessels of a full-grown 

 mouse produced, in half an hour, paralysis, continuing for 

 five hours. Christison found that an ounce of the extract 

 swallowed by dogs proved fatal in forty-five minutes ; 

 ninety grains applied to a wound had the same effect in an 

 hour and a half ; while twenty-eight grains caused death 

 in two minutes, when injected into the veins. 



Gerrard recorded the poisoning of pigs which strayed into 

 an orchard and ate growing hemlock. They lay prostrate 

 and unable to rise, pulse imperceptible, the body cold, the 

 eyes amaurotic, and when left alone they lapsed into a 

 comatose state. There were no convulsions, and no 

 pain was apparent when they were pricked with a pin. 

 In fifteen hours two died, and two a few hours later. 

 Examination discovered the blood throughout the body, and 

 especially in the large organs, dark-coloured and fluid, the 

 result of the fatal asphyxia ; the intestines distended with 

 gas ; the mucous coat of the stomach, particularly its cardiac 

 portion, much congested, while similar spots of congestion 

 were observed throughout the intestines. 



Conine is generally used in the form of hydrobromide. 

 One drop applied to the eye of a rabbit arrested respiration 

 in nine minutes ; three drops in the eye of a cat killed it in 

 a minute and a half ; five drops swallowed by small dogs 

 began to operate in thirty seconds, and proved fatal in one 



