Treatment of Buttercup Poisoning. 167 



twelve hours and continued for twenty-four, after 

 which she gradually recovered. My attention 

 was not directed to the character of the food 

 until nineteen days afterwards, and when I 

 visited the place where the grass had been cut 

 from, it was a complete thicket of flowerless 

 branches and roots of ranunculaccB^ the characters 

 of which I was unable to determine ; from the 

 absence of flowers and fruit, I was convinced that 

 the food in question was largely composed of 

 common buttercup, which the hungry, exhausted 

 animal had greedily devoured. That the ranun- 

 culacce possess acrid properties no one will deny, 

 and that they are capable when taken in large 

 quantities of inducing vomition in the horse 

 may be fairly inferred. No other article of pro- 

 vender with which we are acquainted being 

 capable of producing similar symptoms, even 

 when the stomach is filled to repletion, and when 

 rupture occurs through any other kind of food, 

 there is never the same train of symptoms as are 

 observed in all cases of ranunculacce poisoning." 

 The author has during the last few years met 

 with many similar cases to the one above quoted, 

 and has always adopted the same mode of treat- 

 ment with the exception of administering one 

 pint and a-half of linseed oil instead of a physic 

 ball, and if there seems much irritation of the 

 throat and coughing, stimulate the throat with 

 Elliman's Embrocation or Gregory's Yersico Su- 

 dorific. 



