MISCELLANEOUS DICOTYLEDONOUS PLANTS 89 



kind of poison it contains." An account of this case was published in 

 the daily press, but a full account, somewhat incorrect, appeared in the 

 Lancaster Intelligencer under date of May 13, 1912, with the heading 

 "A Death Dealing Plant. Warning to Woodland Wanderers by the 

 State Health Department." The loss of stock by Cicuta poisoning has 

 been considerable in the United States, although the data is inaccurate 

 and incomplete. One man in Oregon, presumably estimating the loss in 

 his immediate neighborhood, makes it 10 per cent. Slade, 1903, esti- 

 mates a loss of a hundred cattle a year in Oregon. Chestnut and Wilcox, 

 1901, say that in 1900 in Montana 30 head of cattle and 80 head of sheep 

 were lost. 



Poisonous Principles. If one cuts open the rootstock of any of the 

 species of Cicuta drops of an aromatic oil exude, and they impart a peculiar 

 odor to the plant. The poisonous principle is not the oil, but a resin, which 

 has been isolated as cicutoxin. It has been studied by Boehm (1875-76), 

 Wikzemski (1875) and Pohl (1894). It has been found to have properties 

 similar to picrotoxin and with these two toxicologists usually group 

 coriamyrtin, oenantho toxin and santonin. This poisonous principle, 

 according to Kunkel (1901), is a clear, brown, sticky resin with an acid 

 reaction and which does not harden when dried. It is soluble in alcohol, 

 chloroform, ether and dilute alkalis and is precipitated by acids from 

 alkaline solutions. Injected subcutaneously, by Wikzemski in 1875 into 

 frogs, it produced clonic-toxic convulsions of the whole body, and in 

 doses of 4 to 6 milligrams of the ether extract, it killed the frogs with 

 paralysis. The action of the poison is limited to the central nervous 

 system, that of the heart and organs of respiration are influenced second- 

 arily. The principal effect of cicutoxin is upon the "convulsion center" 

 tat the end of the medulla oblongata. The upper part of the brain is not 

 affected, while the terminal paralysis of the spinal cord results from the 

 complete exhaustion following the convulsions. 



Although the rootstocks are perhaps the most virulent parts of the 

 plant, yet, the leaves st%ms and basal parts or the plant contain sufficient 

 poison, especially in the early stages of growth, to produce death. The 

 plant is probably most poisonous in the spring, when the Mulhollen boys 

 were poisoned. Where the soil has been puddled by the trampling of 

 cattle in the swamps, where the cowbane grows, the resin is evidently 

 freed into the pools of water, which if taken by the animal to relieve thirst 

 produces poisoning. Gadd as early as 1774 related in some detail a case 

 of poisoning of cattle from drinking water in which were Cicuta roots. 



