CHAPTER 9 



PRINCIPALLY SOLANACEOUS AND COMPOSITOUS PLANTS 



Oleander (Nerium oleander). The oleander is an old fashioned shrub 

 grown in tubs inside of houses in north temperate regions, but in the open 

 in the southern and southwestern United States, in southern Europe and 

 in the Bermuda islands, where it is a mass of color during the month of 

 June and even later in July. It is a native of the Mediterranean countries 

 of Europe also in Persia, Japan and the East Indies. The writer has 

 noticed three varieties in Bermuda, the white-flowered, the pink-flowered 

 and the rose-red variety. The leaves are lanceolate, leathery with the 

 stomata depressed in pits protected by hairs on their under surface. 



Cases and Symptoms. Five soldiers were poisoned by stirring a pot of 

 barley soup with an oleander branch. Vomiting occurred. In one case, 

 there was dizziness and abdominal pain; in another, dulling of the senses 

 and insensibility to external pressure. Three hundred French soldiers 

 in the army corps of Marshal Suchet in Catalonia became sick after eating 

 roasted meat fastened together with skewers made of oleander sticks. 

 A number of these soldiers died. A cow and two goats were poisoned 

 with oleander leaves given with the other feed. The symptoms noted 

 were coldness of the nose and extremities, maiked tremors in the posterior 

 extremities and cramp-like contractions of all the muscles. The goats 

 passed into a general paralytic condition and died in about eleven hours, 

 while the cow died paralyzed twenty four hours after eating the leaves. 

 The Arizona Experiment Station records a considerable number of cases 

 of poisoning of horses about Phoenix and in other parts of the state. A 

 fine team of draft horses were lost by eating oleander leaves. Experiments 

 conducted by this station with cows, horses, lambs and mules amply 

 demonstrate the poisonous character of the shrub. 



The amount of oleander necessary to cause death in horses ranges from 

 fifteen to twenty grams of green leaves and from fifteen to thirty grams 

 of dry leaves. The fatal dose for cows is from ten to twenty grams of 

 green leaves and fifteen to twenty-five grams of dried leaves. The fatal 

 amount of green or dry leaves for a sheep is one to five grams. 



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