686 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1712. 



out any medicines. His tongue indeed turned black, and swelled so much, that 

 it could scarcely be contained in his mouth : he was stupid, as is usual from the 

 venom of a viper, but not so much, but that he could stand on his feet. A few 

 hours after, his sleepiness decreased ; and the next day he endeavoured to lap 

 water, but the size of his tongue prevented him. On the third day he threatened 

 to bite any one that disturbed him, and had recovered so much strength, as to 

 be able to escape out of the place where he was kept : and two days after, he 

 was seen in the streets ; but what became of him afterwards we could not 

 learn. 



October the 17th, we gave a dog 15 grains of the dried root of napellus, 

 monk's-hood, powdered, and mixed with flesh and broth. As soon as taken, 

 the dog was seized with a difficulty of swallowing, or rather seemed as if he was 

 like to be strangled. He immediately grew faint and restless, and dug the 

 ground with his feet ; but he soon desisted, by reason of a fainting fit, as we 

 imagined from the dull colour of his eyes, and a weakness over all his body. 

 This fainting was presently succeeded by a violent vomiting, in which he threw 

 up the flesh he had eaten, very little altered. His fainting soon returning again, 

 he laid himself on the ground ; but being seized with terrible convulsions of the 

 abdomen, diaphragm, and of almost the whole body, he ran from place to place, 

 and vomited so great a quantity of frothy matter, that he was like to have been 

 suffocated. His vomiting increased, with a kind of crying and sobbing, like 

 broken sighs, as if he had endeavoured to bark at those that stood by. In 

 this manner he was miserably tormented for the space of an hour; when all 

 his symptoms remitted, and by degrees he recovered. In the preceding sununer, 

 we gave a little dog a drachm of the said root of monk's-hood. He was soon 

 after seized with the same symptoms, but they were longer and more violent; 

 and he also recovered. In both these dogs we particularly noticed these broken 

 and interrupted sighs, or kind of sobbing; because we did not observe the like 

 to be occasioned by any other poison we had tried. 



An ounce of the leaves, flowers, and seed of the monk's-hood when green, 

 being bruised and given to a dog, scarcely disordered him any more than if he 

 had eaten so much grass. About the same time we made trial of the nux vo- 

 mica on another dog, that we might see its effects on his body when dead. The 

 dog accordingly dying in a short time, we found his stomach and small guts very 

 red ; and judged that this redness and inflammation were caused by the corro- 

 siveness of the medicine. 



October the 20th, we injected warm into the jugular vein, of a strong lusty 

 dog, 1 oz. of emetic wine: for -\ of an hour, after the operation was over, and 

 he was let loose, he continued pretty well, unless that he seemed somewhat 



