468 PHIOSOPHILCAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1731. 



narcissuses being much backwarder than the hyacinths, as they always are when 

 planted in a garden; these should always be placed on the glasses of water 6 

 weeks or 2 months earlier in the season than the hyacinths, when they are 

 designed to flower at the same time; and the praecoces or early blowing tulips 

 should always be chosen for this purpose. 



By this method a person who has not a garden, may have some of these 

 flowers growing in his chambers, where, if they are not kept too close from 

 the air, or in a place too warm, they will flower almost as well as in a bed of 

 earth, provided the roots are good, and are every year renewed ; especially the 

 tulips, because they every year form new bulbs, the old ones being always ex- 

 hausted in nourishing the leaves and flowers, a new bulb is annually produced 

 by the side of the flower-stem. The hyacinths flowered 2 years successively 

 on glasses of water; but their flowers were very weak the 2d year. So that it 

 is much the better way to have fresh roots every year. 



Of 1 Women being poisoned by the Simple Distilled Water of Laurel- Leaves^, 

 and of several Experiments on Dogs ; by whch it appears that this Laurel- 

 Water is one of the most dangerous Poisons hitherto knoiun. By T. Madderi, 

 M. D. of Dublin. N° 418, p. 84. 



A very extraordinary accident, that lately happened at Dublin, has discovered 

 a most dangerous poison, which was never before known to be so, though it 

 has been in frequent use among us; viz. the simple water, distilled from the 

 leaves of the lauro-cerasus.* The water is at first of a milky colour; but the 

 oil which comes over the helm with it, being in a good measure separated from 

 the phlegm, by passing it through a flannel-bag, it becomes as clear as common 

 water. 



It has the smell of the bitter almond, or peach-kernel, and has been for 

 many years in frequent use among our housewives and cooks, to give that 

 agreeable flavour to their creams and puddings. It has also been much in use 

 among drinkers of drams; and the proportion they generally use it in, has 

 been one part of laurel-water to 4 parts of brandy. 



Nor has this practice, however frequent, ever been attended with any ap- 

 parent ill consequences, till some time in Sept. 1728, when one Martha Boyse, 

 a servant, who lived with a person that sold great quantities of this water, got 

 a bottle of it from her mistress, and gave it to her mother Anne Boyse as a 

 very rich cordial. 



Anne Boyse made a present of it to Frances Eaton her sister, who was a 



* Pruiius lauro-cerasus Linn. Cherry laurel. 



