258 PHILOSOPHICAL TKANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1746> 



slaughter, and miserable manner, in which the horned cattle died, from eating 

 this plant at Torncea. This author also, in his Flora Suecica, acquaints us, not- 

 withstanding Rivinus and Mappus have asserted, that the homed cattle not only 

 eat this plant without detriment, but are very fond of it, that 3 oxen were killed 

 by eating its roots. He was fully convinced that they were the roots of the 

 cicuta aquatica; because, soon after this accident, the country people brought 

 him some of them, desiring to know to what plant they belonged. He there- 

 upon planted them in the academical garden, and was fully satisfied what they 

 were. 



Wepfer has confounded his cicuta aquatica, in the history of it,* with the 

 poisonous oenanthe of Lobel ; where he says, that Lobel has described the cicuta 

 aquatica under the name of oenanthe cicutae facie, succo viroso crocaute; and 

 mentions, that it is not very frequent, but in the northern parts of England by 

 the sides of rivers, and in watery places ; he adds, that Lobel has not been exact 

 in his description. To which Mr. W. answers, that Lobel's description of the 

 oenanthe is very exact, for the time he lived; and it is very evident that Wepfer 

 never saw this oenanthe; which plant, Mr. W. believes, is not found in Germany. 

 Wepfer likewise, in the Ephcmerides Naturae Curiosorum,-|- is under the same 

 mistake: and tells you that Stalpart van der Wiel differs from him; and calls the 

 plant, mentioned in his observations, oenanthe, as Lobel does ; and though Stal- 

 part has given figures of the plant accurate enough for a common observer to 

 distinguish the plants by, and though 9 years elapsed between the publication of 

 his book de Cicuta and his observations in the Ephemerides, he was still in the 

 same error, and believed the oenanthe of Lobel, and his cicuta aquatica, as well 

 as that of Gresner, to be the same poisonous plant. The accurate Hoffman also, 

 when treating of vegetable poisons, makes no mention of this difference. 



Neither the roots of the oenanthe of Lobel, nor those of the cicuta of Wepfer, 

 have any flavour in them disagreeable enough to deter those who taste them from 

 eating. They both occasion violent convulsions and death, if not timely pre- 

 vented. The intention of cure seems in both to be the same, viz. first, by 

 emptying the stomach and intestines as soon as possible, and then by causing the 

 patient to swallow large quantities of oleaginous fluids. But it is to be observed, 

 that causing the patient to swallow any quantity is attended with great difficulty, 

 after he is attacked by the poison; because of the jaws being, as it were, locked 

 together by the violence of the spasm. After the stomach is freed from this per- 

 nicious vegetable, the symptoms have generally diminished by degrees, and the 

 patient recovered. 



♦ Cicutae aquat. liistoria et noxae, p. 15. — Orig. 



+ Ephemerid. Nat. curios. Dec. 11. Ann. vi. Obs. 11 6. — Orig. 



