VOL. LXX.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. (341 



XL On the American Poison called Ticunas. By the Abbe Fontana. Trans- 

 lated from the Italian.* p. l63. 



The experiments which I made, says the Abbe Fontana, at Paris during 2 

 years on the poison of the viper, and which are tiie sequel of many others on the 

 same subject, published in Italy 10 years before, have enabled me to pronounce 

 with safety on the nature and properties of that poison. The unexpected and 

 important effects which I observed on the application of the poison of that animal 

 to the bodies of living creatures, have led me to new discoveries in animal physics; 

 and these discoveries have gradually led me to doubt of some certain medical 

 theories, either not sufficiently proved, or too generally applied by practitioners. 



From that time I have been desirous of extending my researches to other 

 poisons; and, if it had been possible, I could have wished to examine some of 

 the most active vegetable poisons. I had imagined that the animal poisons were 

 like the poison of the viper, which freely diffuses itself through the body of an 

 animal when applied to a wound, but is not increased in the manner in which 

 the poison which produces the small-pox, oi- the canine madness, is augmented: 

 I say, I conceived, that these poisons might have much analogy to each other, 

 and that they might act in the same manner, and on the same parts of animals. 

 On the other hand, I did not dare to conjecture any thing concerning the opera- 

 tion of vegetable poisons, which I had not yet examined; nor did I think that 

 any thing could safely be advanced concerning their action, even after the instruc- 

 tions derived from the best writers on them. Their manner of experimenting 

 was very different from that which I had used in examining the poison of the 

 viper, and their inferences appeared too vague and uncertain. Being arrived at 

 London however, I had it easily in my power to satisfy my desires on this head. 

 Dr. Heberden, an eminent physician there, and f.r.s., procured me a great 

 number of American arrows which had been carefully preserved, and were well 

 impregnated with poison. He was also so obliging as to supply me with a good 

 quantity of poison, inclosed and sealed up in an earthen vessel inclosed in a tin 

 case. Within the tin case was a paper containing the following words: " Indian 

 poison, brought from the banks of the river of the Amazons, by Don Pedro 

 Maldonado; it is one of the sorts mentioned in the Philos. Trans, vol. 47, N° 

 12." In the vol. of the Trans, here quoted, mention is made of 2 poisons little 

 different in their activity; the one called the poison of Lamas, and the other of 

 Ticunas. The poison contained in the earthen vessel which I used is that of the 

 Ticunas. It is not well known to which of the 2 the poison on the arrows be- 



* Of the experiments related in this memoir an account is to be found in the English translation of 

 Fontana's Treatise on Poisons, published in 2 vols. 8vo. 1787; but as in that translation the words of 

 the author are not rendered with so much exactness as in the present translation, by one of the 

 secretaries of the r.s., this memoir has, for tliat reason, been reprinted in this Abridgement. 



VOL. XIV. 4 N 



