202 ON THE MILK-SAP 



Horsfield, the latter of whom, although an Englishman, 

 began his researches, under the protection of the Dutch 

 Government, so early as 1802, therefore eight years before 

 the short occupation of Java by the English. 



In the 16th century, stories circulated about the 

 Macassar Poison-tree of Celebes; and physicians and 

 naturalists came gradually to tell of the action of the 

 poison, the descriptions of which had become so terrible, 

 that if the smallest quantity entered the blood, not only 

 immediate death resulted, but its action was so fearfully 

 destructive, that within half an hour afterwards the flesh 

 fell from the bones. The first description of the tree was 

 given by Neuhof, in 1682. Dreadful as the poison is 

 represented to be by this old author, his accounts are free 

 from the gloomy fables which subsequent writers promul- 

 gated. At the end of the 17th century Gervaise asserted, 

 that merely to touch or smell the tree was fatal ; and in 

 Camel (1704), we find the story, that the vapour from 

 the tree destroyed everything living for a considerable 

 distance around, and that the birds which settled on it 

 died, unless they immediately eat the seeds of the Nux 

 Vomica, by which, indeed, their lives were saved, but with 

 the loss of all their feathers. Before this time, Argensola 

 (Conquista de las islas Molucas) had told of a tree, in 

 the neighbourhood of which every one fell asleep and, if 

 he approached on the west side, died ; while, if he came to 

 it on the east side, that very sleep shielded him from the 

 deadly action. It was now said, also, that the collection 

 of the poison was committed solely to criminals whose 

 lives were forfeited, and who escaped their punishment if 

 they successfully completed their task. From Rumph we 

 learned that the Poison-tree is also met with in Sumatra, 



