VEGETABLE POISONS. 219 



as more than seventy articles have been set down 

 by the writers on the materia medica as belonging 

 to that head. It will be sufficient to point out a 

 few which perhaps may be more familiar, and 

 which are the most likely to be misapplied in 

 their use. 



Among these may be enumerated, aconitum, 

 monk's head, or blue wolfsbane, which is also a 

 strong narcotic ; the colchicum, or meadow saf- 

 fron ; the colocynthis, or bitter apple ; the ela- 

 terium, or wild cucumber; euphorbium, which is 

 prepared from a species of spurge ; hellebore ; 

 gamboge; sedum acre, or houseleek ; the sabina 

 juniperis, or savine; the scilla, squill, or sea 

 onion ; scammony ; and, the stavisagrea, or 



stavisagre. 



All the above articles begin to shew their 

 effects immediately upon being received into the 

 mouth, where they produce an acrid taste, heat, 

 smarting, dryness of the fauces, and a constric- 

 tion of the throat. Upon descending, they occa- 

 sion nausea and vomiting; and when they have 

 reached both the stomach and intestines, severe 

 pain and spasm in* those organs, active and most 

 violent cholera, swelling and tension of the abdo- 

 men, a strong and frequent pulse, a hurried and 

 difficult respiration, considerable vertigo and 

 pain and weight in the head, muscular spasms, 

 (particularly of the throat and face,) and general 

 distress and anxiety. These symptoms are sue- 



