VEGETABLE POISONS. 229 



portion of the leaves so employed is very small, 

 they have seldom been productive of any very 

 serious effects. The smell and flavour of laurel 

 water very strongly resembles the bitter almond, 

 the essential oil of which, as well as of every 

 bitter kernel, from containing; prussic acid, is 

 most actively poisonous. From a similar cause, 

 the laurel leaf derives its deleterious quality; and 

 hence its essential oil, undiluted, produces instan- 

 taneous death, like the fatal fit of apoplexy; 

 which renders it the most terrible and deadly 

 poison at present known. If taken with distilled 

 water, its effects are also quick, though less rapid 

 than in the former instance. Its operation is 

 confined principally to the brain and nervous 

 system, affecting but little the stomach ; produc- 

 ing convulsions, tetanus, palsy, and ultimately, 

 fatal apoplexy. 



The only case with which I am acquainted 

 in which a preparation of this shrub has been 

 feloniously administered as a poison, was in that 

 of Sir Theodosius Boughton, who was poisoned 

 with laurel water, in the year 1780. The dose 

 administered, was about two ounces, which, by 

 the offender, was substituted for an aperient 

 draught that had been ordered by the apothecary; 

 the former of which was given to him unconsci- 

 ously by his own mother, Lady Boughton. In 

 two minutes after the dose had been taken, Lady 

 Boughton states in evidence, that her son strug- 



