268 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY, Vol. XI. 



A few years ago j a child died from having eaten one morning a quantity 

 of oleander flowers; it was seized with, violent colic, under which the child 

 sank at the end of two days. In 1809, when the French troops were 

 lying before Madrid, some of the soldiers went a marauding, every 

 one bringing back such provisions as could be found. One soldier 

 formed the unfortunate idea of cutting the branches of the oleander 

 for spits and skewers for the meat when roasting. This tree is very 

 common in Spain, where it attains considerable dimensions. The wood 

 having been stripped of its bark, and brought in contact with the meat 

 was productive of most direful consequences, for of twelve soldiers who 

 ate of the roast seven died, and the other five were dangerously ill. 

 ( Gard. Chronicle, 1844, p. 23.) In like manner the root of Nerium 

 odorumis found to be a poison in India." Whyj then, I ask, is there no 

 mention of this plant in the standard work of Alfred S. Taylor so sump- J ,i 

 tubusly studied of all lawyers in Great Britain, Ireland, and India ? lam 

 writing from my knowledge of the Second Edition published in 1873. 

 I have not seen the latest edition recently published. Equally strange is 

 it to say that not even the erudite Dr. Casper, Professor of Forensic 

 Medicine of the University of Berlin, makes any reference to oleander, 

 although he refers to less virulent plants in the four volumes published 

 by the New Sydenham Society, 1861-65. Stranger still, one of our 

 latest writers on Forensic Medicine and Toxicology (1893, London), in 

 the person of Professor Dixon Mann of Owen's College, Manchester, 

 makes not the slightest reference to it, while Lauder Brunton and 

 Schmiedeberg, Mr» Sohn, Dr. Dymock, and Mr. Greenish recognize 

 poisonous alkaloids in Nerium odorum. This shows that even our first- 

 rate writers on Toxicology are not in touch with the pharmacological 

 knowledge of the day. This is not as it should be in the interests of 

 human life and public safety. Lawyers defending criminals look up 

 to works on Medical Jurisprudence and Toxicology for their sole in- 

 formation. I deem it my duty to point out that the works which 

 lawyers consider here and in England as their authorities are painfully 

 wanting in placing before the public useful knowledge which has been 

 handed down for hundreds of years as established facts— -facts beyond 

 dispute. 



When O'Shaughnessy toiled in India, as Professor of Chemistry and 

 Materia Medica in the Calcutta Medical College, in the first half of 



