40 JOURNAL, BOMB A Y NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY, Vol, XIY 



and then siicooeds the delirium, and the other phenomena which 

 attend those slighter cases which have never passed into coma. 



Dr. H. Giraud's papers on cases seen by him at the J. J. Hospital, 

 Bombay, namely one contributed to the Bombay Medical and Physical 

 Society, and another cited in Appendix C of Dr. Norman Chevers' 

 Ind. Med. Jurisp. (p. 838, 3rd Ed., 1870, Calcutta) are well worth 

 studying. Dr. Lyon quotes in his Medical Jurisprudenca, Bombay, 

 Dr. Giraud's remarks. 



It must not be supposed that it is always that the Datura plant is 

 used for criminal purposes ; even when so used, it is generally not 

 with the intention of causing death, although Norman (Jhevers 

 cites cases where such was the intention. There are instances of 

 persons having died from eating the. leaves by mistake, while more 

 than one little child has either died or suffered very severely from 

 swallowing its seeds. (Anne Pratt.) When the first settlers arrived 

 in Virginia, says Sowerby, some ute the leaves of Datura and expe- 

 rienced such strange and unpleasant effects therefrom, that the colonists 

 called it the ' Devil's Apple ' a name by which it is still known in 

 the American States. In most cases it has been eaten by children 

 in mistake for some other wild plant. Dr. H. Oleghorn, of the Madras 

 Medical Service, notes a case, (quoted by Norman Chevers),* in which 

 fragments of 3 or 4 leaves were found in the stomach of a poisoned 

 Indian child 2 years old. " The mother of the child was reaping 

 in a raggr/ field, when it was discovered that her two children were 

 eating the leaves of Datura. A leaf was found convulsively grasped 

 in the hands of one of them. It was the leaves of D. fastuosa that 

 the children had been eating. One of the many species of Thorn- 

 Apple possessing the poisonous properties mentioned above, is said 

 to have b^en used in ancient days by the Priests of Delphi " to 

 produce those semi-delirious paroxysms which they palmed off on 

 the multitude as the results or manifestations of divine inspiration. 

 The seeds of another species of Datura wore similarly employed by 

 ancient Peruvians. " (Sowerby .j 



I have at present under my care, in the Ratnagiri Lunatic Asylum, 

 an inmate named Dhondnak Kannak. He admits to have been an 

 inveterate smoker of Datura leaves, and believes he is an " inspired 



• Puge 194, Ind. Med. Jurisprudence, Ed. Brd, 1870, Calcutta. 



