THE POISONOUS PLANTS OF BOMBAY. 459 
the poisonous principles exist in much less proportions in the fruit-pulp 
than in the seeds, which latter is the part of the plant generally used 
for the extraction of the active principles. We have clear instances 
in recorded cases of how deleteriously the active principles of the plant 
may sometimes act on certain individuals. It is the milk of the tree 
that is considered highly venomous. Its bitter bark and leaves are 
cathartic. | 
Dr. Norman Chevers, on the authority of Dr. Waring, of unrivalled 
therapeutic repute as regards Indian plants, observes in his Medical 
Jurisprudence that the kernels of the plant are exceedingly bitter, I 
know it by personal experience, for I have tasted them and found them 
so to my disgust. “ They produce,” says Dr. Norman Chevers, “a slight 
feeling of numbness, very slight indeed, in the tongue ;” but I did not 
notice any heat whatsoever which Dr. Waring says is experienced. 
From a case published by Dr. J. Balfour (‘‘ Madras Journ. of Lit. 
and Se,” 1857, Vol. IIL, N.8., p. 140), it appears that the swallowing 
of one kernel of the fruit produced acro-narcotic symptoms, similar to 
those of aconite. In a case quoted by Dr. Chevers, as mentioned 
to him by Babu Kannya Lall Dey, a case which occurred in the 
practice of a physician whom the latter knew, it appears that on the 
eating of a single seed, the following symptoms occurred :—In a short 
time after swallowing, vomiting commenced, but there was no purging : 
within half an hour the boy, who had swallowed it, was covered with 
cold clammy sweat; the countenance was pale, and the eyes sunken 
deeply, and within two hours he died convulsed. 
Let us now consider the active principles of the plant under notice, 
They are Thevetin and Theveresin. Dr. Dymock and his colleagues, 
in their “ Pharmacographia Indica,” elaborately quote the experiments 
of T. Husemann on the lower animals, such as frogs, dogs and rabbits, 
Our concern is more with regard to man, and it will, therefore, be 
more useful to summarize the researches of a leading Pharmacologist 
like Schmiedeberg, so far as they could be determined on the mam- 
malian genus Homo, with regard to the action of the poisonous group 
to which Thevetin belongs. 
Schmiedeberg classes Thevetin with the Digitaline Group. The 
active principles of the various plants, classed under this group, act 
