THE POISONOUS PLANTS OF BOMBAY. 51 



tongue. Some may ask why a tuber which is one of the recognized 

 vegetables of the Indian kitchen and one of the most palatable of them 

 when properly salted, spiced, and cooked (boiled or fried in ghee^or 

 butter), should be classed under the poisonous plants of Bombay. My 

 reply is, the wild and the cultivated tubers are so difficult to distinguish, 

 and the wild variety is so vilely irritating to the digestive tract, and 

 even the cultivated variety is so frequently productive of irritation in 

 the mouth, throat, and tongue, that it is safer to look upon the plant 

 with suspicion even in its highly cultivated forms. For, although 

 cultivation does to a very large extent reduce the acrid principles to 

 a minimum, they can never be said to be altogether absent from the 

 tubers, and cases have been met with where a sensitive throat has 

 considerably suffered from irritation for some time after partaking of a 

 dish of the cut pieces of even a cultivated tuber of Suran. Some 

 throats may not suffer at all ; others may suffer more or less. It is 

 safe to be forewarned. 



The poisonous properties of Suran were not unknown to the old 

 Sanskrit writers of repute. Both the varieties mentioned in Madan- 

 pal's Nighant are said to be productive of itching (Sanskrit — Kandu). 

 The same property is attributed to the two varieties mentioned in the 

 Raj Nighant of Narhar Pandit. No reference, however, is made to 

 any irritant or poisonous property in the single variety mentioned in 

 the Dhanvantari Nighant, probably because, as I have already observed, 

 the writer was describing a cultivated variety in which the itching or 

 irritant property is invariably less marked. The single variety men- 

 tioned in Bhav Prakash, however, is distinctly noted as being possessed 

 of irritant property. So far, as regards what is known from ancient 

 indigenous writers regarding the obnoxious nature of the plant. 



Let us now see what the researches of European and Native experts 

 have done in Europe and India to settle the question of the poisonous 

 properties of the Aroid family in general, and the Suran species in 

 particular. I must refer the reader at this stage to the elaborate and 

 valuable investigations of Dr. Warden and Mr. Pedler of Calcutta, as 

 embodied in their article already referred to, as a contribution to the 

 Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal. They say that from the 

 brief resume given by them of the Arums found in India, a belief in 

 the toxic properties of certain species would appear to be pretty 



