on Gardening and Rural Affairs. 211 



suggested. In the meantime we hope no nurseryman in the United 

 Kingdom will fail to procure this Catalogue, even with its present imperfec- 

 tions ; and having procured it, that each will immediately set about correct- 

 ing the orthography of his lists of fruits, whether in manuscript or printed. 

 We invite those who take our advice to send us copies of their new edi- 

 tions, to which we shall be happy, and consider it a duty, to give them pub- 

 licity, accompanied with approbation or blame, as they may appear to us to 

 deserve. The spelling of nurserymen's fruit catalogues, as they at present 

 stand, especially of the French names, may be considered as discreditable to 

 the profession. 



Stephenson, John, M.D., Graduate of the University of Edinburgh ; and 

 James Morss Churchill, Esq. Surgeon, Fellow of the Medico-Botanical 

 Society of London : Medical Botany ; or, Illustrations and Descriptions 

 of the Medical Plants of the London, Edinburgh, and Dublin Pharma- 

 copoeias, with those lately introduced into Medical Practice ; comprising 

 their generic and specific characters ; English, Provincial, and Foreign 

 Appellations ; a copious List of Synonymes ; Botanical Descriptions ; Na- 

 tural History ; Physical, Chemical, and Medical Properties and Uses : 

 including also a Popular and Scientific Description of Poisonous Plants, 

 particularly those that are indigenous to Great Britain and Ireland ; with 

 Figures coloured from Nature : the whole forming a complete System of 

 Vegetable Toxicology and Materia Medica. London. No. I. 8vo. 3s. 6d. 

 4 Plates, coloured. To be continued Monthly. 



Plate 1; is Atropa belladonna, deadly nightshade. The poisonous quali- 

 ties reside in every part of the plant, and predominate in the fruit. The 

 poison is of the narcotico-acrid class, and operates both locally and by en- 

 tering the circulation. " When taken in an over-dose it produces symp- 

 toms of intoxication ; vertigo ; sickness ; thirst, and difficulty of degluti- 

 tion; the pulse becomes low and feeble ; the face swelled; the pupils are 

 dilated ; vision is impaired ; and these symptoms terminate in convulsions, 

 coma, and paralysis." Above 150 soldiers ate of the berries at Pirna, near 

 Dresden, exhibiting the ebove and other technicalities, and at last died 

 moving their hands and fingers, and exerting their voices in " gay delirium." 

 To remove the poison from the stomach Read's pump should be used ; or 

 sulphate of zinc or copper taken till vomiting is excited. 



Plate 2. is Convolvulus septum, great bindweed, the roots of which are of 

 a purgative quality, a property which belongs more or less to all the species 

 of the genius, and eminently so to C. scammonia. 



Plate 3. is Lolium temulentum, bearded darnel, which differs from L. ar- 

 vense in having awns on the spikelets. The seeds have intoxicating effects, 

 and by the laws of China are forbidden to be used in fermented liquors. 

 Some instances are given of death in consequence of eating bread made with 

 darnel and refuse wheat ; and, what is remarkable, " two acres of ground in 

 Battersea Fields" were lately cultivated with darnel, as it is supposed, for 

 being mixed with malt for making beer. The antidotes are emetics, and 

 afterwards abundance of vinegar and water. 



Plate 4. is Croton tiglium, purging croton, a native of Java and Ceylon ; 

 it is one of the most powerful of purgatives. 



This work is very well got up, and will be useful to medical men in the 

 country, as conveying a knowledge of practical botany, and vegetable ma- 

 teria medica at the same time. 



Robberds, J. W. Jun. of Norwich : Geological and Historical Observations 

 on the Eastern Vallies of Norfolk. Norwich. 8vo. pp. 76. 1 Plate. 



Geological works may be considered as having the same relation to agri- 

 culture in its most extensive sense, as works on botany have to the culture 



P 2 



