Works on Gardening and Rural Affairs. 357 



Since its commencement, this«publication has greatly improved in the 

 execution of the plates, and we are happy to learn that it has a very exten- 

 sive sale. Its low price, and the very judicious manner in which the letter- 

 press is composed, giving the derivation of the name, historical notices, 

 descriptive traits, and culture, will, we have no doubt, be the means of ori- 

 ginating a taste for botany among a new class of readers. 



Medical Botany; or Figures and Descriptions, towards a System of 

 Vegetable Toxicology and Materia Medica, &c. By John Stevenson, M.D., 

 and James Morss Churchill, Esq., Surgeon. In Monthly Numbers, 5s. 6d. 



JVb. //. for February contains 



Leoutodon Taraxacum, a gentle aperient and diuretic ; Datura Stramo- 

 nium, originally imported from America, but first cultivated in this country 

 from seeds that were brought from Constantinople, about 1597. It is now 

 naturalized, and met with in waste places, and near gardens. Stramonium 

 produces intoxication, delirium, loss of memory, sometimes transitory and 

 sometimes permanent ; convulsions, &c. and death. " Of the intoxicating 

 quality of their native species of Stramonium, the women in some of the 

 Asiatic Islands, we are informed by travellers, so dexterously avail them- 

 selves, as not only with impunity to use the most indecent freedoms, but 

 even to enjoy their gallants in the company of their husbands, who, being 

 presented with a proper quantity of this soporific and Lethsean drug, are at 

 first seized with a fatuity and pleasing delirium, which are soon followed by 

 those very convenient symptoms, stupor, and a total want of recollection :" 

 and so general was this credulity in former times, that the Royal Society 

 gravely enquired of Sir Philberto Vernatti, " Whether the Indians can so 

 prepare the stupifying herb Datura, that they make it lie several days, 

 months; or years, according as they will have it, in a man's body; and at the 

 end kill him without missing half an hour's time ?" 



In Virginia, where the Stramonium is called the Jamestown weed, the 

 leaves boiled and used as greens, turned some soldiers sent thither to quell 

 a rebellion, into good-natured fools, for eleven days, after which they " re- 

 turned to themselves again, not remembering any thing that had passed." 

 Dr. Bartram, of Philadelphia, was called to a child seized with idiotcy with- 

 out fever. " The child appeared very happy ; talking, laughing, and in 

 constant motion ; yet so weak, it could not stand or walk without tottering. 

 He exhibited an emetic, and the seeds of the thorn apple were rejected, 

 after which the child recovered." To counteract the effects of Stramo- 

 nium, Read's pump or emetics, as in the case of Atropa, must be resorted 

 to. (Gard. Mag. p. 211.) 



Spigelia. marildndica, a low perennial handsome flowering American 

 plant, a native of America, as the specific name implies, and used there by 

 the Cherokee Indians, as a vermifuge. 



Mthusa cynapium, fool's parsley, a well known native, and found in most 

 gardens, and dry, rich arable fields. A powerful poison, unattended 

 with the "gay delirium" (Gard. Mag. p. 211.) of Atropa, or the foolery 

 of Stramonium. A boy of six years, who had taken some of the plant for 

 parsley, at four o'clock, began immediately to utter cries of anguish, com- 

 plained of cramps in the stomach, assumed a livid hue, and died at midnight. 

 Another child, though the contents of his stomach were rejected, went out 

 of his senses, but by great care ultimately recovered. Two ladies of Castle 

 Donnington. in Leicestershire, partook of some salad, into which some fool's 

 parsley had been put for common parsley ; they suffered a great deal, but 

 ultimately recovered. An account of this case, communicated to the 

 Medical and Physical Journal (Vol. XIV. p. 425.) by Mr. Stevenson of 

 Kegworth, son-in-law to the celebrated Mr. Speechly, of Welbeck Gardens, 



Vol. II. — No. 7. z 



