POISONING BY VERATRUM. VIRIDE. AMERICAN 



HEEEBORE. 



Used in the early days by New England farmers to destroy 

 birds in the cornfields (Osgood) . Taken internally it reduces the 

 fullness and frequency of the pulse, and if the dose be large 

 excites nausea, vomiting and purging with great prostration. In 

 the horse I have found anorexia, irritability of the bowels, and 

 frequent retching. The action is primarily on the heart and 

 nervous system and incidentally as an irritant on the gastro- 

 intestinal mucosa. Treatment consists in evacuation of the 

 stomach and the free use of mucilaginous drinks and diffusible 

 stimulants. Helleborus Niger, viridus and foetidus have analo- 

 gous effects. Veratrum Californicum has killed horses. 



Zygadenus Venenosus (death camas), unlike the esculent 

 camas, is deadly to man or beast that eats the bulb. Another 

 species (Zygadenus Elegano) has proved destructive to cattle. 



POISONING BY CICUTA MACUEATA, ETC. 



The American water hemlock is an energetic poison acting not 

 only as a narcotic but as a violent irritant to the gastro-intestinal 

 mucus membrane. 



Cicuta Vagans (Oregon water hemlock) is comparatively 

 harmless in Summer, but its new fleshy roots in the Fall (No- 

 vember) are very poisonous to cattle (Knowles, Chestnut). 



Cicuta Bolanderi found in swamps in California is also 

 poisonous. 



Conium Maculatum (Spotted hemlock) common in the 

 Northern States, as in Europe, is deadly to stock in its fresh 

 condition, but much less so when dried in hay, having parted 

 with its volatile poisonous ingredients. 



' POISONING BY COLCHICUM AUTUMNAEE. 



This agent expends its energy mainly on the digestive and 

 urinary systems. The symptoms are suppression of appetite and 

 rumination, thirst, ptyalism, grinding of the teeth, colic, emesis 

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