152 VETERINAEY TOXICOLOGY 



Treatment should consist of oily and mucilaginous drinks ; 

 there is no satisfactory chemical or physiological antidote. 

 Barret and Remlinger used milk drenches, with egg-white 

 and black coffee, injections of cafifein, and external applica- 

 tions of mustard. 



Chemical Diag-nosis. — The alkaloids of colchicum are 

 feebly acid, and are separated in the course of the general 

 search for vegetable poisons. The residues have an acrid 

 bitter taste, are coloured yellowish-brdwn by concentrated 

 sulphuric acid, and blue passing to olive-green and yellow 

 by nitric acid. 



REFEBENCES TO COLCHICUM. 



' Whitemore, Veterinarian, 1861, p. 455. 



^ Guilmot, Veterinariam, 1861, p. 738. 



3 W. Litt, Veterina/rian, 1860, p. 429. 



* Barret and Bemlinger, Vet. Jl., 1912, p. 306. 



LILIACE^. 



There are many plants of this order more or less certainly 

 known to be poisonous, and very widely distributed. The 

 European species found in Britain include — 



Paris quadrifolia — Herb Paris, or four-leaved grass — is a 

 rare plant, widely diffused over the temperate zones, but 

 local in England, and not found in Ireland. It grows in 

 woods and shady places, has a whorl of four ovate leaves from 

 2 to 4 inches long, and bears bluish-black berries. All parts 

 are stated to be toxic, and to contain an active glucoside, 

 jiaradin. 



Convallaria majalls — the well-known lily of the valley — 

 contains the glucoside convallaviarin, which belongs to the 

 digitalis class as regards its physiological effect. The 

 plant and its extracts are thus very dangerous, though few 

 cases of poisoning are to be found. According to Cornevin, 

 4 drops of the extract injected into the veins killed a dog 

 in ten minutes. For the effects of poisonous doses refer- 

 ence may be made to digitalis, and it is perhaps desirable 



