218 VETEEINAEY TOXICOLOGY 



rounded, and deeply cut into three or five lobes. Umbels 

 on long terminal peduncles, with fifteen to twenty rays, 

 2 inches long or more ; the bracts of the involucres small 

 and linear, several in the partial ones, few or none under 

 the general umbel. The pedicellate flowers at the circum- 

 ference of the partial umbels are mostly, but not always, 

 barren, the central fertile ones almost sessile. Fruit 

 cylindrical, with long erect styles, the ribs broad and 

 scarcely prominent. The habitat is similar to that of 

 Cicuta virosa, and the plant is common in Great Britain. 



The root of CEnanthe crocata has been the cause of 

 several poisonings, as, for instance, of a gang of convicts 

 at Woolwich in 1835 ; and, like the Cicuta, has an extremely 

 rapid paralysant effect. CEnanthotoxin, the active principle, 

 resembles cicutoxin. 



Symptoms. — According to W. Graham Gillam,* the 

 symptoms recall hemlock poisoning, with the addition of 

 green foetid diarrhoea. 



Cornevin gives the toxic quantities of the root for the horse 

 O'l, the ox 0-125, the sheep 0'2, the pig 0*15, the rabbit 2*0, 

 per cent, of the body weight. 



The juice of CEnanthe has a powerfully irritant effect on 

 the skin. 



In the ox there is foaming, distended nostrils, shivering, 

 rapid and laboured respiration, spasmodic contractions of 

 the limbs ; the subject reels in a circle for several minutes, 

 falls and dies.t Should death not occur, the paralysis 

 persists. Wallis Hoaret saw cows poisoned by the roots 

 left in a field after a flood, and observed well-marked 

 delirium, succeeded by rapid death. 



With the horse the onset of symptoms is rapid, the 

 nervous predominating ; and with the pig large doses fail 

 to cause vomition, and death occurs with the rapidity of 

 cyanide poisoning. 



Post-Mortem Appearances. — In acute poisoning the 

 thoracic and abdominal viscera are normal, there is some 



* Vet. Becord, 1906, p. 88. 



t See Veterinarian, 1873, p. 695. % Vet. Jl., 1887. 



