730 



MANUAL OF POISONOUS PLANTS 



Ontario to North Dakota, Nebraska, Texas, and Florida, naturalized from 

 tropical America. 



Poisonous properties. The poisonous alkaloids found in this plant are: 

 atropin C^^H^gNO , hyoscyamin, and hyoscin. The dafurin is a mixture of 

 hyoscyamin and atropin. 



Professor Chesnut, in his work on the Poisonous Plants of the United 

 States, referring to the jimson weed, says: 



The poisonous alkaloids, atropin and hyoscyamin, the active constituents of belladonna are 

 found also in both of the jimson weeds. Hyoscyamin is the poison of the henbane and as it 

 is identical in its physiological action with atropin, the above-named plants present the same 

 symptoms of poisoning, which must be met in the same manner. The alkaloids exist in all 

 parts of the two daturas. The seeds are especially poisonous. 



Fig. 426. Jimson Weed (Datura Stamoni- 

 ttm). a, leaf and flowers; b, fruiting capsule. 



Cases of poisoning arise in adults from excessive use of a stimulant or a medicine. 

 Children are sometimes tempted to eat the fruit, if they are permitted to play where the weed 

 is to be found. Several cases of this kind were reported to the Department during the fall of 

 1897. At Alpena, Michigan, five children were badly poisoned in August by eating the seeds 

 of the purple-flowered species, which was cultivated in a garden as a curiosity under the fanci- 

 ful trade name of "Night-blooming Cactus." In Sept. a boy was killed in New York by. eating 

 the seeds of a jimson weed, which was permitted to grow in a vacant lot; his brother poisoned 

 at the same time was saved only with difficulty. In October two other cases occurred in New 

 York. Four children were playing in one of the public parks of the city wliere jimson weeds 

 were growing luxuriantly. The boys imagined themselves Indians and roamed about and ate 

 parts of various plants. Three of them ate the seeds of the jimson weed. One died in a state 

 of wild delirium; another was saved after heroic treatment with chloral hydrate and morphine; 



