746 MANUAL OF POISONOUS PLANTS 



Distribution. From Canada to Manitoba, Kansas, Texas to Florida. 



Poisonous properties. In regard to the poisonous properties Dr. Rusby says : 



The common black elder or Sambucus canadensis L., a plant very common throughout the 



entire eastern and central United States, and represented by other species, apparently with 



similar properties, upon the Pacific Coast and in the old world, has dangerous properties which 



have remained unrecognized, or, to say the least, very obscure, to the present time. 



Of the last mentioned, Dr. Robert Christian reports in the Edinburgh Med- 

 ical and Surgical Journal, 1830, page 73, as follows : 



Two boys in the vicinity of Edinburg encountered a clump of the S. Ebulus, and one of 

 them ate freely of the flowers, the other of the leaves. The boy who had eaten the leaves was 

 attacked with enteritis, the abdomen at length becoming so sore that it could scarcely be touched. 

 There was continuous vomiting, the matter containing blood. Obstinate constipation existed 

 throughout. The boy was saved by vigorous treatment. The one who had eaten the flowers 

 suffered considerably, and for a considerable time, from vertigo with some headache, but the 

 symptoms were not very serious. 



Dr. Christian observed that both the berries and the flowers were known 

 to kill fowls which fed upon them and that when berries were freely eaten 

 they often caused giddiness. He also quotes a report of a case of a woman whO' 

 dressed the shoots with vinegar and ate them as a salad, and who was promptly 

 seized with violent purging, forty times in two days, coma resulting on the 

 third day. Of our own species, S. canadensis, Dr. Johnson states that the bark 

 and the root are actively cathartic and hydragogue when freely used.. There 

 is little doubt that he refers in this instance to the bark and the root in the 

 green condition, since it is well-known that the properties become much less 

 active upon drying and keeping. 



Our most direct evidence bearing upon the poisonous character of the elder-berry root 

 rests upon a case which occurred in the spring of 1894, at the Institution of Mercy, a Roman 

 Catholic institution for children at Tarrytown, on the Hudson, and which attracted a great 

 deal of attention at the time in the public press. The grounds of this institution were com- 

 paratively new, and ditching and fencing were still in progress at the time stated. A workman 

 in digging a drain, uncovered a large number of roots to which the children took a fancy and 

 which they began eating. WSthin a very few minutes, and while still engaged in eating, a 

 large number of the boys were seized with convulsions and several of them died. One of 

 them had the remainder of the root, the marks of his teeth upon it, still clutched in his hand 

 after death. The symptoms correspond in most features to those of the Cicuta poisoning above 

 described and to that agent the accident was ascribed in the public press. Several months 

 later I visited the institution in company with Mr. Frederick V. Coville, the botanist of the 

 United States Department of Agriculture and Prof. Kdward L. Greene, Professor of Botany,, 

 in the Catholic University at Wasfiington. At this time, and subsequently through corre- 

 spondence, a pretty thorough investigation of the case was made. We found that it was not a 

 locality where Cicuta would be apt to grow and no evidence existed that any had grown there. 

 Three poisonous plants grew upon the spot, viz., the locust, poke-berry and elder. The work- 

 man who had dug the drain, the surviving boys and the Sisters in attendance were positive 

 that it was the elder root which liad occasioned the poisoning. They did not know the name 

 of the plant, and had accepted the statements of the papers that it was Cicuta; but they pos- 

 itively identified it by its appearance and by the young purple shoots and compound leaves which 

 they had observed carefully while still attached to the pieces of root which had been taken from 

 the hands of the boys poisoned. Their story was so clear, connected and positive that it was 

 difficult to doubt that the elder root was the poisoning agent. Furthermore the locust would 

 not have produced the symptoms that were observed, and the poke should have at once been 

 distinguished by even a casual observer. Nevertheless, since the root was described as "like 

 a carrot or parsnip," and since the symptoms in some respects resembled those of Pokeroot 

 poisoning, the question cannot be regarded as settled beyond a doubt. In the case of so large 

 a number of victims it is even possible that both of the roots were concerned. The attending 

 physician. Dr. Luke Fleming, does not believe that the poisoning was caused by Elder. The 

 active constituent of the elder is not known farther than that a report has isolated coniin from 

 the twigs and leaves of the related European species, 5". nigra. This would, of course, explain 

 the very similar symptoms to those of Cicuta poisoning. The chemistry of the plant is now 

 receiving thorough investigation in the division of pharmacology in the United States Depart- 

 ment of Agriculture. 



