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A mere variety of L. temukntum, growing in similar situations, and 

 only distinguisted from it by the smoother habit, conspicuous presence 

 of the inner short glume, and absence or short hair-like character of 

 the awn ; from the pale or hoary hue of which latter, when present, 

 Dr. Withering seems to have adopted the above English name. 



Lolium temukntum, is widely spread, as a weed of cultivation, 

 throughout Europe and central Asia, having apparently followed 

 everywhere the introduction of those grains among which it still all 

 but exclusively vegetates. The Latin specific name denotes the 

 peculiar intoxicating property of the seeds, either taken as food, or 

 employed in the preparation of fermented liquors, a circumstance 

 probably well known to all the agricultural peoples of the northern 

 hemisphere, from the earliest periods of their lustory. Evidence of 

 such knowledge may be gathered from the use of it being prohibited by 

 the laws of China ; while numerous instances occur in the writings of 

 the earlier European authors which indicate familiar acquaintance with 

 the properties in question. The ultimate effects are, on the broad 

 scale, not very dissimilar to those produced by diseased or ergotized 

 grain ; but they commence with head-ache, dizziness, imperfect vision, 

 and other symptoms of intoxication — hence the old proverb, " he feeds 

 on Darnel," applied to an imprudent or short-sighted person, and 

 alluded to by Plautus in one of his comic dramas written about two 

 centuries before the Christian era. It is generally considered by com- 

 mentators that the word zizania, occurring in the parable in the 13th 

 chapter of St. Matthew, translated from the Greek version as tares 

 sown by an enemy among wheat, refers to Darnel. The word is not 

 Greek, but a Greek-rendering of the Syriac zizana, whence the present 

 .Arabic and Turkish name of this noxious and troublesome weed, zuwan. 

 The manner in which it is still separated from the wheat in some parts 

 of Syria, drawing up both together by the hand, and afterwards col- 

 lecting the Darnel stems in bundles apart from the corn, is perfectly 

 consistent with the close of the parable in verse 30. 



Many cases are recorded, in medical works, of poisoning by Darnel. 

 The seeds, ground and made into bread, with a small proportion of 

 wheat or other flour, and eaten in this manner repeatedly, produce 

 vomiting, purging, attended by giddiness, pain and swelling of the 

 limbs, and eventually gangrene and death. A small farmer near 

 Poictiers, in France, died in consequence of persevering in the use of 

 bread so circumstanced, while his wife and servant, who discontinued 

 to eat it after the earlier symptoms, recovered. In some instances 

 people have lost their limbs by subsisting on meal in which any con- 

 siderable quantity of Darnel grain was commingled. About thirty or 

 forty years back, according to Christison, " almost the whole of the 

 inmates of the Sheffield workhouse were attacked with symptoms supposed 

 to be produced by their oatmeal having been accidentally adulterated 

 with Lolium." Linnseus states that the seeds, mixed with bread-corn, 

 produce but little effect, unless the bread be eaten hot ; but, if malted 

 with barley, the ale soon occasions intoxication. This latter effect is 

 said to have occasioned its not-unfrequent use by fraudulent brewers 

 and publicans in England, and, although no evidence is advanced in 



