FOOD 191 



animal soon dies.* Much the same symptoms are pro- 

 duced by the Australian poison pea, GastroloUum hilobum. 



Slang-Koj}, or snake-head, is a South African poisonous 

 plant, the root being either a bulb or a corm. Nothing 

 definite is known of the Transvaal plant, that in the Cape 

 is Oniithoglossum glaucum. It is called Slang-Kop by the 

 Dutch from the fancied resemblance of the flowers to the 

 head of a snake. It is said to be particularly dangerous to 

 sheep and goats. 



The Yew tree, Taxus haccata (Fig. 52), has been known 

 from very early times to be poisonous to animals, yet in 

 spite of this and its relative frequency there are many 

 questions connected with it which are not universally 

 decided. It has, for instance, been doubted whether both 

 the male and female trees are poisonous, and whether the 

 bark as well as the leaf, or the dried leaf as well as the 

 green one, are toxic. 



All these points have been answered in the affirmative in 

 an important communication! made a few years ago ; at 

 the same time it was pointed out that there is evidence to 

 show that of the three species of yew all are not equally 

 poisonous ; also that the young leaf is not as poisonous as 

 the old one, while the fleshy substance of the berry, it is 

 universally agreed, is non-poisonous, and the seeds of the 

 berry only slightly so. 



The poisonous principle has been named taxine; very 

 little is known about it, and it has never been obtained in 

 a pure state. Taxine is insoluble in water and alcohol, but 

 soluble in ether ; the different species of yew contain a 

 variable amount of the poison, which may account for the 

 fact that feeding experiments have been known to fail in 

 producing poisonous symptoms, even when large quantities 

 have been given. 



* Professor MaoOwan, Agricultural Journal Cape o/ Good Hope, 

 1887. 



t ' Yew Poisoning ' : Journal of tJie Boyal Agricultural Society, 

 3rd Series, vol. ii., Part iv., 1892, from which the facts here recorded 

 have been obtained. 



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