22 



containing a smaller amount has often been made into bread and eaten, 

 sometimes with fatal results, the baking not always being sufficient to 

 decompose the poison. The effect may be acute, or, if a small quantity 

 of the meal is eaten regularly, it may be chronic. In the latter case it 

 is sometimes known as a disease under the name of "githagism." 



Symptoms. — The general symptoms of acute poisoning are the follow- 

 ing : Intense irritation of the whole digestive tract, vomiting, headache, 

 nausea, vertigo, diarrhea, hot skin, sharp pains in the spine, difficult 

 locomotion, and depressed breathing. Coma is sometimes present, and 

 may be followed by death. Chronic poisoning has not been closely 

 studied in man, but experiments upon animals show chronic diarrhea 

 and gradual depression, the animal losing vigor in breathing and in 

 muscular movements until death ensues. The action is antagonized 

 by the use of digitalin, or of the simple extract of digitalis (Digitalis 

 purpurea), a dangerous poison, which should be given only by a physican. 



Corn cockle meal is easily detected in second and third class flour by 

 the presence of the black, roughened scales of the seed coat. These 

 are sure to occur if the flour has not been well bolted. Its presence is 

 otherwise detected by the peculiar odor produced when the meal is 

 moistened and by chemical tests with iodine. 



Wheat containing corn cockle seeds should be rejected for planting. 



CROWFOOT FAMILY (RANUNCULACEAE). 



ACONITE. 

 Aconitum columbianum Nutt. 



Other names: Monkshood; friar's cap; wolfsbane; iron hat; storm 

 hat; blue weed. (Fig. 8.) 



Description and habitat. — An erect, smooth, single-stemmed plant, 2 to 

 6 feet high, with a leafy base and an elongated terminal cluster of showy 

 blue flowers. Aconite thrives best in moist open woods and by the side 

 of brooks in Oregon and AVashington, but extends along the mountains 

 southward to Lake County, Cal., and to the southern Sierra Nevada 

 (occurring sparingly in Arizona), and eastward, likewise in the moun- 

 tains, to Montana, Wyoming, and Colorado, and even as far as South 

 Dakota. 



Other species. — Four other species are native to the eastern United 

 States, and a fifth, the common monkshood of Europe (A. napellus) is a 

 common garden plant. All are poisonous, but the western species is 

 of most interest in the United States, being here the most abundant 

 and most widely distributed. 



Poisonous properties. — Few cases of accidental poisoning have been 

 attributed to these plants, yet the European form has long been classed 

 with the most violent poisons, only one-tenth of a grain of aconitine, 

 its poisonous principle, being required to cause death. Most cases of 



