910 SIR THOMAS R. FRASER ON THE 



producing the several aconite roots sent to me with poisoned arrows, it has not been 

 possible to identify the species of aconite producing these roots. 



The only entire aconite plants that I have yet succeeded in obtaining from North 

 India were sent to me by Major Barclay, Indian Army, from Sikkim in the Eastern 

 Himalayas. They had been collected in the Lachen valley, 8000 to 12,000 feet above 

 the sea-level, by Miss Hertz, a medical missionary with botanical attainments. The 

 plants were examined by Dr Otto Stapf of Kew, the author of an important mono- 

 graph on the aconites of India,* and were identified by him as A. heterophylloides. 

 Although Sikkim, no doubt, is a considerable distance to the west of the Abor and 

 Mishmi territories, its climatic conditions are not dissimilar from those in Thibetan 

 and other Himalayan regions. 



Experiments were made with the roots of this aconite, and the remarkable 

 discrepancy in potency between mammals and frogs was strikingly displayed ; for it 

 was found that while the minimum lethal dose for rats was O'Ol grm., that for 

 frogs was at least 0"15 grm. per kilo, or about fifteen times more than for rats.f In 

 the absence of corroborative chemical evidence, the experiments at least indicate 

 that pseudo-aconitine also preponderates in this aconite. As this alkaloid also pre- 

 ponderates in A. ferox, it is possible that the aconite poison used by the Abors and 

 Mishmis may be derived from one or both of these two, at present the only known 

 species of aconite that contain a larger quantity of pseudo-aconitine than of aconitine. 

 Otherwise it is indicated that the aconite poison is derived from some unknown species 

 containing a similar preponderance. 



In the north-east of India, other species are known to exist, of which only 

 Aconitum lethale and A. Nag arum have been identified botanically ; but their 

 pharmacological action and that of the other species has not been determined. 



C. Arrows poisoned with Croton. 

 (a) Government of India Poisoned Arrows. 



Soon after I had received from Captain Macdonald and Lieut. -Colonel Sir 

 Wvville Thomson the arrow-heads the action of whose aconite-containing poison 

 has been described in the preceding section, a quiver full of Abor arrows was 

 placed at my disposal. They had been obtained for me at the request of the India 

 Office and the Government of India, and had been procured, towards the termination 

 of Major-General Bowers' punitive expedition of 1911-12, by officers of the Medical 

 Service, and especially by Surgeon-General (now Sir Arthur) Sloggett and Major 

 (now Lieut.-Colonel) Davidson, I. M.S. 



The quiver, which contained eleven poisoned arrows, is made of a hollow bamboo, 



* "The Aconites of India : a Monograph, 1 ' Annals of the Royal Botanic Garden, Calcutta, 1905. 



t I find also that, this discrepancy is much more remarkably displayed with A. heterophylloides, and also with the 

 aconite roots reputed to be sources of the aconite arrow-poisons, than it is with A. Napellus (Anglicum), of which I 

 obtained an undoubted specimen from Dr Stapf of Kew. 



