HA RD WICKE'S SCIENCE- G OS SIP. 



the heat was excessive, he was assailed by such an 

 army of them, that in less than half-an-hour his 

 clothes were quite white with their eggs, so that he 

 was forced to scrape them off with a knife ; nor was 

 this modern St. Sebastian unaware of the malevolence 

 of these javelins. He had known instances of 

 persons who, after having bled at the nose in their 

 sleep, were attacked by the most violent headaches ; 

 when at length several great maggots, the offspring 

 of these flies, issuing from their nostrils, gave them 

 relief: what precarious relief the sequel fully in- 

 timates. In Jamaica a large blue fly of a similar 

 description buzzes about the sick in the last stages of 

 fever, and when they sleep or doze with their mouths 

 open, the nurses find it very difficult to prevent these 

 flies from laying their eggs in. the nose, mouth, or 

 gums. 



An instance is recorded of a lady who, after 

 recovering from a fever, fell a victim to the maggots 

 of this fly, which from the nose, found their way 

 through the os cribriforme into the cavity of the skull, 

 and afterwards into the brain. Dr. Sells likewise 

 tells of flies being hatched in the human body in 

 Jamaica (of the blue-bottle kind) ; in one instance, in 

 a neglected blister on the chest ; in another, in the 

 gums and inside the cheek ; in a third, in the ear ; 

 and in a fourth, in the passages of the nostrils, out of 

 which the negro who was the sufferer counted not 

 fewer than two hundred and thirty-five maggots, 

 which in a fortnight dropped out, by applications of 

 oil and tobacco smoke. 



POISONOUS PLANTS AND THEIR 

 POISONS. 



By J. Guardia, F.R.M.S. 



NOT only to naturalists, but to every reader, some 

 knowledge of poisons is, I think, likely to 

 prove welcome. Everyone must be aware of the 

 great lack of satisfactory information on this head, as 

 is painfully evident from the almost daily reported 

 cases of death or illness through poisoning — cases 

 which are the more distressing when we consider 

 that most of them might have been avoided by even 

 a slight acquaintance with the dangerous substances 

 with which we are surrounded. 



But it is scarcely from a medical point of view that 

 I wish to treat of poisonous plants — this has been 

 done in several excellent English and foreign treatises. 

 What I desire to do is to present a new field of en- 

 quiry to those who have not previously paid any 

 attention to the most wonderful properties developed 

 in the world of plants ; and also, by giving a series 

 of remarkable facts, to induce an interest in our 

 plants for their own sake, and thus, possibly, to 

 counteract the too general tendency (chiefly) among 

 young collectors, to consider each new specimen 



merely as hay of a different shape, fit only for another 

 sheet in their herbarium ! 



We will examine the nature and effects of the 

 different poisons, and, after passing in review the 

 most poisonous plants of our native flora (with a 

 few of the most noteworthy exotics), we shall 

 attempt to explain how and why their poisons were 

 produced. 



What is a poison ? and however easy to answer it 

 may at first appear, it will be found by no means 

 so. The dictionary's definition of the term is 

 notably incorrect. The dictionary has it, that a 

 poison is "that which is destructive or injurious 

 to vitality." Now this sounds well enough, yet it 

 is not sufficient. A poison is a substance which 

 can exert, by its chemical action, an injurious in- 

 fluence on the vitality of a healthy organic body or 

 tissue. 



But it must be acknowledged that to define cor- 

 rectly what a poison is, is very difficult, if not im- 

 possible, as many substances injurious to some 

 organisms are by no means so to others. For in- 

 stance, the deadly nightshade and the henbane do not 

 poison pigs. The water-hemlock, so dangerous to 

 man and notably so to cattle, is perfectly harmless 

 to dogs, as is the celandine to sheep and the spurge 

 to goats. Noteworthy, too, is the case quoted in the 

 " Origin of Species " of white sheep and pigs being 

 injured by certain plants, whilst dark-coloured indi- 

 viduals escape. " Professor Wyman," adds Darwin, 

 " has recently communicated to me a good illustration 

 of this fact ; on asking some farmers in Virginia 

 how it was that all their pigs were black, they 

 informed him that the pigs ate the paint-root, 

 Lachnanthes, which coloured their bones pink, and 

 which caused the hoofs of all but the black -varieties 

 to drop off" ("Origin of Species," 6th ed., p. 9). 

 The toxic effects which such vital substances as blood 

 and pollen produce in some cases are most remark- 

 able. A few drops of the blood of a mammal, if 

 introduced into the circulation of a bird, causes a 

 certain and intensely violent death by the instan- 

 taneous destruction of the vitality of its nervous 

 system (Dieffenbach). Fritz Miiller has recorded 

 some species of plants, the pollen of which, if placed 

 on the stigma of the same flower, acted on it like a 

 poison, the flower fading and falling off, and the 

 stigma turning brown and decaying. Sugar is said to 

 kill almost instantaneously some reptiles, like frogs 

 and lizards. The dose or quantity of a substance 

 required to poison an animal also differs greatly : 

 whilst a very small quantity of opium is sufficient to 

 kill a man, it requires two drams to kill a dog, and 

 as much as two ounces for a cow ; yet one ounce 

 given to sheep, it is said, will have no bad influence 

 on these animals. Swallowing two or three drams 

 of arsenic will have no dangerous consequences for a 

 horse. Man, as well as animals, can gradually be- 

 come used to some (poisons. Mythridates, king of 



