POISONS FBOM JUNGLE PLANTS 143 



into their eyes when cutting firewood on shore. T. 

 Powell (1877) describes Excoecaria agallocha jinder the 

 native name of ioto as one of the most virulent of the 

 Samoan vegetable poisons used in the New Hebrides 

 chiefly for poisoning spears and arrows. When de- 

 scribing the fate of some fi-eebooters he writes as follows : 

 " At a place called Mole near Eraker, the people, 

 expecting a visit from these depredators, prepared for 

 them in a way wliich they little suspected. They had, 

 as is common in similar places, an enclosure of water on 

 the beach which at low tide served both for drinking 

 and bathing. They pounded a quantity of the leaves 

 of the ioto previously dried in an oven ; and when they 

 saw the canoe coming they threw these poimded leaves 

 into the batiiing-place. As soon as the canoe anchored, 

 most of the crew% after native fashion, rushed to the 

 fresh water to drink and to bathe. They were imme- 

 diately thrown into convulsive agones : those who only 

 bathed became blind ; and those who drank died " 

 (Ref. 17). 



According to Eidley, a much smaller evergreen tree 

 or shi'ub, Cerbera odollam and C. lactaria, Gaertn., 

 ApoeynaceEe, is called bebuta in some places (Pahang 

 and Selangor). It has a milky and very irritating sap, 

 and is common in jungle about the tidal creeks of low 

 country near the sea (salt swamps) in various parts- 

 India, East Indies, Madagascar, and the Pacific Islands. 

 The botany of C. odollam has also been described in 

 detail by Brandis. The flower is large, white and 

 sweet-scented ; the fruit is reddish-green in colour, 

 2 to 4 inches long, shaped like a mango, usually having 

 only one large seed. Hullet says the Malay name is 

 hetak-hetak ; in Java it is beiahy and in the Celebes goro 

 mata boeta. It is used as a fish poison. In man the 

 symptoms of cerbera poisoning have been mistaken in 



