POISONS FBOM JUNGLE PLANTS 145 



Bamboo). The Hill or Sago palm of northern 

 India, C. urens, Linn., has similar properties, but is not 

 mentioned by Ridley as occurring in Malaya, 



Dr. Yvan, in his quaint little book Six Months 

 Among the Malays " (1840), remarked, when referring 

 to the dishke of Malays to strangers : '* One day when 

 the sailors came, according to custom, to fill their 

 pitchers at the reservoir, on putting their feet and hands 

 into the stream, they experienced a sensation both of 

 heat and pain, and looking around to ascertain the 

 cause of this change, discovered that this disagreeable 

 feeling increased every time the skin came in contact 

 with the berries of a green herb which was floating 

 about in the reservoir ; some of this fruit they brought 

 back with them to the vessel and I immediately recog- 

 nized it to be that of Caryota ornusta, a species of palm 

 described in the herbal of Father Blanco. . . . Some 

 of the men who had remained longest in the water, 

 suffered a great deal of pain which, however, dis- 

 appeared in a very short time and without any sort of 

 remedy ; the Malays make use of the saccharine matter 

 contained in this fruit as a sort of projectile which, with 

 the aid of a bamboo, they fling in the faces of their 

 enemies, thus forming a wound which would require all 

 the anodynes of M. Purdon to cure." Endeavours have 

 been made to obtain an analysis of h^Sdin fruit in 

 England, but no report has yet been received. 



ch£ngkian 



A tropical species of the Spurge family, known in 

 Kelantan as chenghian or cMmkian, is used by Malays 

 as a poison, but not with homicidal intent. Chenghian 

 is the well-known purging Croton Tighum, Linn. — 

 Euphorbiacem, a small wild evergreen tree or shrub 

 found in the jungle or by the wayside, and is widely 



11.7, 10 



