POISONS FROM JUNGLE PLANTS 147 



The shrub is reported as being poisonous to cattle in 

 Ceylon. The Abor arrow poison of the north-east 

 frontier of India is a paste beHeved to be inade by 

 pounding the soft parts of Croton Tiglium. 



Ridley says that the seeds are ground up and 

 sprinkled over food as a poison. They are used 

 medicinally by the Kelantan honior ; one is sufficient 

 as a dose for an adult, but may excite violent vomiting 

 and purging with severe griping pain and blood in the 

 stools. Four croton seeds proved a fatal dose in the 

 Punjab forty- three hours after the second dose (Eef. 3), 

 and it has been said that forty croton seeds will kill 

 a horse in seven hours (Landsberg). Thirty drops of 

 the oil have killed a dog, and Pereira has described the 

 case of a man who suffered severely from inhahng the 

 dust from the seeds. According to an account of 

 accidental poisoning by croton seeds {Medical Times 

 and Gazette of 1874), twenty-four persons were poisoned 

 in the south of Ireland through eating some seeds of 

 Croton Tiglium wliich had been washed ashore, sup- 

 posedly, from a Dutch vessel that had foundered a few 

 days before. The nuts " were found by the country 

 people and eaten accordingly ; the consequences may 

 be guessed, but fortunately no deaths were known to 

 have resulted. 



Various glycerides, glycerin esters, acids, and 

 especially the irritant croton-oleic acid, are contained 

 in the seeds ; they also contain croton-resin, from which 

 they derive their vesicant properties, and a toxic 

 albuminoid principle called crotin. Crotin resembles 

 ricin (the tox-albumin of castor-oil beans) and abrin 

 (the tox-albumin of jequirity seeds) in that they are all 

 protein bodies perhaps resembling ferments in theu' 

 action (Ref . 23), and can be given in doses that are fatal 

 after the lapse of many days. These substances may 



10—2 



