190 MALAY POISONS AND CHABM CUBES 



a few horns, followed by complete recovery. This 

 group of cases is of some interest, owing to the fact that 

 one of my colleagues, who appeared for the prosecution, 

 was able to give evidence of a very practical kind. A 

 sample of seeds and powder which had been found in 

 the prisoner's handkerchief was sent for identification. 

 I am indebted to my colleague for the following notes 

 of a personal experiment. He says : "I took pinch 

 doses of the sample, which consisted of the bruised 

 seeds, and had the following experience : I felt flushed, 

 dry about the mouth and throat, and became hoarse. 

 Wlien I tried to walk, I staggered about like a drunken 

 man and got very excited. I then took an emetic of 

 mnc, vomited, and slept for about five or six hours." 

 He was also observed in a delirious state, rolling on the 

 floor and uttering inarticulate cries like the mewing of 

 a kitten (Ref. 8). 



In another case in the Federated Malay States 

 datura seeds were mixed in tea by Chinese ; one of the 

 victims, a Japanese woman, was semi-unconscious for a 

 time, and kept picking at imaginary objects. Castellani 

 says " the people affected may be found searching their 

 bedding most vigorously for some lost article." Again, 

 the patient sometimes seeks for imaginary threads and 

 tries to pick them from the tips of his fingers, or he 

 constantly gazes at his fingers and keeps passing his 

 thumb over them in a most peculiar way ; so, too, with 

 henbane. Holmes records that some monks ate hen- 

 bane root by mistake at supper: " those who partook 

 of it were seized in the night with the most extraordinary 

 hallucinations, so that the monastery seemed turned 

 into a lunatic asylum. One monk rang the bell for 

 matins at midnight, and of those who attended the 

 summons some could not read, some read what was 

 not in the book and others saw the letters running over 



