NAT. ORDER. SOLANACEJE. 
177 
East Indies, while the vegetables which produced them were un- 
known, or at least not botanically ascertained. 
By the judicious discrimination of Linnaeus, the Nux vomica was 
found to be the fruit of the tree described and figured under the name 
Candam, now called Strychnos. The seed of the fruit or the berry 
of this tree is the officinal Nux vomica ; it is flat, round, about an inch 
broad, and near a quarter of an inch in thickness, with a prominence 
in the middle on both sides, of a gray color, covered with a kind of 
woolly matter, and internally hard and tough like horn ; the taste is 
extremely bitter, but has no remarkable smell. It consists chiefly of 
a gummy matter, which is moderately bitter ; the resinous part is 
rather limited in quantity, but intensely bitter ; hence rectified spirit 
has been considered its best menstruum. 
Medical Properties and Uses. Nux vomica is considered one of 
the most powerful poisons of the narcotic kind, especially to the brute 
creation ; nor are instances wanting of its deleterious effects upon the 
human system. It proves fatal to dogs in a very short time, as appears 
by various authorities. It has also been found to prove equally poison- 
ous to hares, foxes, wolves, cats, rabbits, and even some birds, crows, 
ducks, (fee. ; and one author relates a case of a horse that died in four 
hours after taking a drachm of the seed in a half roasted state. The 
effects of this baneful drug upon different animals, and even upon those 
of the same species, appear to be rather uncertain, and not always in 
proportion to the quantity of the poison given. With some animals it 
produces its effects almost instantaneously ; with others not till after 
several hours, when laborious respiration, followed by torpor, trem- 
blings, coma and convulsions, usually precede the fatal spasms, or te- 
tanus, with which this drug commonly extinguishes life. 
From cases reported of its mortal effects upon human subjects, we 
find the symptoms to correspond nearly with these which we have 
here mentioned of brutes ; and these, as well as the dissections of 
dogs, killed by this poison, have ever shown any injury done to the 
stomach or intestines : this goes to prove that the Nux vomica acts 
