708 
Yen' Poisoning, 
evaporate, crystallisation is easily obtained. Taxiue is strongly 
alkaline. Marme found that sulphuric acid, which imparts a red 
colour to taxine, is a reagent by which it can be detected. 
M. Comevin, seeing that the clinical study of taxine reveals 
such differing symptoms, is inclined to question whether besides 
taxine there may not be other toxic principles in the yew, and 
.suggests, in order to account for the rapidity of its death stroke, 
that there maj^be a chemical combination within the animal or- 
ganism which causes such deadly results. He is disposed to 
suspect some reaction analogous to that which produces prussic 
acid in certain species of Amygdalus. 
Charlks Whitehead. 
III. 
The poisonous qualities of the yew have been known from 
the earliest times. Galen, Dioscorides, and the old authors 
consider it very venomous. OUr early herbalists point out the 
danger of eating it. Coles, in his Art of Simpling (1657), 
quotes a specific case of injury. “ That it is poyson to kine will 
appear by what followeth. Master Wells, Minister at Adder- 
l)iu'y in Oxfordshire, seeing some boyes breaking boughs from 
tlie yew tree in the cliurch-yard, thought himselfe much injured. 
'To prevent the like trespasses, he sent one presently to cut clowne 
the tree, and to bring it into his backside. 'This being done, 
his cowes began to feed upon the leaves, and two of them within 
few houres dyed. A just reward.” The literature of Agi'i- 
culture abounds in similar well-authenticated cases. Horses, 
asses, oxen and sheep have repeatedly met their death from 
feeding on yew leaves. Birds also have been poisoned by the 
yew. Since the November meeting of the Council, and because of 
the observations made there, I have had a pheasant in very good 
condition sent to me which was found dead under a yew tree. 
Such an incident would have been sufficient to justify the old 
notion that “ if any do sleepe under the shadow thereof, it 
causeth sickness, and oftentimes death.” On opening the bird 
I found some fragments of yew leaves in the proventriculus, but 
none in the gizzard. Both these organs were quite healthy. 
'The death was not caused liy the few leaves I found in the first 
stomach, for it is necessary for all such poisons to enter the 
blood before their specific action can be produced. The food in 
the intestines was too much reduced to identify its elements, 
but it is very probable that an earlier supply of yew leaves had 
caused the death. 
The symptoms of the poisoning by yew iu man are clearly 
