91 
131 Poisons; their Action on Vegetables. Dr. Harlan, in his 
Medical and Physical Researches, 1835, has stated the effects 
of numerous experiments which he made to ascertain the effects 
of poisons on living vegetables. As the subject is one of impor- 
tance, we copy the following interesting facts. “The applica- 
tion of certain poisons to plants and flowers, in order to destroy 
noxious insects and larvae is not unfrequently recommended; 
and doubts have been expressed as to the injury that might 
occur to the plants themselves by such treatment. It has even 
been positively asserted, that the destruction of the plant is the 
necessary consequence of the application of certain vegetable 
poisons in some instances. I have been led to the present in- 
vestigation by perusing a notice of experiments of a similar 
nature, by 31. 3Iarcaire Princep, a professor of botany at Gene- 
va, in the Bulletin des Sciences Naturelles for 3Iarch, 1830, of 
which the following is an extract : “ The experiments detailed 
in this memoir, have for their object to prove that the juices or 
extracts of plants, poisonous to animals, are equally so to the 
vegetables from which they are obtained. Thus 31. 3Iarcaire 
Princep has succeeded in killing branches, and even entire in- 
dividual plants of the datura stramonium, hyoscyamus niger, 
and momordica elaterium, by plunging them into distilled wa- 
ter, charged with the juices and extracts of these plants, or even 
by watering them with this narcotic water. 31. Goeppert of 
Breslau, has ])ub!ished in the annals of Poggendorff, an account 
of experiments from which he derived very different results.” 
But neither of these authors extended his experiments to the in- 
troduction of poisons into the substance of the plants. I first 
confined myself to a repetition of the exj)eriments of 31. Princep, 
but obtained results entirely at variance with his. I now deter- 
mined to pursue the subject on a more extensive scale. In the 
garden of the Philadelphia Alms-house Infirmary, I selected a 
number of young and thriving plants, and assisted by the gar- 
dener and several of the resident physicians, I applied the fol- 
lowing named poisons, as hereafter specified, taking care to 
wound the hark of the perennial, and the interior parts of the 
annual plants, so that the poison should be directly applied to 
the wounded sap-vessels. The poisons used were, the extracts 
of stramonium, belladonna, andcicuta; the essential oil of nico- 
liaua tabacum, diluted hydrocyanic acid, and oxydum arsenici. 
146 AUCTAlclUM. 131, Lancet, No. 665. 
