788 
THE PRINCIPLES OF BOTANY. 
every spring previously to the seed being ripened, and by so 
doing I have now got rid of it. 
“ The blossoms are more fatal to cattle than the leaves 
and seeds of it in the spring. Calves have eaten the blos- 
soms, drunk water after it, and death has taken place in less 
than an hour. 
(e The best means to be adopted after cattle have eaten this 
deadly poison is to give from half a pint to a pint of linseed 
oil to each beast according to age, and half that quantity 
every six hours for two or three doses afterwards. Avoid all 
drastic purgatives, such &s salts} and which are too often 
given. If this treatment is adhered to, it will not fail to 
effect a cure. 
“ f Sufferer.’ 
“ Sept., 1868.” 
It is stated that cattle browse in meadows containing the 
colchicum leaves without injury, but we must say that, as a 
rule, both cattle and horses refuse to eat it ; hence its increase, 
as the seeds are everywhere thus allowed to ripen. 
Hand-picking every spring, as recommended by “ Suf- 
ferer,” is the best method of destroying it, as then the leaves 
are young; and if the branches of these be picked out the 
seed is destroyed, and new corms cannot be completed if the 
plant be thus early destroyed. This can be done at a trifling 
cost compared with the loss of an animal, to say nothing of 
the fact that such dangerous meadows can hardly be fully 
utilised unless the danger be removed. 
Veratrum album — White hellebore — is another powerful 
plant of the order Melanthacse, and it is commonly called 
Sneezewort,” from the errhine qualities of the corm. Like 
the colchicum, the plant is a powerful poison of the same 
class, being acrid and intensely bitter on the tongue, and, as 
stated by Professor Tuson, “ in excessive doses, an irritant 
poison ; in medicinal doses, nauseant, emetic, sedative, pur- 
gative, and anthelmintic.” He further leads us to suppose 
that it is not much used, as he says, “ Given sometimes to the 
horse as a sedative, and as an excitant to promote absorption 
in oedematous enlargement of the legs.” 
It is, however, extensively used by the cow-leech and com- 
mon farrier to kill parasites in the coats of various animals, 
as also for some skin diseases, some of which resulting from 
insect irritation, it would seem, are soon cured by the poison 
to the pest, hence it forms an ingredient in the “ TJnguentum 
Sulphuris compositum ,” which is, no doubt, a cure, i. e. 
poison, for the itch insect. 
