at Badminton, were poisoned by nibbling the leaves of a 
yew tree, the branches of it having borne down within their 
reach by the weight of heavy snow. A lady (Helen Watney) 
writing in July, points out that this is contrary to the idea 
that the leaves are not poisonous to deer, sheep, or goats. 
She mentions as a well-known fact, that leaves, whether 
fresh or withered, are toxic in their influence upon horses. 
Its juice, she adds, was considered a remedy for the bite of 
a viper, and that in Germany, it is still a popular remedy 
for hydrophobia. Dr. Taylor cites a case of a child having 
been poisoned by eating yew berries. Death appears to 
have ensued in a few hours. He names also a case of a 
lunatic who died from eating yew leaves. “There is no 
doubt,” he says, “ that the yew is a cerebro-spinal poison. 
The symptoms produced by the leaves and berries are 
pretty uniform in character : convulsions, insensibility, 
coma, dilated pupils, pale countenance, small pulse, and 
cold extremities are the most prominent. In two cases, the 
subject of one — a girl about five years of age — died in a 
comatose state in four hours after she had eaten the berries, 
and the other a boy, aet. four years, died nineteen days 
after taking the berries, obviously from severe inflammation 
of the bowels.”* 
Dr. Taylor adds that “ the nature of the poisonous princi- 
ple is unknown, and it is not certain whether, with respect 
to the berry, the poison is lodged in the pulp or the seed, 
although it is most probable in the latter.” 
It may be exhibited in another form, for Caesar, in the 
Commentaries on the Gallic War, tells us that Cativolcus, 
King of the Eburnones, unable to endure the fatigue either 
of flight or of war, poisoned himself with the juice of the 
yew tree, of which there is great abundance in Gaul and 
Germany. (B. G. vi., c. xxxi.) 
# Taylor on Poisons, 2nd edition, 1859, p. 843. 
