MEDICINAL EFFECT OF THE YEW TREE. 
389 
goats, are said to be able to feed on them with impunity, a very 
small quantity, taken as food, will destroy both cows and horses. 
Several fatal accidents, shewing the poisonous properties of the yew- 
leaves, have, within a short time, occurred. In one of these, three 
horses, taken to be sold at a country fair were tethered to the 
churchyard railings, over which some yew-boughs hung. The 
horses ate the leaves, and were all killed by their repast.” 
“ On the authority of an Italian physician, it is stated that the 
yew-leaves, when administered in small doses to man, have a power 
similar to that of digitalis over the action of the heart and arteries, — 
reducing the circulation ; and, if persisted in for too long a time, or 
given in too large doses, they are as certainly fatal as foxglove. 
Yew is, however, reported to have one decided advantage over 
digitalis, — its effects not accumulating in the system; so that it 
is a much more manageable and equally efficient remedy. Such 
being the case, it is to be regretted that it has not been intro- 
duced into the British list of medicines.” 
The perfect correctness of the first of these paragraphs will be 
doubted, when reference is made to the cases recorded in The 
Veterinarian by Messrs. Beeson, Mogford, Simonds and Spooner; 
to which may be added the fact of many deer having been de- 
stroyed in the Earl of Egremont’s Park by the chippings of the yew- 
tree incautiously thrown in the way of these animals. For my own 
part, I have no doubt of the narcotic influence of the yew ; but as 
yet we know not enough about it to warrant our speaking posi- 
tively respecting it. 
It is possible that the second paragraph which I have selected 
may induce some of our friends in the country to give it a trial as 
a medicinal agent, and this will go far to settle the questions that 
have been mooted by different experimenters. 
My immediate object in addressing you is to state the result of 
an experiment instituted by me with the seeds of the yew. 
Mr. Cartwright, of Whitchurch, kindly furnished me with a few 
ounces of these seeds, remarking that he was not aware that they 
had been given in any considerable quantity, with which I concurred. 
1 gave two ounces bruised and made into a mass, with linseed 
meal and treacle, to an aged and apparently healthy ass, and which 
he ate with avidity. I directed him to be kept from food, but 
allowed him water, of which he drank freely. The pulse at the 
time of the exhibition of the yew was 52, and the tone of it natu- 
ral ; the respiration 12 in the minute. 
Two hours afterwards the pulse had risen to 56 ; and when four 
hours had expired the number of pulsations was the same, but their 
tone was softer : the respiration, too, was a little altered, the abdo- 
minal muscles being called more into action than is natural. At 
VOL. XII. 3 F 
