672 
ON POISONOUS PLANTS. 
About thirty years ago, when in extensive practice in Devon- 
shire, I often met with cases of blain, and I long suspected that it 
was occasioned by some herb, but never was able to trace it until 
August 1836. I had three horses of my own, and one belonging 
to H. Shepherd, Esq., of this island. He was a very healthy 
horse, about fourteen years old. He had been blistered, and, when 
the blister was quite covered with hard scurf, he was put into a 
meadow in the most swampy part, and tethered down, and moved 
twice a-day. 
A few days afterward I visited him, and perceived an immense 
discharge from the mouth; I should judge almost a bucket full in 
the course of a few hours. I had him immediately brought home. 
I bled him, and opened his bowels with oil and aloes made into a 
drench with boiling water and salt of tartar, and washed his mouth 
frequently with tincture of myrrh. By this mode of treatment, he 
was fit in a week to be turned out again. 
I expected that my own horses, which were in another part of 
the meadow, would have been affected. I narrowly watched; 
but seeing nothing of it for two days, I tethered a thoroughbred 
colt, three years old, in the same place, in the morning, and visited 
him in the afternoon, when the saliva was running is it does in 
common cases of blain. I moved him, but did nothing to him. 
The next day the discharge stopped, and two days afterwards the 
inflammation subsided. 
I put the other two horses in the same place; they were affected 
in the same way, and it passed off in the same manner. 
As I was at the time much engaged, and knowing little of bo- 
tany, I offered a reward of five shillings to the country people if 
they could find me any herb which produced the effect. One was 
brought to me, which I gave to an experienced botanist, but nothing 
poisonous belonged to it. As the field was about four miles distant 
from my residence, I gave it up, and all thought of the matter, 
until reading Professor Gelle’s account. A few days since, riding 
by the field, and perceiving that no cattle had been put into it 
since it had been mown, I thought it a good opportunity to try if 
I could find any herb on the spot where Mr. Shepherd’s horse had 
been penned. I found a species of crowfoot, a very few bits of 
which convinced me of its effect on the mouth. 
I am thus particular in giving you the full detail, using that ex- 
cellent motto of M. Gelle, “Let every one tell that which he 
knows, all that he knows, and nothing but what he does know.” 
If writers in general, instead of beating about the bush, and raising 
up a dust by begging and stealing, such as Mr. Hinds, &c., were 
to adhere to this rule, how much better for science ! 
In your valuable work on Cattle, you mention the crowfoot as 
a poison. It appears to affect the mouth and eyes. The following 
