DEADLY NIGHTSHADE. 53 
Tobacco is a powerful medicine, and requires to be used 
with great caution. The smoke of this herb, when 
blown against noxious insects, destroys them, and 
is the means which gardeners adopt for ridding hot- 
houses and green-houses of such as infest their plants. 
The tobacco plant is sufficiently hardy to sustain the 
rigour of an European climate, and is cultivated in 
several parts of Spain and Portugal. As however, on 
importation, it pays a heavy tax to government, the 
culture of it in this country is restricted, by the legisla- 
ture, to half a rod of ground in physic gardens ; and 
if this be exceeded the cultivator is liable to a penalty 
of ten pounds for every rod. 
The different kinds of tobacco and snuff are attri* 
butable rather to the difference of climate and soil in 
which the plants have been grown, and to the different 
modes of management and manufacture, than to any 
essential distinction in the plants from which they are 
manufactured. 
66. DEADLY NIGPITSHADE (Atropa belladonna) w 
an extremely poisonous plant, which grows in hedges and waste 
grounds, in several parts of England, and has somewhat 
oval leaves of* dull green colour, purple bell-shaped flowers, 
and shining black berries, each about the size of a small 
cherry. 
There is no British plant so injurious in its effects on 
the human frame as this ; and the alluring appearance 
and sweetish taste of the berries have, in many instances, 
particularly with children, been succeeded by the most 
fatal consequences. It is true that some persons have 
been known to eat three or four of them without in- 
jury; but in others a single berry, and even the half of 
one, has occasioned death. The leaves are more power- 
ful than the berries. The usual symptoms of this poi- 
son are a deep and deadly stupor, giddiness, delirium, 
great thirst, retching, and convulsions. A draught of 
vinegar, and keeping the patient constantly in motion, 
are said to be the best means of cure. 
