430 
POISONING BY COLCHICUM. 
or less affected, and five of them presented symptoms of so 
serious a character, that I suspected at once we had a far 
more formidable enemy to combat with than could be pro¬ 
duced by any quantity of ordinary herbage, however cold, 
wet, or rank, it might happen to be. These symptoms were 
a quick and irritable pulse, profuse cold perspiration, painful 
breathing, a low, melancholy kind of moan or grunt, general 
appearance of great distress about the countenance, all the 
ordinary manifestations of abdominal pain, and in most of 
the cases, at first, violent purgation. There could be little 
doubt that the animals had partaken of some acrid poison, 
and previous observations of the effects of the Colchicum 
autumnale on cattle, led me at once to inquire if such a plant 
was to be met with in the pastures at the Isle. The in¬ 
formation I received, though not quite satisfactory, seemed 
to point to such a conclusion; but it was now quite 
dark, and having left for each of the poor animals an opiate 
draught, to be given in some warm gruel, I was satisfied to 
leave the further investigation of the subject until the follow¬ 
ing morning. 
In the course of the night one of those most seriously 
affected died. Opiate and mucilaginous drinks were adminis¬ 
tered to the survivors, and other remedial measures were had 
recourse to, but without success. Four more died in the 
course of the day, thus making five deaths in less than 
twenty-four hours from the time 1 first saw them. An 
examination of the meadow in which they had been pasturing 
proved, as I had suspected, that the meadow saffron grew 
there in great abundance. What is more, large quantities of 
the plant had been pulled up a few days previously, and lay 
in heaps in several parts of the field, half withered. Of these 
the cattle appeared to have partaken rather freely, and thus 
the fearful virulence of the symptoms, and the rapid fatality 
of the attack—both of which were without a parallel in my 
experience of such cases—seemed readily accounted for. A 
post-mortem examination, however, made the matter still more 
clear. The rumen contained large quantities both of the 
leaves and seeds of the colchicum, and these could also be 
traced through the other divisions of the great digestive 
apparatus. The amount of disease satisfactorily explained 
the rapidity of the dissolution. The lining membranes 
of these organs—the rumen, the reticulum, the manipulus, 
and the abomasum—were inflamed through their entire 
course, the rumen perhaps most of all; and when the 
extent of this surface is considered, a space, if it could be 
fairly extended, of several square yards, the terrible character 
