686 
REMARKS ON POISONING BY YEW. 
readers of the Lancet , but I think you would confer a 
very great boon on those who peruse your journal, and are 
engaged in cattle-practice, by placing them in possession of 
any agent or compound which could be depended upon as a 
sure, safe, and certain emetic when administered to the rumi¬ 
nant. Of an agent of this kind I must confess my indivi¬ 
dual ignorance, nor have I ever heard of such a one from any 
veterinary practitioner. 
The accounts which are scattered through the pages of the 
Veterinarian and other journals, of poisoning by “yew,” 
when partaken of, by either the horse or ox, are so contra¬ 
dictory, that I hope at your leisure we shall be favoured with 
the results of your extended experience on the subject; or, 
perhaps, your talented botanical correspondent, Mr. Watson, 
will give us the benefit of his researches. I would merely 
hazard an opinion to the effect that, I think, very much of its 
immediate deleterious action, like most other vegetable poisons, 
depends greatly on the quantity, and perhaps something on 
the quality also of the ingesta which is contained in the 
stomach at the time the yew is taken. Something, likewise, 
will probably be found to be due to the season of the year 
and the variety of the plant. 
[Further investigations are certainly required for the eluci¬ 
dation of this subject, notwithstanding that numerous cases of 
poisoning by yew have been recorded. In our July number 
we gave an epitome of the present state of knowledge respect¬ 
ing the effects which are produced on animals by the plant. 
Our present number also will be found to contain the parti¬ 
culars of a case of poisoning of a filly by the same agent. 
To this we have appended a few observations, from which 
it will be seen that a particular variety of the plant was 
deleterious. 
Like Mr. Dickens, we do not know of any agent which 
can be depended upon for producing vomition in the ox. 
Large quantities of tepid water, injected by the stomach- 
pump into the rumen, have occasionally led to an ejection of 
its contents, but we have seen serious results follow such 
attempts to unload this viscus.] 
