670 
BOTANY AS APPLIED TO VETERINARY SCIENCE. 
consuming about four pounds of tobacco leaves^ speedily 
became very restless, ground his teeth, and groaned, lay with 
outstretched limbs and distended rumen, passed quantities of 
thin fetid faeces, and died in eleven hours in convulsions. 
Quantities of the leaves were found in the alimentary canal, 
and the mucous membrane, especially of the fourth stomach, 
was red and corroded, particularly where in contact with the 
tobacco.^"' 
Batura stramonmm {tliorn ajiple). —tubular, ventri- 
cose, with five angles, five-toothed, deciduous, leaving behind a 
broad orbicular base. Corolla funnel-shaped, the tube long, 
the limb with five angles, five plaits, and five points; Stamens 
five ; stigma of two plates. Fruit spinous, ovate, erect. Leaves 
ovate, smooth, sinuated. Flowers white.’^—Lindley. 
This plant, which has now become naturalised, was intro¬ 
duced into this country from America about the close of the 
sixteenthcentury,and is found growing about waste places and 
dunghills in many parts of this country. It grows from two 
to three feet high, has large leaves of a dark-green colour, 
and solitary, large, white, funnel-shaped flowers, which appear 
in July and August, and with a peculiar, somewhat flesh}', 
ovate capsule, covered with awl-shaped spines, containing a 
great number of dark-coloured, kidney-shaped seeds. All 
parts of the plant contain more or less active properties, 
but the leaves and seeds are the only parts employed as me- 
dieinal agents. These are powerfully narcotic, and many 
fatal cases are recorded of their effects upon the human 
subject. When the first settlers arrived in Virginia, some 
ate the leaves of this plant, and experienced such strange 
and unpleasant effects therefrom, that the colonists called it 
the ^ deviPs apple/ a name by which it is still known in the 
American states/^ Its active properties depend upon an 
alkaloid named daturia, which, according to Dr. Taylor, 
forms about 1 per cent, of the dried vegetable, and pos¬ 
sesses the following characters :—Crystallizes in colourless, 
quadrangular prisms or needles; it has a bitter taste, be¬ 
coming acrid, and resembling that of tobacco. It has the 
same elementary composition as atropia. It is highly poison¬ 
ous ; the eighth of a grain killed a sparrow in three hours. 
AVhen dissolved and placed on the eye of an animal, it causes 
excessive dilatation of the pupil, which lasts for some days.’^ 
Since writing the above, I have received a communica¬ 
tion, and also a specimen of the Alsike clover {TrlfoUum hg- 
hriihim) from Air. Wheeler, in reference to the remarks of 
its injurious effects upon horses, referred to in tlie last 
