OBSERVATIONS ON YEW POISONING. 189 
musk, alcohol, turpentine, &c. All these substances, there¬ 
fore, appear to he absorbed by blood-vessels exclusively. 
“ The rapidity with which matters may be absorbed from 
the stomach, probably by the blood-vessels chiefly, and dif¬ 
fused through the texture of the body, may be gathered from 
the history of some experiments of Dr. Bence Jones. From 
these it appears that even in a quarter of an hour after being 
given on an empty stomach chloride of lithium may be dif¬ 
fused into all the vascular textures of the body, and into 
some of the non-vascular, as the cartilage of the hip-joint. 
Carbonate of lithia, when taken in five or ten-grain doses 
on an empty stomach, may be detected in the urine in five or 
ten minutes, or, if the stomach be full at the time of taking 
the dose, in twenty minutes.” 
Were death the result of mechanical irritation alone, the 
time would be far too short for its accomplishment. 
It is a well-known fact that the stomachs of ruminants will 
receive and retain for a lengthened period materials such as 
bones, stones, nails, and other rubbish, which one would con¬ 
sider more likely to produce a fatal irritation than the leaves 
of the yew after being chewed. Moreover, cattle will eat 
gorse— XJlex Europeeus —with impunity. 
The denuded condition of the internal surface of the rumen, 
reticulum, and omasum, favours the idea of a chemical prin¬ 
ciple in the yew, and strengthens the supposition of the ab¬ 
sorption of it by the blood-vessels of the lining membrane. 
The last and most important question to be considered is, 
Do the cases recorded by me and referred to by Professor 
Buckman, answer all the conditions necessary to establish a 
bond fide case of narcotico-irritant poisoning ? I am con¬ 
vinced they do, both in their ante- and post-mortem condi¬ 
tions, and I can come to no other conclusion but that 
yew is a narcotico-irritant poison. If the yew should act 
in this way in one case, it will do so in every other where 
a sufficient quantity has been partaken of, and this truth 
once established, objections to it are nothing. 
OBSERVATIONS ON YEW POISONING. 
By W. Bower, Jun., M.R.C.V.S., East Reedham. 
In common with many others I have been much interest 
in reading the account of yew poisoning, as described by . 
Gerrard, in the January number of the Veterinarian^ 
