426 POISONS : THEIR EFFECTS AND DETECTION. [§§ 514 - 516 . 
the berries, and the rest from the leaves. They were all accidental; 
20 persons died, or 62-5 per cent. 
§ 514. Effects on Animals : Physiological Action. —From the re¬ 
searches of Marme-Borchers, it appears that taxine acts upon the 
nervous centres—the nervous trunks themselves and the muscles re¬ 
maining with their excitability unimpaired, even some time after 
death. Taxine kills through paralysis of the respiration, the heart 
beating after the breathing has stopped. The leaves contain much 
formic acid, and their irritant action on the intestine is referred to this 
cause. 
§ 515. Effects on Man. —Several deaths from yew have resulted in 
lunatic asylums from the patients chewing the leaves. For example, 
some years ago, at the Cheshire County Asylum, a female, aged 41, was 
suddenly taken ill, apparently fainting, her face pale, her eyes shut, and 
pulse almost imperceptible. Upon the administration of stimulants, 
she somewhat revived, but in a little while became quite unconscious. 
The pupils were contracted, and there were epileptiform convulsions, 
succeeded by stertorous breathing. These convulsions returned from 
time to time, the action of the heart became weaker, and there was a 
remarkable slowing of the respirations, with long intervals between the 
breathing. The woman died within an hour from the time when her 
illness was first observed, and within two hours of eating the leaves. 
Yew leaves were found in her stomach. In another case that occurred 
at the Parkside Asylum, 1 the patient died suddenly in a sort of epileptic 
fit. Yew leaves w~ere again found in the stomach. In a case quoted by 
Taylor, in which a decoction of the leaves was drunk by a girl, aged 15, 
for the purpose of exciting menstruation, she took the decoction on four 
successive mornings. Severe vomiting followed, and she died eight 
hours after taking the last dose. In another case there were also no 
symptoms except vomiting, followed by rapid death. Mr Hurt, of 
Mansfield, has recorded a case of poisoning by the berries. The child 
died in convulsions before it was seen by any medical man. 
From these and other recorded cases, the symptoms seem generally 
to be a quick pulse, fainting or collapse, nausea, vomiting, convulsions, 
slow respiration, and death, as a rule sudden and unexpected. We may 
suppose that the sudden death is really due to a rapid paralysis of the 
respiration, and suffocation. 
§ 516. Post-mortem Appearances. —In the case of the girl who 
drank the decoction, nothing unusual was observed in the stomach or 
organs of the body ; but when the leaves have been eaten, usually more 
or less congestion of the mucous membrane of the stomach as well as of 
the bowels is apparent. In the case of the child who ate the berries 
(Hurt’s case), the stomach was filled with mucus and half-digested pulp 
1 Pharm. Journ. (3), No. 294. 
