324  Some  North  American  Medicinal  Plants.  {AmjJ££iS\fm- 
volatile  alkaloid  or  a  crystalline  principle  possessing  the  poisonous 
properties  of  this  plant ;  the  cicutoxin  of  R.  Boehm  and  Trojanowski 
(1876,  1877)  is  s°ft>  amorphous  and  of  acid  reaction,  and  represents, 
essentially,  the  alcoholic  extract  of  the  ethereal  extract  of  the  root. 
Dr.  C.  B.  White,  U.  S.  A.,  has  recorded  (see  Amer.  Jour.  Phar., 
1873,  p.  371)  a  case  of  poisoning  by  the  root  of  the  water  parsnip, 
Sium  latifolium,  now  known  as  Sium  cicutaefolium,  Gmelin,  which, 
like  the  water-hemlock,  is  indigenous  throughout  the  North  Ameri- 
can continent.  Analyzed  by  A.  R.  Porter  and  by  N.  Rogers  (ibid., 
1876,  pp.  348  and  483),  no  poisonous  principle  could  be  detected, 
and  the  deleterious  effects  were  ascribed  as  being  possibly  due  to  a 
resin.  Whether  this  root  has,  to  some  extent,  been  eaten  in  the 
place  of  other  umbelliferous  roots,  will  be  difficult  to  determine;  in 
a  large  number  of  works  on  descriptive  and  medical  botany,  which 
I  have  consulted,  no  allusion  could  be  found  to  its  supposed  poison- 
ous properties,  except  in  Carter's  Synopsis  of  the  Medical  Botany 
of  the  United  States. 
During  the  last  and  in  the  beginning  of  the  present  century 
Cicuta  maculata  appears  to  have  been  employed  medicinally,  and 
references  to  its  properties  and  uses  will  be  found  in  the  writings  of 
Schoepf,  Barton,  Muhlenberg,  Bigelow  and  others. 
Euphorbia  marginata,  Pursh,  a  well-known  garden  plant,  com- 
monly  called  »'  snow  on  the  mountain,"  is  indigenous  to  the  country 
between  the  Rocky  Mountains  and  the  Mississippi  River,  and  in  the 
Eastern  States  is  beginning  to  establish  itself.  Like  other  species 
of  the  same  genus,  it  contains  an  acrid  milk-juice.  Applied  to  the 
skin,  this  juice  produces  a  decided  burning  sensation  and  ulti- 
mately redness  and  a  pimply  eruption,  somewhat  resembling  that 
occasioned  by  poison-oak,  as  has  been  observed  by  Mr.  J.  Schneck, 
of  Mount  Carmel,  111.  (see  Botanical  Gazette,  1890,  p.  276).  As 
far  as  examined  the  acrid  principle  of  the  euphorbias  is  an  amor- 
phous resin,  and  exists  in  the  different  species  in  very  unequal  pro- 
portion, the  annual  plants  being  usually  mildest  in  their  action.  It 
would  be  of  interest  to  determine  the  nature  of  the  irritating  prin- 
ciple of  the  plant  in  question,  likewise  the  amount  of  fixed  oil 
obtainable  from  the  seeds,  and  to  what  extent  this  may  possess 
purgative  and  rubefacient  properties,  which  are  commonly  observed 
in  oils  of  the  euphorbiaceae. 
Eupatorium  purpureum,  Linn'e,  is  known  in  some  localities  as 
