560  Mydriatic  Action  of  the  Solanacece.     { ^mxo°v.?Sarin' 
isms"  (vol.  iii.)  p.  363),  quotes  Ray's  case.  And  quite  independently 
of  Ray's  observation,  Evers  reported  in  the  Berliner  Sammlung, 
1773,  vol.  v.,  p.  565,1  that  he  noticed  in  six  persons  hebetudo  oculorum 
and  dilatatio  pupilla?  as  symptoms  of  the  belladonna  intoxication. 
Evers  must  accordingly  be  mentioned  as  the  third  discoverer  of  the 
mydriatic  power  of  belladonna.  Three  years  later  the  following  case 
of  poisoning  occurred  at  Hamburg.  A  physician  of  repute,  Dr. 
Reimarus,  had  ordered  in  a  drug  store  belladonna.  The  nephew  of 
the  apothecary,.  Johannes  Andreas  Daries  ("  De  Atropa  Belladonna," 
Dissert.  Inaug.  Auctore  Petro  Joanne  Andrea  Daries.  Lipsiae,  1776. 
Reprinted  in  Ballinger's  "  Sylloge,"  vol.  ii.,  p.  58),  who  prepared  the 
prescription  from  the  fresh  plant,  had  a  drop  of  the  juice  of  the  ber- 
ries, or  of  the  herb,  accidentally  get  into  his  right  eye.  Very  soon 
after  this  accident  he  was  troubled  by  mydriasis  and  considerable 
visual  interferences.  Reimarus,  informed  by  letter  of  the  druggist's 
trouble,  wrote  that  he  was  aware  that  the  ingestion  of  large  quanti- 
ties of  belladonna  produced  mydriasis,  but  that  he  was  surprised  to 
learn  that  the  external  application  of  the  drug  could  likewise  produce 
this  result.  This  was,  however,  Reimarus  added,  a  very  interesting 
matter,  and  invited  decidedly  to  therapeutic  trials  of  the  drug  in  cata- 
ract operations.  But  even  before  the  arrival  of  this  letter,  Daries 
ascertained,  by  experiments  on  a  cat,  that  the  fresh  juice  of  the  herb 
and  of  the  berries  of  belladonna  had  actually  a  mydriatic  power. 
Hence  Daries  is  to  be  designated  as  the  fourth  discoverer  of  the  mydri- 
atic action  of  belladonna. 
About  the  same  time,  or  a  little  later,  Doederlein2  observed  in  his 
practice  a  case  recalling  that  one  of  Ray  mentioned  above.  A  patient 
having  placed  a  leaf  of  datura  stramonium  upon  an  ulcer  near  the 
eye  was  soon  affected  with  a  complete  paralysis  of  the  pupil.  Doeder- 
lein interpreted  this  mydriasis  very  correctly  as  the  action  of  stramo- 
nium, and  is  accordingly  to  be  regarded  as  the  fifth  discoverer  of  this 
1  Gmelin  states  in  his  "  General  History  of  Vegetable  Poisons  "  (Nuremberg, 
1777),  p.  301,  that  already  in  1765  he  had  noticed  mydriasis  as  one  of  the  symp- 
toms of  belladonna-poisoning,  but  he  does  not  appear  to  regard  this  symptom 
as  characteristic,  but  rather  as  an  incidental  one,  for,  in  reviewing  all  symp- 
toms, he  omits  this  one. 
2  Conrad  Moench,  Lehre  von  den  Arzneimitteln,"  Marburg,  1795,  p.  357. 
Moench,  by  the  way,  was  quite  familiar  with  the  publications  of  Ray  and 
Daries. 
