Page:Treatise on poisons in relation to medical jurisprudence, physiology, and the practice of physic (IA treatiseonpoison00chriuoft).pdf/465

 which is known to the negroes of St. Domingo by the name of Zombi apple, and is familiarly used by them as a potent poison.

Of Poisoning with Croton.

The oil of the Croton Tiglium has been familiarly known for some years as a very powerful hydragogue cathartic in the dose of a few drops; and therefore little doubt could exist that both the oil and the seed which yields it must be active irritant poisons in moderate doses. Accordingly it has been lately found by experiments in Germany that forty seeds will kill a horse in the course of seven hours; and Rumphius mentions that it was a common poison in his time at Amboyna among the natives. I have known most violent watery purging and great prostration caused by four drops of the expressed oil. A fatal case of poisoning with it occurred not long ago in France. A young man who swallowed two drachms and a half of the oil by mistake, instead of using it as an embrocation, was soon seized with tenderness of the belly, violent efforts to vomit, cold sweating, laborious respiration, blueness of the lips and fingers, and an almost imperceptible pulse,—then with profuse, involuntary discharges by stool, burning along the throat and gullet, and insensibility of the skin;—and in four hours he expired. The villous coat of the stomach was soft, but not otherwise injured. The activity of the seed and oil seems to depend on a peculiar volatile acid, which was discovered by MM. Pelletier and Caventou when they analysed the croton seed by mistake as the seed of the Jatropha curcas, or physic-nut. When the oil was saponified by potash and then freed of the acid by distillation, it became inert. On the other hand, the acid was found by them to excite inflammation of the stomach, and spreading inflammation of the cellular tissue, according as it was administered internally or applied to a wound. The next natural family in which plants are to be found that possess the properties of the acrid poisons, is the Cucurbitaceæ, or gourds. This family, it should be remarked, does not in general possess poisonous properties. On the contrary, they are, with a few exceptions, remarkably mild; and many of them supply articles of luxury for the table. The melon, gourd, and cucumber belong to the order. The only poisons of the order which have been examined with any care are elaterium, bryony, and colocynth. Of Poisoning with Bryony.

The roots of the Bryonia alba and Dioica possesses properties essentially the same with those of euphorbium. The B. dioica is a native of Britain, where it grows among hedges, and is usually known by