the power of causing miscarriage is very general among the vulgar; while it is scarcely employed by them for any useful purpose. The leaves in the form of infusion are in some parts of England a popular remedy for worms; and the oil is used in regular medicine as an emmenagogue.
The following list includes all the other plants which have been either ascertained experimentally to belong to the present order, or are believed on good general evidence to possess the same or analogous properties.
By careful experiment Orfila has ascertained that the Gratiola officinalis, Rhus radicans and Rhus toxicodendron, Chelidonium majus and Sedum acre, possess them; and the following species are also generally considered acrid, namely, Rhododendron chrysanthum and ferrugineum, Pedicularis palustris, Cyclamen Europæum, Plumbago Europæa, Pastinaca sativa, Lobelia syphilitica and longiflora, Hydrocotyle vulgaris. To these may be added the common elder or Sambucus nigra, the leaves and flowers of which caused in a boy, once a patient of mine, dangerous inflammation of the mucous membrane of the bowels lasting for eight days.
CHAPTER XXI.
OF POISONING WITH CANTHARIDES.
The second group of the present Order of poisons comprehends
most of those derived from the animal kingdom. In action they
resemble considerably the vegetable acrids, their most characteristic
effect being local inflammation; but several of them also induce
symptoms of an injury of the nervous system.
This group includes cantharides, poisonous fishes, venomous serpents, and decayed or diseased animal matter.
The first of these is familiarly known as a poison even to the common people. I am not aware that it has ever been used for the purpose of committing murder. But on account of its powerful effect on the organs of generation it has often been given by way of joke, and sometimes taken for the purpose of procuring abortion. Fatal accidents have been the consequence.
The appearance of the fly is well known. When in powder, as generally seen, it has a grayish-green colour, mingled with brilliant green points. It has a nauseous odour and a very acrid burning taste. Alcohol dissolves its active principle. This principle appears from a careful analysis by M. Robiquet to be a white, crystalline, scaly substance, insoluble in water, but soluble in alcohol as well as in oils, and termed cantharidin.[1]
In compound mixtures cantharides may generally be detected by the green colour and metallic brilliancy even of its finest powder, if examined in the sunshine—and sometimes by making an etherial
- ↑ Annales de Chimie, lxxvi.
