found that twelve ounces of juice, expressed from sixteen ounces of roots in the beginning of August, merely caused some efforts to vomit, when secured in the stomach of a dog by a ligature on the gullet; that the alcoholic extract of twelve ounces of leaves gathered at the same time had no effect when introduced in the form of emulsion between the skin and muscles of the back of a rabbit; and that the alcoholic extract of two ounces of unripe seeds proved equally inert when imployed in the same way.
Symptoms in Man.—Wepfer has likewise related several instances which occurred in the human subject. Among the rest he has described the cases of eight children who ate the roots instead of parsneps. Of those who were seriously affected, one, a girl six years old, who ultimately recovered, had tetanic fits, followed by deep coma, from which it was impossible to rouse her for twenty-four hours. Two of them died. The first symptoms in these two were swelling in the pit of the stomach, vomiting or efforts to vomit, then total insensibility, with involuntary discharge of urine, and finally severe convulsions, during which the jaws were locked, the eyes rolled, and the head and spine were bent backwards, so that a child might have crept between the body and the bed-clothes. One of them died half an hour after being taken ill, and the other not long after.[1] Mayer of Creutsburg mentions four cases, which were occasioned by the roots. One of the individuals, a child three years old, was attacked with colic, vomiting, and convulsions, and died in a few hours. The three others, the eldest of whom was six years of age, had coldness, paleness of the features, dilated immoveable pupils, violent colic, general spasms, and insensibility. The action of the heart was intermitting and the breathing oppressed. After the remains of the roots were brought up by emetics, and infusion of gall was administered, they gradually recovered. They had eaten between them no more than a single root weighing about two ounces, as they had in their possession another of that weight, which they said was not so large. This accident happened in the middle of March.[2] According to Guersent, poisoning with the cicuta commences with dimness of sight, giddiness, acute headache, anxiety, pain in the stomach, dryness in the throat, and vomiting.[3] Mertzdorff has related the particulars of the inspection of three cases which proved quickly fatal with convulsions and vomiting. Nothing remarkable seems to have been found except great gorging of the cerebral vessels.[4] Of Poisoning with Hemlock Dropwort.
The Œnanthe crocata of botanists, the hemlock-dropwort, five-finger-root, or dead-tongue of vernacular speech in England, a species of the same family with the last two, and an abundant plant in some localities throughout this country, has usually been held one
