Ernest Platner has related a very interesting example, which proves how easily poisoning of the kind supposed may be accomplished without suspicion. A servant-girl poisoned her mistress by mixing oxide of arsenic with a dish of mushrooms. She died in twenty hours, after suffering severely from vomiting and colic pains. On dissection there were found inflammation of the stomach, gangrenous spots in it, clots of blood in its contents, and redness of the intestines. Her death, however, was ascribed to the mushrooms having been unwholesome; and the real cause was not discovered till thirteen years after, when the girl was convicted of murdering a fellow-servant in a somewhat similar way by mixing arsenic with her chocolate, and then confessed both crimes.[1]
Poisonous Mosses.—It is not improbable that some of the mosses possess poisonous properties similar to those of the deleterious fungi. Dr. Winkler of Innsbruch mentions that the Lycopodium selago is used in the Tyrol in the way of infusion for killing vermin on animals; and that unpleasant accidents have been produced in man by its accidental use. Its effects appear to be sometimes irritant, but more generally narcotic in their nature.[2]
CHAPTER XL.
OF THE EFFECTS OF POISONOUS GRAIN AND PULSE.
The different sorts of grain are subject to certain diseases, in consequence
of which meal or flour made from them is apt to be impregnated
with substances more or less injurious to animal life. It
is likewise believed, that unripe grain possesses properties which
render it to a certain extent unfit for the food of man.
It is for the most part difficult to trace satisfactorily the operation of the poisons now alluded to, because they are seen acting only in times of famine and general distress, when it is not always easy to make due allowance for the effect of collateral circumstances. There is one poison of the kind, however, whose baneful influence has been so frequently and unequivocally witnessed, that no doubt now exists regarding its properties, I mean spurred rye, or ergot. It is a poison of no great consequence, perhaps, to the English toxicologist; for indeed I am not aware that a single instance of its operation has hitherto been observed in Britain.[3] But its effects are so singular, and the ravages it has often committed on the continent have been so dreadful, that a short account of it cannot fail to interest even the English reader. Besides, it has lately been introduced into the ma-*
- ↑ Quæstiones Medicinæ Forenses, 1824, p. 206.
- ↑ Repertorium für die Pharmacie, xiv. 311.
- ↑ In the Philosophical Transactions for 1762 an account is given of a family of eight people in Suffolk, who had the gangrenous form of the disease induced by spurred rye. They had lived on damaged wheat, but never used rye meal. See Dr. Wollaston's paper, lii. 523, and Mr. Bone's Letter, Ibid. 526.
