by heat; and the question is scarcely yet settled. It is certain, however, that, although castor oil owes its occasional acridity to changes effected by the heat to which it is sometimes exposed in the process of separation, nevertheless the cotyledons are in themselves acrid.[1]
Two or three of the seeds will operate as a violent cathartic. Bergius, as quoted by Orfila, says he knew a stout man who was attacked with profuse vomiting and purging after having masticated a single seed. Lanzoni met with an instance where three grains of the fresh seeds, taken by a young woman, caused so violent vomiting, hiccup, pain in the stomach, and faintness, that for some time her life was considered in great danger.[2] Mr. Alfred Taylor met with three cases of poisoning with castor-oil seeds. Two sisters, who took each from two to four seeds, suffered severely; and a third, who took twenty, died in five days, with symptoms like those of malignant cholera.[3] Climate probably affects their activity; for I have known a person eat without any effect several seeds ripened in the open air in this neighbourhood. Dogs vomit so easily that they may take thirty seeds without material inconvenience, if the gullet is not tied. But if the gullet is secured, a much less quantity will occasion death in six hours. They produce violent inflammation when applied to a wound.[4]
Of Poisoning with the Physic-nut.
The plants of the genus Jatropha, belonging to the same natural family, have all of them the same acrid properties as the castor-oil tree. The seeds of the J. curcas, the physic-nut of the West Indies, when applied in the form of powder to a wound, produce violent spreading inflammation of the subcutaneous cellular tissue; and when introduced into the stomach they inflame that organ and the intestines.[5] Four seeds will act on man as a powerful cathartic.[6] I have known violent vomiting and purging occasioned by a few grains of the cake, left after expression of the fixed oil from the bruised seeds; and in some experiments performed a few years ago, I found that twelve or fifteen drops of the oil produced exactly the same effects as an ounce of castor-oil, though not with such certainty. In the last edition of this work some observations were made, on the authority of MM. Pelletier and Caventou, respecting the properties of a pure oil and a volatile acid, supposed by them to exist in the physic-nut; but they analyzed the croton-seed by mistake for it.
Two other species have been also examined, but not with care, namely, the Jatropha multifida, and the Jatropha or Janipha manihot. It is probable that the seeds of both are acrid, and also the oil which may be extracted from them by pressure. But a much more interest-*
- ↑ See on this subject Deyeux in Ann. de Chim. lxxiii. 106. Boutron-Charlard et Henri, in Journal de Pharmacie, x. 466. Bussy et Lecanu, ibid. xii. 481.
- ↑ Tractatus de Venenis in Opp. I. i. 308, quoted by Marx, die Lehre von den Giften, i. 128.
- ↑ Manual of Medical Jurisprudence, 224.
- ↑ Toxicol. Gén. i. 706.
- ↑ Ibidem, i. 715.
- ↑ Mr. Bennet in London Medical Gazette, ix. 7.
