OCR Text |
Show THORN-APPLE. 187 spines, large, fleshy, opening with four valves, showing a column in the centre, giving nourishment and support to many kidney-shaped seeds. HISTORY. The thorn-apple is an annual plant, a native of America, gradually diffusing itself from the south to the north, and noweven growing wild on dry hills and uncultivated places in England and other parts of Europe. ‘The leaves are dark green, sessile, large, egg-shaped, pointed, angular, and deeply indented, of a disagreeable smell and nauseous taste. Every part of the plant is a strong narcotic poison, producing vertigo, torpor, death. Dr. Barton mentions the cases of two British soldiers who ate it by mistake for the Chenopodium album: one became furious and ran about like a madman, and the other died with the symptoms of genuine tetanus. ‘The best antidote to its effects is said to be vinegar. The following advertisement appeared in the Bath paper, with the respectable signature of Dr. Haygarth: ‘‘ Gardeners are particularly desired to take care never to ie : et)S701Teer throw poisonous plants out of gardens into the streets, lanes, or even the fields to which people can have access. Poor children, for diversion, curiosity, or hunger, are prompted to eat all kinds of vegetables which come intheir way, especially seeds, fruits, or roots. ‘This caution does not proceed fromfanciful speculation, but from actual mischief, produced by the cause THORN-APPLE. DATURA STRAMONIUM. Ciass V. Pentandria. Order [. Monogynia. Calyx tubular, Essent. Gen. Car. Corolla funnel-shaped, plicate. angular, deciduous. Capsule four-valved. — DESCRIPTION. Tus plant rises two feet in height. Stemlarge, upright, above forked. Leaves alternate, large, broad towards the base, pointed at the extremity, toothed, varying iu the size of these teeth, standing uponstrong footstalks. Flowers solitary, white, larges consisting of a single leaf, plicate, cut into five teeth, standing upon along tube. Anthers conspicuous. Capsule covered with here specified. A physician has lately scen several children poi- soned with the roots of the aconite or monkshood, throwninto an open field in the city of Chester, and with the seeds of the stramonium or thorn-apple, throwninto the street. The former were seized with very violent complaints of vomiting, an alarming pain of the head, stomach, and bowels ; the latter with blind. hess, and a kind of madness, biting, scratching, shrieking, laughing, and crying, in a frightful manner. Many of them Were very dangerously affected, and escaped very narrowly with life. These, andall other poisonous plants, taken out of gardens, should be carefully buried or burned.” I shall relate only the following case from Dr. Woodville; “A man, aged sixty-nine, labouring under a calculous complaint, by mistake boiled the capsules of the stramonium in milk, and in consequence of drinking this decoction was affected with |