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Show MEMLOCK WATER-DROPWonRT. 313 MEDICAL VIRTUES, We are sorry wehave to recordit rather asa powerful poison than as medicine. Its root, which is not unpleasant to thetaste, is, by Dr. Poultney, esteemed to be the most deleterious of all the vegetables which this country produces, Mr. Howell, surgeon at Haverfordwest, relates, that ‘¢ eleyen French prisoners had the liberty of walking in and about the town of Pembroke; three of them, being in the fields a little before noon, dug up a large quantity of this plant, which they took to be wild celery, to eat with their bread and butter for dinner, After washing it, they all three ate, or rather tasted, of the roots. As they were entering the town, without any Previous notice of sickness at the stomach, or disorder in the head, one of them was scized with convulsions, The other two ran home, andsent a surgeon to him. ‘The surgeon endeavoured first to bleed, and then to vomit him ; but those eudeavours were fruitless, and he died presently. Ignorant of the cause of their comrade’s death, and of their own danger, they gave of these roots to the other eight prisoners, who all ate some of them with their dinner. A few minutes afterwards the remaining two, HEMLOCK WATER-DROPWORT. C(ENANTHE CROCATA. Class V. Pentandria. Order II. Digynia. é Essent. Gen. Cuan. Floscules unequal: those in the disksessile, sterile: Fruit crowned by the calyx and pistillum. Spec, Cuar. Leaves all multifid, obtuse, nearly equal. emt DESCRIPTION. Tr rises two or three feet in height. Leaves are simple, and doubly pinnate. Smaller pinne wedge-shaped, jagged at edges, larger pinne three-lobed, indented. Flowers in um ae spreading, somewhat globular. No general involucre. neon composed of many leaves. Fruit oblong, striated, divisib A two parts, which are convex on oneside and flat on the other. HISTORY. ivers It is a native of England, and grows on the banks of riv and in ditches; flowers in June and July. who gathered the plants, were seized in the same manner as the first; of which one died; the other was bled, and a vomit with great difficulty forced down, ‘on account of his jaws being asit were locked together. ‘This operated, and he recovered, but Was some time affected with dizziness in his head, though not sick or the least disordered in his stomach. The othereight, being bled and vomited immediately, were soon well.” At Clonmel], in Ireland, eight boys, mistaking this plant for Water-parsnip, ate plentifully of its roots: about four or five hours after, the eldest boy became suddenly convulsed, and died ; and before the next morning four of the other boys died Masimilar manner. Of the other three, one was maniacal several hours, another lost his hair and nails, but the third escaped unhurt, Stalpaart vander Wiel mentions two cases of the fatal effects ofthis root; these, however, were attended with great heat in the throat and stomach, sickness, vertigo, and purging. They both died in the course of two or three hours after eating the Toot. Allen, in his Synopsis Medicine, also relates that four chile |