OTHER VEGETABLE IRRITANTS.
List of gastro-intestinal irritants. Common Symptoms. General treatment: emesis, stomach pump, diluents, demulcents, laxatives, enemata, anodynes, antiseptics, tannic acid. Prevention.
Among vegetables which produce more or less disturbance of the digestion, or congestion of the digestive organs Cadeac names the following: Acorns in horses (Morton); tares; bird’s trefoil (lotus corniculatus, Colin); vetches at ripening (Gerlach); laburnum (cytissus) horse and ox (Cornevin); hybrid and sweet trefoil (Pilz); officinal melilot (Carrey); the field poppy, digitalis and snapdragon often mixed with wheat and rye (Cornevin); conium maculatum, cicuta virosa, yew leaves, lolium temulentum, and other forms of ryegrass when ripening; chickweed (stellaria) killed 60 horses in 200 (Semmer); clematis, aconite, tobacco, male fern, aloes, horsetail (equisetum) when full of silica; mercurialis annua, wild radish, resinous plants, potato tops, potatoes in excess, or green from exposure to the sun; Œnanthe Crocata (water dropwort); giant fennel, anemone, phytolacca (poke root); buckwheat in flower (Moisant); St. John’s wort, various species of lathyrus, rhododendron, artichokes in excess, spurry seeds, galega, bryony, the fruit of melia azedarach (in pigs) (Dreux); nux vomica, podophyllum.
It may be added that the plants credited with causing the “loco” disease (Astragalus mollissimus, Hornii, and lentiginosus, the oxytropis Lambertii, mutifloris and deflexa) cause diarrhœa and sometimes ulceration of the intestines.
The farina of mustard is sometimes mixed with linseed cake and (developing the active principles of that agent) produces a severe or even fatal gastro-enteritis in cattle and sheep. The wild mustard of the fields, being allowed to grow with the flax, or rape, the seeds mingle when harvested and thus the cake comes to contain an injurious quantity of the mustard.
Symptoms. These will vary much according to the predominating action of the individual poison on other organs, but when they irritate the gastro-intestinal mucosa they have this in common, that they impair appetite and rumination, produce colicy pains (perhaps salivation and vomiting), and constipation or diarrhœa of varying intensity.
Treatment. Apart from the individual treatment demanded by the special symptoms of disorder of other organs, it may follow the same general line for all: Unload the stomach by tepid water, ipecacuan, with tickling of the soft palate, or by the stomach pump or tube, and follow this by abundance of mucilaginous drinks. In cases attended by constipation a laxative of Glauber salts, or aloes may be demanded, or assiduous mucilaginous injections. With an excess of irritation anodynes may be indicated. When there is tympany and fœtor of the discharges these must be met by non-irritant antiseptics, such as naphthalin or salol. For many of the vegetable poisons tannic acid proves advantageous, being at once an antiferment, and fitted to unite with organic alkaloids, rendering them less soluble and otherwise often changing their properties.
Prevention should be sought by removing all such poisonous plants from pastures, or land used for raising fodder crops.