[2]. Kobert states that various species of Clematis, Ranunculus, Anemone, and also Caltha palustris and Trollius europæus, contain Anemonal or Pulsatilla-camphor, which causes strong local irritation, burning and swelling in the mouth, vomiting, intestinal inflammation, etc.
Symptoms. When eaten in quantity the young shoots are diuretic, violently purgative, causing dysentery, and in rare cases death. Applied to the exterior it is irritating and even vesicatory. (Cornevin.)
REFERENCES.
[63], [81], [101], [130], [161], [233].
Anemone (Anemone sp.). Both our native species of Anemone appear to be more or less poisonous in character: the Wood Anemone or Wind Flower (A. nemorosa L.), and also the Pasque Flower (A. Pulsatilla L.). These plants, the former of which grows in woods and damp shady spots in fields, and the latter on chalk downs and limestone pastures, may on occasion be taken by stock in early spring, when green herbage is not too plentiful, but deaths appear to be rare, even if they have occurred. All parts of the plants contain a toxic principle, which is volatile and destroyed by drying.
Toxic Principle. The toxic substance is stated to be Anemone-camphor (oil of Anemone) which imparts a bitter taste to the plants, and itself gives rise in the plant to Anemonic acid and Anemonin (C10H8O4), a very poisonous, narcotic substance, stated to be neither a glucoside, nor an alkaloid, but a ring ketone with the properties of an acid anhydride.
Symptoms.—The symptoms recorded by Cornevin in the poisoning of animals by the fresh plants are nausea, coughing, vomiting (if possible), stupefaction, muscular tremors, and violent colic, accompanied at times by hæmaturia and always by diarrhœa and dysentery. There are pronounced respiratory and heart troubles.
Pott confirms the symptoms of hæmaturia, diarrhœa, and inflammation of the stomach and intestines in the case of A. Pulsatilla when fed in the green condition. According to Esser, the plant poison affects the spinal cord and the brain, the symptoms being similar to those produced by Aconitum Napellus.
REFERENCES.