Of Poisoning with Water-Hemlock.
Another plant of the order Umbelliferæ, the water-hemlock or Cicuta virosa, possesses also great energy as a poison; and in its effects it appears to resemble considerably the hydrocyanic acid. The plant is indigenous. It is easily known from other umbelliferous species inhabiting watery places by the peculiar structure of its root-stock, which is not fleshy, but hollow, and composed of a number of large cells with transverse plates.
From a numerous set of experiments with the root of the cicuta performed by Wepfer, it appears to cause true tetanic convulsions in frequent paroxysms, and death on the third day.[[2233]] Simeon ascertained that the alcoholic extract of the root is very poisonous.[[2234]] Schubarth found that an ounce of the juice of the stems and leaves, collected after the flowers had begun to blow, produced no effect on the dog.[[2235]] It is probably inert, or at all events feebly poisonous in this climate, although it grows luxuriantly in many localities. I have found that twelve ounces of juice, expressed from sixteen ounces of roots in the beginning of August, merely caused some efforts to vomit, when secured in the stomach of a dog by a ligature on the gullet; that the alcoholic extract of twelve ounces of leaves gathered at the same time had no effect when introduced in the form of emulsion between the skin and muscles of the back of a rabbit; and that the alcoholic extract of two ounces of unripe seeds proved equally inert when imployed in the same way.
Symptoms in Man.—Wepfer has likewise related several instances which occurred in the human subject. Among the rest he has described the cases of eight children who ate the roots instead of parsneps. Of those who were seriously affected, one, a girl six years old, who ultimately recovered, had tetanic fits, followed by deep coma, from which it was impossible to rouse her for twenty-four hours. Two of them died. The first symptoms in these two were swelling in the pit of the stomach, vomiting or efforts to vomit, then total insensibility, with involuntary discharge of urine, and finally severe convulsions, during which the jaws were locked, the eyes rolled, and the head and spine were bent backwards, so that a child might have crept between the body and the bed-clothes. One of them died half an hour after being taken ill, and the other not long after.[[2236]] Mayer of Creutsburg mentions four cases, which were occasioned by the roots. One of the individuals, a child three years old, was attacked with colic, vomiting, and convulsions, and died in a few hours. The three others, the eldest of whom was six years of age, had coldness, paleness of the features, dilated immoveable pupils, violent colic, general spasms, and insensibility. The action of the heart was intermitting and the breathing oppressed. After the remains of the roots were brought up by emetics, and infusion of gall was administered, they gradually recovered. They had eaten between them no more than a single root weighing about two ounces, as they had in their possession another of that weight, which they said was not so large. This accident happened in the middle of March.[[2237]]
According to Guersent, poisoning with the cicuta commences with dimness of sight, giddiness, acute headache, anxiety, pain in the stomach, dryness in the throat, and vomiting.[[2238]]
Mertzdorff has related the particulars of the inspection of three cases which proved quickly fatal with convulsions and vomiting. Nothing remarkable seems to have been found except great gorging of the cerebral vessels.[[2239]]
Of Poisoning with Hemlock Dropwort.
The Œnanthe crocata of botanists, the hemlock dropwort, five-finger-root, or dead-tongue of vernacular speech in England, a species of the same family with the last two, and an abundant plant in some localities throughout this country, has usually been held one of the most virulent of European vegetables. It seems well entitled to this character in general; but climate, or some other more obscure cause, renders it inert in some situations.
It is said to be liable to be confounded with common hemlock, or Conium maculatum,—a mistake which can happen only in very ignorant hands. It has smooth, dark-green leaves, more fleshy, and much less minutely divided, than those of hemlock; it presents a purplish appearance at the joints only of the stem, and no diffused purple spots; its fruit is oblong and black, not round, rough, and light brown; and its root, instead of being single, long, tapering, and little branched, consists of from two to ten tubers, like fingers, which are white, and terminate in a few rootlets. These tubers are formed annually in summer from the flowering stem of the season, and send out flowering stems the subsequent year. During the first autumn, winter, and spring they are firm, white, and amylaceous; but in their second summer they become more pulpy, less amylaceous, and grayer. At all times they emit, when broken across, an oleo-resinous juice, which quickly becomes yellow; this juice abounds most when the plant, which is growing at their expense, is about to flower; and it abounds much more at this period in localities in the south of England, than in Scotland, especially in the neighbourhood of Edinburgh.
Brotero and some others have attempted to subdivide the species into two, the Œnanthe crocata proper, and the Œ. apiifolia. But the best authorities deny that these can be distinguished; and from what I have now seen in sundry localities, it appears to me that the distinctions pointed out by Brotero, confessedly obscure enough in themselves, are the result of differences in climate, soil, and situation.