Our druggists and
apothecaries are careful in not selling to strangers the more common
preparations of Mercury, or Arsenic, drugs which in themselves carry
fear and dismay in their very names; yet we can get any poisonous
vegetables either in the common market, or of herb-dealers, which are
more likely to be abused in their application than other poisons which
are of not more dangerous tendencies.
The effects of Vegetable Poisons on the human frame vary according to
circumstances. The most usual are: that of disturbing the nervous
function, producing vertigo, faintness, delirium, madness, stupor, or
apoplexy, with a consequent loss of understanding, of speech, and of all
the senses; and, frequently, this dreadful scene ends in death in a
short period.
It is, however, fortunate that these dangerous plants, which either grow
wild, or are cultivated in this country, are few in number; and it is
not less so, that the most virulent often carry with them their own
antidote, as many of them, from their disagreeable taste, produce nausea
and sickness, by which their mischief is frequently removed; and when
this is not the case, it points out that the best and most effectual one
is the application of emetics: and it may be almost considered a divine
dispensation, that a plant, very common in all watery places, should be
ready at hand, which has from experience proved one of the most active
drugs of this nature, and this is the Ranunculus Flammula, Water-
Spearwort.
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