POISONS
Poisoned arrows--Fish poisons--Manchineel--Curare--A wonderful
story--Antiaris--Ordeals--The Obi poison--Oracles produced by
poisons--Plants which make horses crazy and others that remove
their hair--Australian sheep and the Caustic Creeper--Swelled
head--Madness by the Darling Pea--Wild and tame animals, how
they know poisons--How do they tell one another?--The Yew tree,
when is it, and when is it not poisonous?
Even to-day all embryo chemists and doctors are required to "pass" in
the recognition of the more important medicinal plants.
But their knowledge is probably very superficial as compared with
that of a bushman in the Kalahari Desert of South Africa. Every
man, woman, and child in such a tribe knows thoroughly every plant
that grows in the neighbourhood. His diet is a varied one, for it
includes maggots, fish, frogs, snakes, white ants, and other horrible
ingredients, but he lives mainly on roots, bulbs, and herbs of sorts.
In times of famine he has had to obtain the most intimate knowledge
possible of many plants, that namely which is obtained by eating
them, and he has most carefully observed the poisonous kinds. These
latter have given him, too, a very powerful weapon, for it is the
poisoned arrows which give him the chance of killing game, otherwise
utterly beyond his reach. He is on the fair road to becoming a
hunter and tribesman, instead of being only a member of a morose,
outcast family, always wandering and always hungry.
Probably poisons were first used in fishing. Many vegetable drugs,
when thrown into pools and lakes, have the property of stupefying or
killing the fish. A great many of these fish poisons are known, and
it is quite easy to use them.
Amongst the Dyaks of Borneo, screens of basketwork are placed along
a stream to prevent the fish escaping. Then the Dyaks collect along
either bank in their canoes. Everybody has a supply of the root
of the tubai (_Menispermum sp._), which they hammer with stones
in the water inside the canoe, so as to extract the poison. At a
given signal the poisonous stuff is baled into the river, and very
soon afterwards a scene of wild excitement begins, for the fish are
speared or captured with handnets as they rise, stupefied, to the
surface. The women scoop up the small fry in their nets.[106]
[106] Ling Roth, _Journ. Anthrop. Inst._, vol. 22, London, 1892;
and Mason, _l.c._
Even at the Sea of Galilee, Tristram mentions that Arabs sometimes
obtain their fish by poisoned bread-crumbs. In the South Sea Islands,
at Tahiti, a poison is obtained from the nuts of a kind of Betonica,
and is used to catch the fish among the reefs near shore.[3] In West
Africa several fish poisons are in use (e.g. seeds of _Tephrosia
Vogelii_), and probably the same methods are used almost everywhere.
They are by no means extinct even at home, for the occasional poacher
sometimes uses fish poisons.
2 Tristram, _Land of Israel_; Mason, _Origin of Inventions_, p. 298.
Arrow poison is, however, much more important, and is used by a
great number of tribes in almost every part of the world. In 1859,
in a war with the Dyaks of Borneo, the English army lost thirty men
by poisoned arrows. They are deadly weapons, for the dart is a very
thin piece of reed or cane, which has been dipped in the Upas poison
(_Antiaris toxicaria_). It is propelled from a blow pipe, which in
practised hands is able to carry 250 feet. One or two of these darts
may cause death in two hours' time. The Spaniards, in their conquest
of the West Indian islands, were often defeated by the poisoned
arrows of the Caribs. The wounded died in agonies of suffering and
delirium, sometimes protracted for twenty-four hours after receiving
the wound.
The poison in this case is supposed to have been the Manchineel
(_Hippomane_).
It is a handsome tree, but a very dangerous one, for the slightest
cut on the surface produces a flow of a very fine white milk which is
acrid and poisonous. This juice produces temporary or total blindness
if the slightest speck enters the eyes, or even if one sits over
a fire made of its wood. It is probably not true that people are
killed if they merely sleep below it, and grass will probably grow
quite well under its shade, although there are stories which deny
this. Blowpipes and poisoned darts are used by many savages in Asia
and South America. Perhaps the Curare or Woorali poison is the most
wonderful of the South American kinds. The tree, _Strychnos sp._,
grows along the Amazon and in the Guianas. The poison is obtained
from the wood and bark, and several other vegetable substances are
mixed with it. (This is a very common feature of native drugs and
increases the chances of doing _something_.) It is a blood poison,
and a very deadly one. Large animals like the tapir stagger about,
collapse, and die after a very few steps, if they have been wounded
by a dart. Humboldt declares that the earth-eating Otomaks were able
to kill their antagonists by the mere pressure of their poisoned
thumbnails.
In Africa it is more usual to find poisoned arrows shot from a bow.
The exquisitely beautiful seed of _Strophanthus Kombe_ is used as an
arrow poison. The plant is a climber found in forests or bush, and
has large woody pods about seven to twelve inches long. When these
are open, the inside is seen to be full of the small yellowish seeds;
each ends in a fine awn three to four inches long, which carries at
the end a beautiful tuft of the finest silky hairs. The seed-coat is
also covered with silk hairs. When viewed against a black surface,
there is no more lovely object in nature. Yet from the seed-coat a
very deadly poison is obtained; probably snake-venom and various
gluey substances form part of the mixture, which is daubed on the
arrows. Dr. Kolbe saw the Hottentots plastering their arrows with
the poison of the hooded snake. Bushmen use a Lily bulb, _Haemanthus
toxicarius_, but sometimes add part of the inside of a small
caterpillar.
Another African poison which is not so well known is the
_Acokanthera_, which was the ingredient in the arrows obtained by the
writer in British East Africa.
North America is singularly free from these unsportsmanlike and
horrible weapons, but they were not unknown in Europe in very
ancient times. Pliny speaks of the Arabian pirates as poisoners,
and allusions to their use of deadly arrows can be found in Horace,
Ovid, and Homer. In the _Odyssey_, the hero goes to Ephyra (Epirus?)
to purchase a deadly arrow poison, but he is refused for fear of the
eternal gods. Poisoned arrows were employed by the Celts in Gaul, and
also by the Saracens in the War of Granada in 1484.
Yet even in the time of Homer the sense of humanity seems to have
decided against poisoned arrows as being both unnecessary and cruel,
just as, in our own times, explosive bullets have been condemned, and
are no longer used by civilized nations. But we should remember that
until man became so expert with the bow and spear and so civilized by
tribal fights as to be able to do without poisons, they were a very
useful help in the struggle for civilization. Hundreds of thin pieces
of bamboo about six inches long were regularly carried by certain
African tribes. When dipped in poison and afterwards placed in paths
in the ground, they formed a very efficient protection against
barefooted enemies.
The Antiaris alluded to above is the famous Upas tree of Java. The
tree was _said_ to grow in a desert with not another living plant
within ten miles of it. Such was the virulence of its poison that
there were no fish in the waters. Neither rat, nor mouse, nor any
other vermin had ever been seen there; and when any birds flew so
near this tree that the effluvia reached them, they fell dead--a
sacrifice to the effects of its poison. Out of a population of
sixteen hundred persons who were compelled, on account of civil
dissensions, to reside within twelve or fourteen miles of the tree,
not more than three hundred remained alive in two months. Criminals
condemned to die were offered the chance of life if they would go to
the Upas tree and collect some of the poison. They were provided with
masks (not unlike our modern motor-veils), and yet not two in twenty
returned from the expedition.
All the foregoing statements were for years implicitly believed. They
were vouched for by a Dutch surgeon resident in Java. Medicine is a
profession, and Holland is a country which would in no way lead one
to expect such magnificent mendacious audacity!
For the whole of the preceding statements about Antiaris is pure
romance. The inner bark of young trees, when made into coarse
garments, produces an extremely painful itching, whilst the dried
juice is a virulent arrow poison.
Hellebore and Aconite were the favourite poisons of the Marquise de
Brinvilliers and other specialists of the Middle Ages. The Christmas
Roses or Hellebores were known to be poisonous fourteen hundred years
before the Christian era, and are still used in medicine. Aconite,
which has a tuberous root-stock, is dangerous, for it is occasionally
eaten in mistake for the horse-radish, to which it has a faint
resemblance. All kinds of aconite are poisonous. That of one of the
Indian species is used to tip the arrows employed in shooting tigers.
Trials by ordeal were very common in ancient times. The theory was
that an innocent person was not injured by certain drugs, which,
however, proved immediately fatal to the guilty.
Such trials at one time were customary in almost every part of the
world. They were supposed to be perfectly just, so that no man could
be held guilty of the death of those who succumbed. In practice,
however, they were almost invariably corrupt. The _Tanghinia
venenifera_ of Madagascar was regularly used in ordeals, and is
probably still employed by certain tribes. The seeds are exceedingly
poisonous, but, if the authorities wish the accused person to escape,
a strong emetic is mixed with the powdered seeds, and the poison has
no time to act. This, however, is seldom the case, for in any savage
nation no one who is popular and in good esteem with the king or
other people in authority is at all likely to be accused. The fact
of his being accused means in most cases that he is already condemned
to die. Another ordeal plant is the Calabar Bean (_Physostigma
venenosa_), found in West Africa. The plant is a climber belonging to
the _Leguminosæ_, and the seeds, which are about an inch in diameter,
are very deadly. The seed is conspicuously marked by the long,
dark, sunken scar, where it was attached to the pod. Besides being
exceedingly poisonous, it has also a curious effect upon the pupil of
the eye, which is contracted by this drug.[107]
[107] The pupil of the eye is _enlarged_ by belladonna.
Another famous poison is produced from _Datura stramonium_ and allied
species. In tropical and sub-tropical countries, one is almost
sure to find specimens of this handsome plant along almost every
roadside. It is in fact one of the commonest tropical weeds. The
leaves are large with fine spinose margins, and the flower is most
conspicuous, as it is four or five inches long. This is supposed to
be one of the drugs employed by the Obi wizards and witches. The most
horrible rites, accompanied by atrocious cruelties, were performed
amongst certain West African tribes and are continued amongst their
descendants, the freed slaves of the West Indies and of the Southern
United States.
Even to-day no white man is allowed to learn anything of the
proceedings, but some form of devil-worship or Shamanism, accompanied
by incantations and the use of poisonous drugs, still flourishes.
Preparations of various sorts of Datura or Thorn-apple produce
sometimes stupefaction, sometimes frantic, furious delirium, and
sometimes death.
It is used in medicine as a narcotic and diuretic. Burton says
that the Arabs smoke the leaves in pipes as a cure for influenza
and asthma. It is sometimes used in Europe for neuralgia and even
epilepsy. On the other hand, the priests of the ancient Peruvians
used Datura to produce the ravings mistaken for inspiration, and it
is supposed that the priests of Apollo at Delphi employed an allied
species for the same purpose. In India, China, West Africa, and
amongst the American blacks, it is still very commonly used.
A firm belief existed in the Middle Ages that every plant was a
good remedy for something. There is a real basis in fact for this
superstition, because every plant in the world has, so far as it
can do so, to protect itself. The attacks of all sorts of grazing
animals, from the mouse to the elephant, as well as the infinitely
more dangerous and destructive insects, bacteria, and fungi, have
to be provided for. By far the commonest form of protection is to
develop within the plant strong medicinal or strongly smelling
substances. These are far better as protective agents than the thorns
and spines characteristic of deserts and half-deserts. We have
already glanced at the turpentines and resins of Coniferous forests
and at the odorous gums, frankincense, and myrrh of the Acacia scrub.
The use of poisons as protection is eminently characteristic of
three of the natural orders. The Buttercups (_Ranunculaceæ_), the
Potato order (_Solanaceæ_) and the Lilies. Of the first named, the
celery-leaved, and indeed all Buttercups, are extremely poisonous;
so also are all Aconites and Hellebores, as well as Marsh Marigold,
Adonis, Clematis, and Larkspur.
Others, though not poisonous, are strongly medicinal, such as Blake
Snakeroot, Hydrastis, etc. It is therefore inadvisable to use any of
this order for food unless other people have eaten it without any
inconvenience!
The beauty of the Lily order does not prevent it from being a
particularly dangerous group of plants. Perhaps the worst poisons in
this order are those of the Meadow Saffron (_Colchicum autumnale_),
Herb Paris, Veratrum, Sabadilla, Lily of the Valley, Tulip, and Crown
Imperial bulbs. Chamælirium, Trillium, Squills, Garlic, Solomon's
Seal, Aloes, and the Sarsaparillas are all well-known medicines.
The order _Solanaceæ_ is perhaps the most interesting, for it
includes such dangerous poisons as Tobacco, Datura, _Atropa
belladonna_ (Deadly Nightshade), Henbane, Bittersweet (_Solanum
dulcamara_), Common Nightshade (_Solanum nigrum_), and a very great
many important drugs. Even the common potato contains a poisonous
secretion _solanin_, and it is dangerous to eat green potatoes or
the foliage. Yet the Tomato or Love Apple (so called because it was
supposed to excite tender feelings) is both nutritious and delicious.
Chillies and Cayenne Pepper (_Capsicum spp._) are also commonly used
as condiments.
Such poisonous orders should of course be avoided, but much
more dangerous are those deadly plants which appear as it were
accidentally in orders which are amongst the most useful friends
of man. Amongst the grasses there is the deadly Darnel (_Lolium
temulentum_), a first cousin and not very unlike the very commonest
and one of the most useful grasses--Rye Grass (_Lolium perenne_).
Then in the useful Carrot order, there are such dangerous and even
deadly plants as Fool's Parsley, Water Dropwort, and Cowbane.
_OEnanthe crocata_ (Water Dropwort) is one of the very commonest
marsh and ditch plants in Great Britain. It is perfectly well known
to botanists as distinctly poisonous, yet in 1902 a veterinary
surgeon brought me some of the tuberous roots to name, and told me
that six fine young cows were lying dead on a neighbouring farm
through having eaten them!
A particularly useful order of plants (_Leguminosæ_), the Beans
and Peas, contains a few poisonous species. It is said that in
every year children are sure to be killed by eating the seeds of
the Laburnum, and to this order belong also the Calabar Bean and
Crab's Eyes. The last named is only fatal when introduced below the
skin in small quantities. The seeds of the Bitter Vetch (_Lathyrus
sativus_) produce paralysis of the legs in man and also in horses.
The Crazy or Loco weed of North America is sometimes eaten by horses
in the Western United States. The wretched animals stagger about as
if intoxicated, and eventually die. Belonging to this same order is
the Wild Tamarind, or Jumbai, of Jamaica (_Leucæna glauca_). It is a
weedy-looking acacia, and extremely common in all tropical countries.
Dr. D. Morris thus alludes to it:--[108]
[108] British Association, Liverpool, 1896, Section K.
"Mr. Robert Russell, of St. Ann's, informs me that horses feeding on
the leaves of this plant completely lose the hair from their manes
and tails. This ... statement was supported by the testimony of
so many people acquainted with the facts that there was no reason
to doubt it. Many years afterwards (in December, 1895), I renewed
my acquaintance with the plant in the Bahamas. The plant was much
more plentiful there than in Jamaica; it was, in fact, distinctly
encouraged in the former islands as a fodder plant. The people were
fully aware of the singular effect it produced on horses, and added
that it also affected mules and donkeys. Its effect on pigs was still
more marked. These animals assumed a completely naked condition, and
appeared without a single hair on their body. Horses badly affected
by Jumbai were occasionally seen in the streets of Nassau, where
they were known as 'cigar-tails.' Such depilated animals, although
apparently healthy, were considerably depreciated in value. They
were said to recover when fed exclusively on corn and grass. The
new hair was, however, of a different colour and texture, 'so the
animals were never quite the same.' One animal was cited as having
lost its hoofs as well, and in consequence it had to be kept in
slings until they grew again and hardened. The effects of the Jumbai
on horses, mules, donkeys, and pigs were regarded as accidental--due
to neglect or ignorance. The plant was really encouraged to supply
food for cattle, sheep, and goats. The latter greedily devoured it
and were not perceptibly affected by it. It will be noticed that
the animals affected were non-ruminants, while those not affected
were ruminants. The probable explanation is that the ruminants, by
thoroughly mixing the food with saliva and slowly digesting it, were
enabled to neutralize the action of the poison and escape injury.
The seeds probably contain the deleterious principle in a greater
degree than any other part of the plant. It was a common experience
that animals introduced from other localities suffered more than the
native animals. The latter were either immune or had learnt to avoid
the plant as noxious to them."
That animals resident in a district are not poisoned by plants which
are often fatal to sheep and cattle when on the march through it, has
been often observed in Australia. The great "mobs" or droves of sheep
passing slowly on their travels through the bush to a new district
are often poisoned by the Caustic Creeper (_Euphorbia Drummondi_).
"The head swells to an enormous extent, becoming so heavy that the
animal cannot support it, and drags it along the ground"; but this
does not apparently happen to resident cattle. Similarly for the
Darling Pea or Indigo (_Swainsonia galegifolia_). At one place this
was growing abundantly where some travelling horses were hobbled for
the night. "They had been on the road some nine weeks, and were up to
this date caught without any difficulty. On this occasion ... their
eyes were staring out of their heads, and they were prancing against
trees and shrubs.... When driven they would suddenly stop, turn round
and round, and keep throwing their heads up as if they had been hit
under the jaw.... Two out of nine died, and five others had to be
left at the camp."[109]
[109] _Plants Reputed Poisonous to Stock._ Bailey & Gordon,
Brisbane.
In other natural orders we find one or two dangerous plants amongst
a whole series of perfectly harmless or useful forms. The Oleander,
in the Olive order, Corncockle (_Lychnis floscuculli_), in the Pink
order, _Lactuca Scariola_ amongst _Compositæ_ and others are all
cases in point. So also is the Yew amongst _Coniferæ_, etc.
How do animals recognize these particular plants as being dangerous
whilst all their allies are harmless? But the reader will answer that
they do not; it is well known that animals _are_ killed by eating
poisonous plants, therefore poison cannot possibly be any protection
against animals.
This is one of those interesting questions in which the suppression
of apparently irrelevant details produces confusion.
As a matter of fact, wild animals, or even domesticated animals in
nearly a wild state, do _not_ eat the poisonous plants of the country
in which they and their forefathers have been brought up--that is
provided that they are either adult or are accompanied by full-grown
animals. Almost every case of cattle-poisoning in Great Britain
occurs when young calves, foals, or lambs are turned loose in the
fields without any mature older head amongst them. Sometimes valuable
stable-bred animals are lost, especially by eating yew-leaves, but
there are exceedingly few instances of full-grown cattle being
caught in such foolishness. When cattle, horses, or sheep are turned
loose in a new country, plenty of cases do occur, and it is possible
that they might make mistakes with unknown foreign plants which had
escaped into their pastures here.
But almost every case of poisoning, even of cattle, shows that it is
young cattle who foolishly eat foxgloves, dropwort, buttercup, etc.,
and occasionally die thereby.
Wild animals, who are of course brought up by their mothers, never
seem to be poisoned. They probably recognize the dangerous plant
by colour, smell, or taste. As a matter of fact, many are rendered
conspicuous by some lurid sort of colour, such as bright red or
purple. There is a general garishness of appearance about many of
them. Aconite, Foxglove, Herb Paris, Henbane, and Nightshades all
show this peculiar appearance. In Java it is said that the natives
keep away wild pigs by planting hedges of certain species with
purplish-red leaves around their plantations.
Perhaps the most interesting point of all is that it seems to be
quite justifiable to conclude that animals do, somehow, manage to
tell their offspring and each other what they should and should not
eat.
Youth, with its tendency to rash experiment, is thus kept in check by
the mature experience of age.
But it must be admitted that it is exceedingly difficult to arrive at
the facts in any particular case.
I shall be rash enough to give an opinion as to the actual facts
in connexion with the common Yew (_Taxus baccata_). The seeds are
poisonous to poultry and pheasants, but the fleshy part round the
seed is eaten with impunity by many wild birds (blackbirds, etc.).
The leaves are sometimes poisonous and even fatal to horses, cattle,
sheep, donkeys, and goats, but they are not eaten by or are harmless
to roedeer. When, however, e.g., horses are killed by eating yew, it
is generally found that they have been grazing on cut-off branches
which have been left lying on the ground. In this condition probably
some specially poisonous substance is developed in them.
As regards rabbits, it would be extremely comforting to believe that
they would eat yew-leaves or anything else which would kill them,
but, so far as one can judge, they can eat all sorts of things which
ought to do so with perfect impunity.