OF THE EFFECTS OF POISONOUS GRAIN AND PULSE.
The different sorts of grain are subject to certain diseases, in
consequence of which meal or flour made from them is apt to be
impregnated with substances more or less injurious to animal life. It is
likewise believed, that unripe grain possesses properties which render
it to a certain extent unfit for the food of man.
It is for the most part difficult to trace satisfactorily the operation
of the poisons now alluded to, because they are seen acting only in
times of famine and general distress, when it is not always easy to make
due allowance for the effect of collateral circumstances. There is one
poison of the kind, however, whose baneful influence has been so
frequently and unequivocally witnessed, that no doubt now exists
regarding its properties, I mean _spurred rye_, or _ergot_. It is a
poison of no great consequence, perhaps, to the English toxicologist;
for indeed I am not aware that a single instance of its operation has
hitherto been observed in Britain.[2446] But its effects are so
singular, and the ravages it has often committed on the continent have
been so dreadful, that a short account of it cannot fail to interest
even the English reader. Besides, it has lately been introduced into the
materia medica, as possessing very extraordinary medicinal qualities;
and since its use is gaining ground, every medical jurist ought to be
conversant with its properties as a poison. I have also met with an
instance where it was administered for the purpose of procuring
miscarriage.
_Of Poisoning with Spurred Rye._
_Spurred Rye_, or _Secale cornutum_, the _Seigle ergoté_, or _Ergot_ of
the French, and _Mutterkorn_, or _Roggenmutter_, of the Germans, is a
disease common to various grains, in consequence of which the place of
the pickle is supplied by a long, black substance, like a little horn or
spur. It has been known to attack many plants of the order
Graminaceæ;[2447] and among those used as food by man, it has been
observed on barley, oats, spring-wheat, winter-wheat, and rye. But the
rye seems peculiarly subject to it, almost all the poison which has
caused epidemics, as well as what is now used in medicine, being
produced by that grain.
_Of the Cause and Nature of the Spur in Rye._—The spur attacks rye
chiefly in damp seasons, and in moist clay soils, particularly those
recently redeemed from waste lands in the neighbourhood of forests. Of
all the places where the spur has been hitherto observed none combines
these conditions so perfectly, and none has been so much infested with
the disease, as the district of Sologne, situated between the rivers
Loire and Cher, in France. According to the statistical researches of
the _Abbé Tessier_, who in 1777 was deputed by the Parisian Society of
Medicine to investigate the causes of the extraordinary prevalence of
the ergot in that district, the country was then so much intersected by
belts of wood around the fields, that the traveller in passing along
might imagine he was constantly approaching an immense forest; the
arable land was so poor, that, although it lay fallow every third
season, it was exhausted in nine or twelve years at farthest, and then
remained a long time in pasture before it could again bear white crops;
the surface was so level, and consequently so wet, that crops were
obtained only when the seed was sown on the tops of furrows a foot high;
and the climate is so moist, that from the month of September till late
in spring the whole country is overhung by dense fogs.[2448] Here the
rye, the common food of the peasantry, appears to have been in Tessier’s
time more liable to be attacked by the spur than in any other part of
the continent. Tessier found, that after being thrashed it contained on
an average about a forty-eighth part of ergot, even in good seasons; but
in bad seasons, and taking into account a considerable proportion which
is shaken out of the ears and sheaves before they reach the barn, the
proportion of ergot in the whole crop has been estimated so high as a
fourth or even a third. In Sologne the disease was farther observed by
Tessier to be always most prevalent in the dampest parts of a field, and
to affect above all the first crop of fields redeemed from waste land,
or from land which had previously been for some time in pasture.[2449]
The same connexion between moisture and the development of the ergot has
been repeatedly traced in other parts of France, as well as in
Germany.[2450] And according to the experiments of Wildenow, it may be
brought on at any time, by sowing the rye in a rich damp soil, and
watering the plants exuberantly in warm weather.[2451]
Opinions are much divided as to the cause and nature of the spur. It had
been conceived by some that nothing else is required for its production
but undue moisture combined with warmth; and that under these
circumstances the spur is formed simply by a diseased process from the
juices of the plant.[2452] By others, such as Tillet, Fontana, and Réad,
who also consider it to be simply a diseased formation, it has been held
to arise from the germen being punctured when young by an insect;[2453]
and in support of this statement, General Field says he saw flies
puncture the glumes in their milky state where spurs afterwards formed,
and imitating the operation with a needle obtained the same
result.[2454] On the other hand, Decandolle, reviving a previous
doctrine that the spur is a kind of fungus, conceived he had given
strong grounds for believing this excrescence to be a species of
_sclerotium_, which he terms _S. clavus_. Wiggers supports this doctrine
by chemical analysis; for he endeavours to show that the basis of the
structure of the spur is almost identical in chemical properties with
the principle fungin.[2455] Lastly, the most recent researches, those of
Smith,[2456] Queckett,[2457] and Bauer,[2458] founded chiefly on
microscopical observations, tend to a union and modification of these
two views,—namely, that the great mass of the spur is a peculiar morbid
formation, and that the whitish bloom which covers fresh specimens
consists of a multitude of microscopic fungi in the form of _sporidia_,
which thickly envelope and impregnate the parts of fructification in the
nascent state of the embryo, and are in all probability the exciting
cause of the morbid degeneration of the pickle.[2459]
Various opinions have been formed as to the mode of propagation of the
spur. Fontana has alleged that one variety of it may spread from plant
to plant over a field; and that he has expressly transmitted it by
contact from one ear to another.[2460] His opinion and statement of
facts are at variance with experiments lately made by Hertwig, a German
physician, who found that even when the ear while in flower was
surrounded for twelve days with powder of spurred rye, the healthiness
of the future grain was not in the slightest degree affected.[2461] The
same results have also been obtained by Wiggers, and more recently by
Dr. Samuel Wright.[2462] Wiggers, however, although he could not produce
spurs in the way indicated by Fontana, observed that the white dust on
the surface of the spurs will produce the disease in any plant, if
sprinkled in the soil at its roots, appearing therefore to be analogous
to the sporules or spawn of the admitted fungi. Mr. Queckett has made
the most precise experiments on the mode of reproduction of the disease.
He succeeded in infecting rye repeatedly with ergot by means of the
sporidia developed on the spurs; but it is remarkable that he could not
in the same way infect wheat or barley.[2463]
_Description and analysis of Spurred Rye._—The spur varies in length
from a few lines to two inches, and is from two to four lines in
thickness. If it is long, there is seldom more than one or two on a
single ear, and the remaining pickles of the ear are healthy. But the
ears which have small spurs have generally several, sometimes even
twenty; and when there are many, few of the remaining pickles are
altogether without blackness at the tips.[2464] The substance of the
spur is of a pale grayish-red tint; and externally it is bluish-black or
violet, with two, sometimes three, streaks of dotted gray. It is
specifically lighter than water, while sound rye is specifically
heavier, so that they are easily separated from one another.[2465] It is
tough and flexible when fresh, brittle and easily pulverized when dry.
The powder is disposed to attract moisture. It has a disagreeable heavy
smell, a nauseous, slightly acrid taste, and imparts its taste and smell
both to water and alcohol. Bread which contains it is defective in
firmness, liable to become moist, and cracks and crumbles soon after
being taken from the oven.[2466]—It is easily known, when entire, by its
external characters. Its powder, which is of an obscure grayish-red hue,
is best known by the action of solution of potash, which immediately
disengages a powerful odour of ergot, and forms a lake-red pulp; and
this pulp yields by filtration a splendid lake-red solution, which gives
a beautiful lake-red flaky precipitate, when either neutralized by
nitric acid, or treated with an excess of solution of alum.
Spurred rye has been repeatedly subjected to analysis. The earlier
researches of Vauquelin[2467] and of Pettenkofer[2468] do not lead to
any pointed results. The presence of hydrocyanic acid indicated by
Robert,[2469] would not account for the very peculiar effects of ergot,
and has besides been denied by Wiggers. Winkler obtained various
principles from it, and among the rest a thick, rancid, slightly acrid
oil, and a nauseous, sweetish, acrid fluid; but he did not determine,
any more than his predecessors, in which of these principles the active
properties of the spur reside.[2470] Wiggers supplied more definite
information on the subject. He denies the presence of hydrocyanic acid,
and says he found ergot to consist chiefly of a heavy-smelling fixed
oil, fungin, albumen, osmazome, waxy matter, and an extractive substance
of a strong, peculiar taste and smell, in which, from experiments on
animals, he was led to infer that its active properties reside. I have
obtained all his chief results, except the most important of them; for
the substance which ought to have been his ergotin was destitute of
marked taste or smell of any kind.[2471] Dr. Wright too could not obtain
the ergotin of Wiggers, and concludes from his own experiments, that the
spur consists of fungin, modified starch, mucilage, gluten, osmazome,
colouring matter, various salts, and thirty-one per cent. of fixed oil,
in which the active properties of the poison seemed to him to
reside.[2472] Buchner, however, thinks that the oil is not itself
active, but owes its apparent energy to an acrid principle which alcohol
removes from it, and which is not removed from the crude substance in
separating the oil in the usual way by sulphuric ether, unless the ether
be somewhat alcoholized.[2473] However this may be, it seems ascertained
by the experiments of Dr. Wright, that the fixed oil, obtained by means
of common ether, concentrates in itself the peculiar properties
possessed by ergot, either in small doses as a medicine, or in a single
large dose as a poison.
_Effects of Spurred Rye on Man and Animals._—Before proceeding to relate
the effects of this poison on man, it should be mentioned, that at
different times doubts have been entertained, whether the baneful
effects ascribed to it might not really arise from some other cause. But
independently of the connexion which has been frequently traced between
the poison and the diseases imputed to it in the human subject, the
question has been set at rest by the experiments which have been tried
on animals, and which indeed were instituted with a view to settle the
point in dispute.
The experiments hitherto made on animals are variable in their results,
yet sufficient to show that spurred rye is an active poison of a very
peculiar kind. According to the observations collected by Dr. Robert
from a variety of authors, it follows that it is injurious and even
fatal to all animals which are fed for a sufficient length of time with
a moderate proportion of it, unless they escape its action by early
vomiting; that dogs and cats, in consequence of discharging it by
vomiting, suffer only slight symptoms of irritant poisoning;—but that
swine, moles, geese, ducks, fowls, quails, sparrows, as well as leeches
and flies, are sooner or later killed by it;—and that the symptoms it
causes in beasts and birds are in the first instance giddiness, dilated
pupil, and palsy, and afterwards diarrhœa, suppurating tumours,
scattered gangrene throughout the body, and sometimes dropping off of
the toes. Wiggers ascertained that nine grains of the substance he has
considered its active principle occasioned in a fowl dulness, apparent
suffering, gradually increasing feebleness, coldness and insensibility
of the extremities, and in three days a fit of convulsions, ending in
death.[2474] Taddei lately found, that sparrows were killed by six
grains of it in six or seven hours, with symptoms merely of great
weakness, torpor, and indisposition to stir.[2475]
Dr. Wright, whose experiments are the most extensive and precise yet
made on this subject, found that a single dose, consisting of a strong
infusion of between two drachms and a half and six drachms of ergot, if
introduced into the jugular vein of a dog, occasions death, sometimes in
a few minutes, sometimes not for more than two hours, with symptoms of
alternating spasm and paralysis, occasionally a tendency to coma, and
often depressed or irregular action of the heart, or even complete
arrestment of its function;—that, when introduced into the cellular
tissue, it produces inflammation and suppuration, sometimes
circumscribed, sometimes diffuse, and always attended with an unhealthy
discharge and great exhaustion;—and that, when admitted into the
stomach, it excites irritation of the alimentary canal, excessive
muscular prostration, at first excitability, but afterwards singular
dulness or even complete obliteration of the senses, and occasional
slight spasms; but that it is not a very active poison through this
channel, as above three ounces are required to prove fatal to a dog.
When it was administered in frequent small doses, he could not observe
the effects remarked by Robert, but found that it induced a peculiar
cachectic state, indicated by extreme muscular emaciation and weakness,
loss of appetite, frequency of the pulse, repulsive fetor of the
secretions and excretions, congestion of the alimentary mucous membrane,
excessive contraction of the spleen, enlargement of the liver and
absorbent glands, and non-formation of callus at the ends of fractured
bones.[2476]
With regard to its effects on man, it has been found by express
experiment, that a single dose of two drachms excites giddiness,
headache, flushed face, pain and spasms in the stomach, nausea, and
vomiting, colic, purging, and a sense of weariness and weight in the
limbs.[2477] But it is not in this way that it has been usually
introduced into the system; nor are these precisely the symptoms already
hinted at as particular in its action. The effects now to be mentioned
form a peculiar disease, which has often prevailed epidemically in
different territories on the continent, and which arises from the spur
being allowed to mix with the grain in the meal, and being taken as food
for a continuance of time in rye-bread. The affection produced differs
much in different epidemics and even in different cases of the same
epidemic. Two distinct disorders have been noticed; the one a nervous
disease, characterized by violent spasmodic convulsions; the other a
depraved state of the constitution, which ends in that remarkable
disorder, dry gangrene; and it does not appear that the two affections
are apt to be blended together in the same case.
The first form of disease, the _convulsive ergotism_ of the French
writers, has been very well described by Taube, a German physician, as
it occurred in the north of Germany in 1770–1. In its most acute form,
it commenced suddenly with dimness of sight, giddiness and loss of
sensibility, followed soon by dreadful cramps and convulsions of the
whole body, _risus sardonicus_, yellowness of the countenance, excessive
thirst, excruciating pains in the limbs and chest, and a small, often
imperceptible pulse. Such cases usually proved fatal in twenty-four or
forty-eight hours. In the milder cases the convulsions came on in
paroxysms, were preceded for some days by weakness and weight of the
limbs, and a strange feeling as of insects crawling over the legs, arms,
and face; in the intervals between the fits the appetite was voracious,
the pulse natural, the excretions regular; and the disease either
terminated in recovery, with scattered suppurations, cutaneous
eruptions, anasarca or diarrhœa, or it proved in the end fatal amidst
prolonged sopor and convulsions.[2478] Another more recent and very
clear account of this form of the disease has been given by Dr. Wagner
of Schlieben from his experience of an epidemic which prevailed in the
neighbourhood of that place so lately as the years 1831 and 1832. In
consequence of unusual moisture and late frosts in the summer of 1831,
the rye was so much spurred in many fields that a fifth at least of the
pickles was diseased. As soon as the country people proceeded to use the
new rye, convulsive ergotism began to show itself, and it recurred more
or less till next midsummer, when the diseased grain was all consumed.
The usual symptoms were at first periodic weariness, afterwards an
uneasy sense of contraction in the hands and feet, and at length violent
and permanent contraction of the flexor muscles of the arms, legs, feet,
hands, fingers and toes, with frequent attacks of a sense of burning or
creeping on the skin. These were the essential symptoms; but a great
variety of accessory nervous affections occasionally presented
themselves. There was seldom any disturbance of the mind, except in some
of the fatal cases, where epileptic convulsions and coma preceded death.
Every case was cured by emetics, laxatives, and frequent small doses of
opium, provided it was taken in reasonable time, and the unwholesome
food was completely withdrawn.[2479]
The other form of disease, which has been named _gangrenous ergotism_,
by the French writers, and is known in Germany by the vulgar name of
creeping-sickness (_kriebelkrankheit_), has been minutely described by
various authors. In the most severe form, as it appeared in Switzerland
in 1709 and 1716, it commenced, according to Lang, a physician of
Lucerne, with general weakness, weariness, and a feeling as of insects
creeping over the skin; when these symptoms had lasted some days or
weeks, the extremities became cold, white, stiff, benumbed, and at
length so insensible that deep incisions were not felt; then
excruciating pains in the limbs supervened, along with fever, headache,
and sometimes bleeding from the nose; finally the affected parts, and in
the first instance the fingers and arms, afterwards the toes and legs,
shrivelled, dried up, and dropped off by the joints. A healthy
granulation succeeded; but the powers of life were frequently exhausted
before that stage was reached. The appetite, as in the convulsive form
of the disease, continued voracious throughout.[2480] In milder cases,
as it prevailed at different times in France, nausea and vomiting
attended the precursory symptoms, and the gangrenous affection was
accompanied with dark vesications.[2481] In another variety, which has
been witnessed in various parts of Germany, the chief symptoms were
spasmodic contraction of the limbs at first, and afterwards weakness of
mind, voracity and dyspepsia, which, if not followed by recovery, as
generally happened, either terminated in fatuity or in fatal
gangrene.[2482]
These extraordinary and formidable distempers were first referred to the
operation of spurred rye in 1597 by the Marburg Medical Faculty, who
witnessed the ravages of the poison in Hessia during the preceding year.
Since then repeated epidemics have broken out in Germany, Bohemia,
Holstein, Denmark, Sweden, Lombardy, Switzerland, and France.[2483]
About the close of last century, partly in consequence of the attention
of the respective governments being turned to the subject, partly by
reason of the improved condition of the peasantry in these countries,
and the greater rarity of seasons of famine, the epidemics became much
less common or extensive. Nevertheless the creeping-sickness has been
several times noticed in Germany since the present century began.[2484]
Spurred rye is now generally believed to possess another singular
quality, in consequence of which it has been lately introduced into the
materia medica of this and other countries,—a power of promoting the
contractions of the gravid uterus. This property seems to have been long
familiar to the quacks and midwives of Germany; and towards the close of
last century it rendered ergot so favourite a remedy with them, that
several of the German states prohibited the use of it by severe
statutes.[2485] It was first fairly brought under the notice of regular
accoucheurs by the physicians of the United States between the years
1807 and 1814.[2486] There appears little reason for doubting that it
possesses the power of increasing the contractions of the uterus when
unnaturally languid; and consequently it has been employed, apparently
with frequent good effect, to hasten languid natural labour, to promote
the separation of the placenta, and to quicken the contraction of the
womb after delivery. These facts, however, are mentioned chiefly as
preparatory to the statement, that it has been also supposed to possess
the power of producing abortion, and has been actually employed for that
purpose in some foreign countries, and even in this city. Accurate
information is still much wanted on this subject. No other poison seems
so likely to possess a peculiar property of the kind. Nevertheless it is
the opinion of the best authorities, that spurred rye has no such power,
except in connexion with violent constitutional injury produced by
dangerous doses; and that it is endowed with the property only of
accelerating natural labour, not of inducing it, particularly in the
early months of pregnancy.
It seems from the experiments of Dr. Wright to have no power whatever of
inducing miscarriage in the lower animals.[2487] Notwithstanding the
improbability, however, of its possessing the property of bringing on
abortion, it is one of the substances at present occasionally employed
with the view of feloniously causing this accident. In a case of attempt
to procure abortion, which occurred not long ago in this city, one of
the articles repeatedly employed, but without success, was powder of
spurred rye,—as I had occasion to ascertain by chemical analysis.
_Of Spurred Maize._—It has been already observed, that many other plants
of the Natural Family of Grasses are subject to the ergot besides rye.
But the only other species in which the disease has been particularly
examined is Indian corn or maize [_Zea Mays_]. It appears from the
inquiries of M. Roullin that maize is very subject to the spur in the
provinces of Neyba and Maraquita in Colombia; that the spur forms a
black, pear-shaped body on the ear in place of the pickle; and that in
this state the grain, which is known by the name of _maïs peladero_,
possesses properties injurious to animal life. Its effects, however, are
somewhat different from those of spurred rye. Men who eat the ergotted
maize lose their hair and sometimes their teeth, but are never attacked
with dry gangrene or convulsions. When swine eat it, which after a time
they do with avidity, the bristles drop off, and the hind-legs become
feeble and wasted. Mules likewise lose their hair, and the hoofs swell.
Fowls lay their eggs without the shell. Apes and parrots, which frequent
the fields of spurred maize, fall down as if drunk; and the native dogs
and deer experience similar effects.[2488]
_Of the Rust of Wheat._
There are several other diseases to which grain is liable, and which are
much more common in this country than the ergot. But very little is
known of their effects on the animal body; which circumstance, since the
wheat of this and other countries often suffers from them, is probably
sufficient to show that their influence must be trifling, or at all
events very seldom called forth. Wheat is liable to three diseases. One
is a disease of the stalk and leaf rather than of the ear, and has the
effect of preventing the development of the ear or its pickles, and of
covering the plant with a brown powder. Of the two other diseases, which
both attack the pickles of the ear, one consists in the substitution of
a brown dry powder for the farina of the pickle, and the other of a
deposition of black moist matter in the fissure of the pickle, the
substance of which it also invades and partially destroys. One of these
is called in Scotland _brown rust_, the other _black rust_.
Of the three diseases the only one which is apt to infect the flour is
the black rust. The others, as they consist of a light dry powder, are
almost entirely separated in thrashing and winnowing the grain. But the
black rust being damp and adhesive, it is carried along with the
pickles. Such pickles are almost invariably separated by the farmer if
they are abundant; for otherwise, on account of the dark colour and
disagreeable odour of the matter deposited on them, the flour possesses
external qualities which would be at once recognized by a dealer of
ordinary experience.
It is not improbable, that a moderate impregnation of bread with the
powder formed by the diseases in question may take place, without
leading to any unpleasant effect on the human body. Experiments to this
effect were made by Parmentier with one of them, termed in France
_carie_, or caries of wheat, which from his description appears to be
the black rust of Scottish farmers. He gave two dogs each two drachms
daily of the powder for fifteen days, without remarking any sign of ill
health. Bread made with wheat flour containing a 64th of the powder,
when eaten by various people, and Parmentier among the rest, to the
amount of a pound daily for several days, caused slight headache and
pain in the stomach the first day only; and in larger proportion it had
as little effect.[2489]
It appears, then, that the introduction of any deleterious ingredient
into wheat bread is hardly to be dreaded from the common diseases to
which wheat is liable in this country.
_Of Unripe Grain._
Wheat and other grains have been supposed to acquire qualities
detrimental to health, from being cut down while unripe, or used
immediately after being cut down, although ripe. I am not aware that
accidents have ever been traced or even imputed to such causes in this
country; and, on the whole, I believe it is generally considered here,
that imperfect ripening of the pickle rather lessens the quantity, than
impairs the quality, of the flour. But several times epidemics have been
ascribed in France to unripe wheat. In 1801 M. Bouvier read a memoir to
the Society of Medicine at Paris, ascribing to new and unripe wheat an
epidemic dysentery, which laid waste several districts of the department
of the Oise in the autumn of 1793. These districts abound in small farms
of a few acres, on the produce of which the cultivators depend in great
measure for their subsistence. Hence in unfavourable seasons the corn
was commonly cut down before it was ripe, and made into bread soon after
being reaped. It was accordingly among the peasantry of these farms
only, and not among the agriculturists in large farms, which were under
better management, that the epidemic prevailed. Bouvier remarks, that at
all times when the long continuance of wet weather has compelled the
inhabitants of a district to cut down the wheat before it is ripe, or a
previous dearth has forced them to use it when newly cut, epidemic
disorders of the bowels have been observed to rage in the latter months
of autumn. And as an instance of this he refers to the year 1783, when
the crops around Paris were believed to have been injured by the
extraordinary prevalence of fogs, and were cut down unripe and used
immediately. Various epidemics broke out in the metropolis, and still
more in the surrounding country.[2490] This is an important subject for
farther inquiry; but at present I cannot help thinking that M. Bouvier
exaggerates the effects of the immaturity of the grain. At all events,
the grain is often cut down in an unripe state in various districts of
this country; and I have never heard that any epidemic diseases were
produced. When M. Bouvier witnessed the epidemic of 1793 in the
department of the Oise, he instructed the inhabitants of his own parish
to dry the unripe corn before thrashing it, to repeat the process before
the grain was converted into flour, and to mix with the flour a larger
quantity than usual of yeast in making it into bread; and he states that
in the succeeding year, which was even more unfavourable to the crops,
they were enabled, by following these directions, to use unripe corn
with safety.
_Of Spoiled Bread._
This is the fittest opportunity for noticing certain injurious effects
sometimes observed from the use of spoiled or mouldy bread. On the
continent repeated instances have occurred of severe and even dangerous
poisoning from spoiled rye-bread, barley-bread, and even wheat bread.
Several instances have been observed of horses having been killed in a
short space of time with symptoms of irritant poisoning after eating
such bread with their ordinary food.[2491] And Ur. Westerhoff has given
an account of its effects on two children and several adults. In
children the symptoms were redness of the features, dry tongue, frequent
weak pulse, violent colic pains, urgent thirst and headache, and
subsequently vomiting and diarrhœa, alternating with great exhaustion
and sleepiness. The bread in these instances was made of rye.[2492] It
appears that in bread so spoiled a variety of mucedinous vegetables are
developed, especially the _Penicillium glaucum_ and _P. roseum_; and it
is imagined by some, that this circumstance may account for the
deleterious effect of the bread.[2493]
_Of the Effects of Darnel-Grass._
Grain is also rendered more or less injurious by the accidental or
intentional admixture of a variety of foreign substances, by which, in
common speech, it is said to be adulterated. The subject of the
adulteration of grain is a very important topic in medical police. But
as this practice seldom imparts to the grain qualities decidedly
poisonous, the consideration of it would be misplaced here. One variety,
however, the accidental adulteration of flour with the seeds of the
_Lolium temulentum_ or darnel-grass calls for some notice; for it may
occasion not only symptoms of poisoning, but even also death itself.
This is the only poisonous species of the natural order of the grasses.
The seeds appear to be powerfully narcotic, and at the same time to
possess acrid properties. Seeger gave a dog three ounces of a decoction
of the flour, and observed that it was seized in five hours with violent
trembling and great feebleness, which were succeeded in four hours by
sopor and insensibility; but it recovered next day.[2494]
When mixed with bread and taken habitually by man, darnel-grass has been
known to cause headache, giddiness, somnolency, delirium, convulsions,
paralysis, and even death. M. Cordier found by experiment on himself,
that very soon after eating bread containing darnel-grass flour, he felt
confusion of sight and ideas, languor, heaviness, and alternate attacks
of somnolency and vomiting. The bread was commonly vomited soon after he
ate it.[2495] Seeger has related some cases in which the somnolency was
much more deep; and states that general tremors are almost always
present.[2496] A few years ago almost the whole inmates of the Poor’s
House at Sheffield, to the amount of eighty, were attacked with
analogous symptoms after breakfasting on oatmeal porridge; and it was
supposed that the meal had been accidentally adulterated with the
lolium. The chief symptoms were a piercing stare, violent agitation of
the limbs, quivering of the lips, frontal headache, confusion of sight,
dilated pupil, small tremulous pulse, twitches of the muscles, and
palpitation. In twelve hours all of the persons attacked were well but
two, who had strong convulsions in the subsequent night, but also
eventually recovered.[2497] A similar accident is mentioned by Perleb,
as having happened at Freyburg in the House of Correction. The inmates,
soon after eating bread made with new flour, were attacked to the number
of forty, with loss of speech and somnolency; and for some days
afterwards they complained of sickness.[2498] The accident was ascribed
to darnel-grass. In a recent instance which happened in the workhouse of
Beninghausen, and which was traced to the lolium, seventy-four people
were attacked with giddiness, tremor, convulsions, and vomiting. Those
who had led a dissipated life suffered most, and children least of
all.[2499]
Sometimes this poison appears to excite symptoms of intestinal
irritation, without acting as a narcotic. A small farmer near Poicters
in France saved five bushels of the seed from a field of wheat,—had it
ground with a single bushel of wheat, and afterwards made bread with the
mixture for his own family. He himself, with his wife and a servant,
began to eat the bread on a Thursday; but the two last were so violently
affected with vomiting and purging, that they refused to continue taking
it. He persevered himself, however, till on the Sunday evening he became
so ill that his wife wished to send for medical aid. This he refused to
allow, and next day he expired after suffering severely from fits of
colic.[2500]
Bley of Bemburg has examined chemically the grain of lolium. He obtained
from it a bitter extractive matter, without any characteristic chemical
properties, but which killed a pigeon. The seed has a very feeble
bitterish taste. Bley maintains that its poisonous properties are
essential to it, and not incidental, as some think.[2501]
_Of the Effects of certain Poisonous Leguminous Seeds._
Among the injurious substances with which various grains are apt to be
accidentally mixed from their growing together, two leguminous plants
may be here shortly mentioned, as they have often been the source of
disagreeable accidents on the continent.
In the department of the Cher and Loire in France, severe effects have
been traced to bread made partly with flour of the _Lathyrus cicera_. M.
Desparanches, in a report to the Prefect of the Department, says this
flour occasionally forms one-half of that of which bread is made in some
parishes; that it produces sometimes sudden incapability of walking,
sometimes imperfect paraplegia and pain, with a draggling gait and
turning in of the toes, and sometimes also slight convulsive movements
of the thighs and legs.[2502] Similar effects have been traced to this
substance formerly. Virey says it has been known to produce in
particular a singular stiffness and state of semiflexion of the
knee-joint, compelling the individual to move the limbs in one rigid
mass.[2503]
The _Ervum ervilia_, or Bitter-vetch, which is not a native of this
country, has also been found in France to possess analogous properties.
In 1815, according to Virey, a great variety of herbs grew up with the
grain, in consequence of the wetness of the summer; and their seeds were
thus subsequently mixed with the wheat and rye. Among these he
particularizes the bitter-vetch as peculiarly noxious, because it
produces so great weakness of the extremities, but especially of the
limbs, that the individual trembles while standing, and totters when he
walks, or even requires the help of stilts; and he adds, that horses are
similarly affected, so as to become almost paralytic.[2504]
The _Cytisus laburnum_, or laburnum tree, is another plant of the same
family, which yields poisonous seeds. The whole plant is more or less
deleterious. But it is chiefly the seed that has attracted attention
hitherto.
I am not acquainted with any experiments relative to the action of the
seeds on animals.—Its effects on man present considerable variety, and
show that it is a true narcotico-acrid. In some instances they seem to
have been purely narcotic. My colleague Dr. Traill has communicated to
me two cases of this nature. In one of these, that of a child two years
old, the first evident effects were sudden paleness and a fit of
screaming, followed immediately by insensibility, and then by coldness
of the whole body and lividity of the face; but vomiting having been
induced by warm water and mustard, the seeds were discharged, the
symptoms abated, and next day he was quite well. The other case was that
of a boy who was left by his companions at Dr. Traill’s door in a state
of complete insensibility, with froth at the mouth and a feeble pulse.
An emetic, administered immediately, brought up a large quantity of
laburnum seeds; after which the pulse became firmer, and sensibility
quickly returned.—Mr. North has briefly noticed a similar case of a
child, who after eating laburnum flowers, was seized with paleness and
twitches of the face, coldness of the skin, laborious breathing, efforts
to vomit, and great feebleness of the pulse. But recovery took place
after the flowers were vomited.[2505]—In other instances the effects
have been chiefly limited to an irritant action on the stomach and
bowels. Dr. Bigsby of Newark informs me that a few years ago a little
girl in his neighbourhood, in consequence of eating the seeds, was
attacked with violent vomiting and purging, and became in other respects
very ill, but recovered in forty-eight hours.—Most generally, however,
the effects are partly irritant, partly narcotic. In 1839 Dr. Annan of
Kinross communicated to me the case of a little boy, who in an hour
after swallowing a small quantity of unripe seeds, was attacked with
violent vomiting and ghastly expression of countenance, and then fell
into a very drowsy state, from which he was constantly roused by shaking
him and dashing cold water on his body. But for a month afterwards he
continued subject to vomiting and diarrhœa.—Mr. Bonney of Brentford has
related the particulars of eleven cases, which presented all the
varieties of poisoning with the seeds. The subjects were children from
seven to nine years of age; and they took, some of them one seed, and
none more than five. Three scarcely suffered at all. One vomited the
poison and got well at once. Of the others, some had only nausea and
feebleness of the pulse, another had also dilatation of the pupils, some
had vomiting and purging, others great drowsiness, others again both
sets of symptoms. In all the pulse was weak and generally rapid.
Emetics, laxatives and ammonia were administered with success.[2506]
The leaves of this plant are stated by Vicat, a good authority, to
possess the property of acting violently as an emetic and
purgative;[2507] and Cadet says the unripe pods have been known to
produce in small quantities severe vomiting, and profuse, protracted
diarrhœa.[2508]
My attention was lately turned by a criminal trial in this country to
the effects of the bark, which is not alluded to as a poison by any
author, although its properties seem well known to the peasantry in the
north of Scotland. A lad Gordon was tried lately at Inverness for
administering poison to a fellow-servant, and it was proved that he gave
her laburnum-bark in broth. She immediately became very sick, and was
soon attacked with incessant vomiting and purging, pain in the belly,
rigor, and extreme feebleness; and several days elapsed before she could
return to her work. The sickness, vomiting, purging and pain continued
afterwards to recur more or less; great emaciation ensued; in six weeks
she was so much reduced as to be compelled to quit service; and even six
months afterwards, she continued so ill with a chronic dysenteric
affection, that fears were entertained for her life, although eventually
she did recover. Being consulted in the case, I was inclined to rely in
the general properties of the plant and the peculiar, intense, nauseous
bitterness of the bark, even more intense there than in the seeds, as
adequate proof that the bark was capable of producing the effects
observed in this case. I was scarcely prepared, however, to find it so
deadly a narcotic poison, as it proved to be on careful experiment. Dr.
Ross of Dornoch, who saw the woman and was also consulted on the part of
the crown in the case, found that from twenty to seventy grains of dried
laburnum-bark caused speedy and violent vomiting when administered to
dogs, but no other marked effect. I found that when an infusion of a
drachm of dried bark was injected into the stomach of a strong rabbit,
the animal in two minutes began to look quickly from side to side, as if
alarmed and uncertain in which direction to go, then twitched back its
head two or three times, and instantly fell on its side in violent
tetanic convulsions, with alternating opisthotonos and emprosthotonos so
energetic that its body bounded with great force upon the side up and
down the room. Suddenly in half a minute more all motion ceased,
respiration was at an end, and, excepting that the heart continued for a
little to contract with some force, life was extinct. No morbid
appearance was visible anywhere. The heart was gorged, but irritable.
Dr. Ross subsequently repeated this experiment, and obtained analogous
results; but the animals he operated on did not die for half an hour or
upwards.[2509]
MM. Chevallier and Lassaigne have discovered in the seeds an active
principle called cytisin, a nauseous, bitter, brownish-yellow, neutral,
uncrystallizable substance, of which small doses killed various animals
amidst vomiting and convulsions, and eight grains taken by man in four
doses brought on giddiness, violent spasms, and frequency of the pulse,
lasting for two hours, and followed by exhaustion.[2510]
A great number of Brown’s division Papilionaceæ of the present natural
family probably possess similar properties.