ing, two successive days, is said to have been seized with convulsions and vertigo, notwithstanding which, the dysenteric symptoms returned, and the disorder was cured by other medicines; but a pain in the stomach, the effect of the nux vomica, continued afterwards for a long time. Bergius, therefore, thinks it should only be administered in the character of a tonic and anodyne in small doses, (from five to ten grains) and not till after proper laxatives have been employed.

Loureiro recommends it as a valuable internal medicine in fluor albus; for which purpose he roasts it till it becomes perfectly black and friable, which renders its medicinal use safe, without impairing its efficacy.

[Gesner. Wepfer. Junghanns. Woodville.

SECTION VIL

Manchineel-tree.

Hippomane manicella.-LINN.

THERE are three species of the Hippomane, of which the one here referred to has leaves ovate, serrate, with two glands at the base. The milky juice of this tree is highly poisonous, and was at one time in frequent use among the Indians as a poison for the tips of their arrows. The poisonous property pervades nearly equally the fruit and the wood. Hence the incautious traveller, tempted by the appearance of the first, has often fallen a victim to the violence of its morbid stimulus: for the poison seems to depend on a peculiar acrimony alone; and hence also the fellers of the timber, which on account of the closeness and beauty of its grain is in much esteem among our cabinet-makers, are compelled to dry the trunk by making fires around it, before they attempt to fell it; while the sawyers find it requisite to blind their eyes while sawing, to avoid ophthalmic inflammations, which the pungent aroma that flies about them is other. wise sure to produce. If the juice of this tree touch the skin, it generally blisters it; and if it fall on linen, it corrodes it like vitriolic acid, the spotted parts turning black, and terminating in holes. This is a West indian tree.

The manchineel tree affords furniture for slabs, interspersed with

wood is of so acrid and poisonous a nature, that the sawyers and carpenters are obliged to work with gauze masks, to protect them from its injurious effects.

Historians have, however, exaggerated the accounts they have given of the poisonous nature of this tree; for it has been said, that the heads of the persons who sleep under its shade swell, and they become blind; that if the leaves touch but the naked skin, they raise pustules, which cause deadly pains, unless helped with water and salt, or fasting spittle. This, however, is not true; nor is any ill consequence to be feared from the leaves touching the naked body, unless they are bruised, and the white milky juice they con. tain is suffered to pervade the pores; when it does, it raises blisters like those of the confluent kind of the small-pox, causing acute pains; but simple drops of rain water falling from those leaves upon the skin will not have any ill effect, which Mr. Hughes affirms he has experienced upon repeated trials.

"This tree", observes the same writer" is of a very quick growth, and is seldom or never found growing to any perfection but in a loose and sandy soil, near the sea or other water. The trunk, when full grown, is generally froin two feet and a half to three feet in di. ameter, branching, most commonly, from three to fifteen feet high from the ground. The grain is smooth, and the wood durable. It bears a fruit of the same make as the round sort of crab-apple, and in its branches is of a beautiful colour and fragrant smell. The pulp of these manchineel apples does not exceed one seventh of an inch in depth, the inside being a hard stony kernel, in which are included the seeds. Formerly no one dared to cut down these trees, without first having made a large fire round them, in order to burn the bark and dry up the juices that proceed from them in cutting: but now naked negroes venture to cut them down, only using the precaution of rubbing their whole bodies with lime-juice, which prevents the sap from corroding or ulcerating their skins. Bruising and mashing the tender leaves and boughs, and then throwing them into fish-ponds, has often been practised by villains to destroy the fish, which soon after grow stupid, float with their bellies upward on the top of the water, and frequently die. Some sorts of fish will eat these apples; these are often found dead in the water, and if taken while alive and eaten, often prove poisonous; even the large white crab that burrows in the sand, is not, if near these trees

to be used for food. It is extremely remarkable that wherever a manchineel-tree grows there is found either a white wood, or a figtree near it, the juice of either of which is an infallible antidote against the poison; salt water is no less efficacious; and as these trees grow by the sea-side, this remedy is also near at hand.”

[Pantologia. Martins. Hispaniola. Editor.

SECTION VIII.

Lamus and Ticunas.

Mons. de la Condamine, on his return from the voyage which he made in the interior parts of South America, from the coast of the South Sea to the coasts of Brazil and Guiana, by going down the river of the Amazons, brought to Paris a small quantity of a very dangerous poison, much in use among the Indians of Lamas, Ticunas, Pevas, and also among the Yameos, who all extract it by fire from divers plants, especially from certain plants which the French call lianes.

Those savages are very dexterous at making long tubes, which are the most common weapons used by the Indians for hunting. To these they fit little arrows made of the palm tree, on which they put a small roll of cotton, that exactly fills the bore of the tube. They shoot them with their breath, and seldom or never miss the mark. This simple instrument advantageously supplies the defect of fire. arms among all those nations. They dip the points of these little arrows as well as those of their bows, in this poison; which is so active that in less than a minute, especially when fresh, it kills certain animals, from which the arrow has drawn blood.

Lamas is a Spanish village, or little town, in Upper Peru, situated in about 7o of south latitude, to the west of the river of Guallaga. The native Indians of this district prepare a famous poison for poisoning arrows, different from that of the Yameos, Pevas, and Ticunas, Indian nations on the borders of the river of the Amazons, towards the mouth of the Napo, in 3° or 4° of south latitude. The poison of Ticunas is the most famous of all for its activity. They say, that that of Lamas sooner looses its force, but that it is more proper for certain animals than that of Ticunas. And it is the common opinion, that that of Lamas, being mixed with that of Ticunas, becomes more violent and ac

Mons. de la Condamine says, in the abridged account of his voyage, that "when he arrived at Cayenne, he had the curiosity to try whether this poison, which he had kept above a year, still retained its activity and at the same time whether sugar was really as efficacious a counter poison as he had been assured. Both the experi ments were performed, he says, in presence of the commandant of the colony, of several officers of the garrison, and of the King's physician. A hen, slightly wounded with one of these little arrows, the point of which had been dipped in the poison thirteen months at least before the trial, blown through a trunk, lived half a quarter of an hour: another, pricked in the wing with one of these arrows, newly dipped in this poison diluted with water, and immediately drawn out of the wound, seemed to dose a minute after; convul. sions soon came on, and, though we had made her swallow some sugar, she expired. A third, pricked with the same arrow, dipped again into the poison, having been instantly assisted by the same re. medy, shewed no signs of being indisposed, &c."

Mons. Herrissant was struck with amazement on reading these facts but his surprise was soon followed by a desire of repeating those experiments himself, and even of trying them on different sorts of animals. Mons. de la Condamine, to whom he imparted his intention, offered to satisfy his curiosity, and for that purpose made him a present of a certain quantity of this poison; and the result of the experiments, which he made with this same poison, forms the subject of this memoir.

He begins the detail of those experiments by that of two accidents, which had like to have disabled him from prosecuting the work he had undertaken; having very narrowly escaped death. The first accident happened thus: M. de la Condamine had fore. warned him, that when the Indians designed to use their poison, which in colour, consistence, and even in smell, has a great deal of resemblance to Spanish liquorice, they dissolved it in water, and then evaporated it on a slow fire to the consistence of a soft extract. M. Herrissant made this preliminary preparation in a small closet, in which a young lad was actually at work; and he did not think of making him quit it, because he did not imagine, that the poison, of which he intended to make trial, could produce any bad effects, without being introduced into the blood by the opening of a wound. Nor did he then recollect, what M. de la Condamine had told him

which is, that while they are preparing this poison in the country, they oblige some criminal old woman to take care of the boiling of this poison, after shutting her up alone in a separate place; so that when this woman dies, it is a sign that the poison is sufficiently boiled, and that it has all the qualities requisite to make it good. But he was soon made sensible of his imprudence; the door of the closet, where the young lad above mentioned staid, was open; and from the next chamber he saw that the lad, who had been there about three quarters of an hour, sat still, with his arms across. He began to reprimand him for his laziness, but he excused himself by answering, with a trembling voice, that he was sick at heart, and felt himself very faint. It is easy to imagine the uneasiness which this sight gave M. H.; but luckily it cost him no more than the fright. He made the lad come out of the closet immediately, let him down into the yard, and made him swallow a pint of good wine, in which he had dissolved a quarter of a pound of sugar. He recovered his strength by degrees, and was soon able to return to his own home, very merry and happy, without the least notion of the danger he had been in. Some days afterwards he came to M. H. and assured him that he had not felt the least indisposition since the day in question.

The fact above related was shocking enough to have made M. H. abandon his project; however curiosity got the better of his fear, and he even took a strong fancy to repeat the experiment. It would have been inhuman, not to say criminal, to make it on any other person but himself; therefore he resolved to run the risk, or rather persuaded himself, that he should run none, because he should be timely enough to flee from the danger, as soon as the effect of the poison should come to a certain pitch. Besides, he was encouraged by the good success of the foregoing example. Therefore he disposed every thing as at the first time, and he stayed in the closet. In about an hour's time he perceived his legs to bend under him, and his arms became so weak, that he could scarcely use them. He had but just time enough to come quickly out of the closet, and get down into the yard; where he ordered wine and sugar to be brought him, as he had before done for the young lad. Such was the first danger, which he incurred in preparing the American poison: the second was not inferior to it.