perhaps hastens their decay. If [you wish to produce the most
deadly sickness with retchings, which seem like the giving way
of nature, give a person a dose of the juice of tobacco.
It is a stimulant, and a powerful narcotic ; any considerable
dose produces most alarming symptoms.
The virulence of the poison in tobacco has been ascertained
by direct experiments of Franklin, Brodie, and Mussey. A
drop or two of the oil of tobacco applied to the tongue of strong
and healthy cats, produce convulsions, agony, retching, and death
in a few minutes. Upon a dog, and some other animals, similar
dreadful effects were produced from the oil by Dr. Mussey. A
small quantity of the decoction of tobacco leaves produces most
serious effects upon the human system, and upon animals, when
taken internally, or applied to the surface. Death has sometimes
soon followed such applications. Dr. Long has reported the
effects of applying the oil from a tobacco pipe* for the cure of a
ringworm at the root of the nose. “ Immediately loss of sense,
locking of the jaws, and deathlike countenance followed. Recovery
from the ill effects has not been complete ; from a healthy
child, she has continued sickly to this time,” as Dr. Long informed
me a few days ago. The poison was applied in April,
1834. Other similar facts are on record. To the teeth, the appetite,
and the stomach, the nostrils and throat, the use of tobacco
is injurious. The waste of money, too, for so dirty a gratification,
is prodigious and astonishing.
“ It is doubtful whether all the benefits which have accrued to
Europe from the discovery of America, have not been counterbalanced
by the introduction of this universal luxury [poison],
produced at the expense of human liberty, and of a soil which
could otherwise be employed in augmenting the necessaries of
life, independent of the diseases inseparable from the use of so
powerful a narcotic.” Nuttall.
It is cultivated to considerable extent in some parts of the
State.
L ycium. L. 5. 1.
L. barbarum. L. Matrimony Vine. Introduced from the
East, and named from Lycia, the province where one of the
species flourished ; a beautiful shrubby plant, easily trained, with
fine foliage, and delicate whitish and purple flowers, continuing a
long time to blossom. Its stamens vary from 4 to 5, but its place
is with,those which have 5. A native species is found in the
Southern States.
NrcANDRA. Adanson. 5. 1.
Named in honor of a Greek physician, Nicander, by Adanson,
who removed it from the Linnaean genus A tropa.
JV*. physaloides. Pers. Found in the vicinity of New Bedford
; stem branched, 2 or 3 feet high, bearing solitary, pale-blue
flowers, in the axils of the leaves ; seeds in a fleshy berry ; a
native of Peru ; introduced.
The Indians of Peru used the berries for the relief of the gravel
and other urinary diseases.
A tropa. L. 5. 1.
Has its name from one of the Fates, as its deadly poison does
the work of Atropos in cutting short the lives of men.
Jl. belladonna. L. Deadly Nightshade. Its specific name,
fair lady, is derived from its use, as some suppose, in making the
skin smooth and fair ; found in Britain ; rarely cultivated in this
country ; a deadly poison ; used in medicine for certain purposes ;
wonderfully dilates the pupil of the eye.-
V erbascum. L. 5. 1. Mullein.
Its name is a corruption of another, given on account of the
thick woolly or beardlike covering of the leaves and stem ; chiefly
natives of the South of Europe.
V. Thapsus. L. Common Mullein. Named from the Isle of
Thapsos, where it is indigenous ; a well-known plant of the roads
and neglected fields ; its yellow, spiked flowers would make it
very respectable in appearance, were it not for the bad company
it has kept, and the bad reputation it has fastened on itself. The
plant is mucilaginous and emollient, and the leaves, boiled in milk,
have been used as a great relief to the piles ; naturalized..