spreads obliquely like many of our large forest trees.

The bark

is whitish, slightly bursting into longitudinal furrows. Near the ground this bark is, in old trees, more than half an inch thick, and when wounded yields copiously the milky juice from which the poison is prepared. This juice is yellowish, frothy, and becomes brown when exposed to the air.

In making these researches Dr. Horsfield had some difficulty with the native labourers, who feared a contagious eruption, but nothing more. The Doctor further informs us that it is fatal to animals,-destroying dogs in an hour, mice in ten minutes, monkeys in seven, and cats in fifteen, while a buffalo subjected to the experiment was two hours and ten minutes dying.

The natives of Macassar also call this venomous production ipo. They have two varieties of the tree, as in Java; the one called upas antiar, and the other, much more violent and prompt in its action, upas tieute. In the preparation of the poison for use much mystery is observed by the natives, and various ingredients are mixed up with it; but as they are known to be harmless, such as onion and garlic juice, pepper, ginger, galanga, they are most probably employed to deceive the curious who might wish to ascertain the nature of this deadly composition.

Mr. Leschenault having brought home a small quantity of this poison, it was tried by Messrs. Delile and Magendie in several experiments, when it was found to act more or less violently, according to the age and size of the individual, or the quantity of the upas. One grain and a half inoculated in a young dog killed it in four minutes, only producing one convulsive fit. In a dog weighing fourteen pounds, half a grain of upas occasioned death at the expiration of one hour and fiftyseven minutes, during which the animal experienced several violent convulsions. A few drops of diluted upas, injected in the chest of a dog, weighing twenty pounds, occasioned a lockjaw, which destroyed him in a minute and a half. Eight drops injected in the jugular vein of a horse produced immediate tetanus and speedy death. For further information regarding these cruel experiments we must refer to the experimenter's publication. It appears, however, that the power of this venomous substance is so intense that time does not weaken it; for the upas employed in these experiments had been collected and kept for upwards of seven years, when its effects were as prompt as when tried in a recent state. The natives of Java consider sea-salt as the best antidote, but Mr. Delile found it quite

inert: various experiments induced him to think that in these cases death is produced by asphyxia; and he considers the means employed to restore suspended animation in persons supposed to have been drowned, as the most likely to save the life of individuals who might be wounded with this substance. The rapidity with which poisonous substances are absorbed in the system is truly terrific, more especially in such as are of a narcotic nature. The latter act by abolishing all nervous energies, but when applied locally their effects are also local, as is shown by the following experiments of Müller:

"I held the nerve of a frog's leg which was separated from the body, in a watery solution of opium for a short time, and that portion of the nerve lost its irritability, i.e. its property of exciting twitchings of the leg when it was irritated; but below the part that the poison had touched the nerve still retained this function."

It is therefore evident that before narcotic poisons can exert a general influence they must be carried into the circulation. Duprey and Brachet, two French physiologists, have sought to prove that animals cannot be destroyed by narcotic poisons, introduced in the stomach, if the nervus vagus has been divided on both sides; at least, that they do not die so soon. However, Wernscheidt, in thirty experiments on mammalia, could not perceive this difference, provided the animals were of the same size and species.

Prussic acid exerts its influence so rapidly that it cannot be supposed to have been thrown into the circulation. The spirituous solution of the extract of nux vomica introduced in the mouth of a rabbit, produces immediate death, whereas when applied to any nerve distant from the brain it produces no general symptoms.

This rapid effect of prussic acid is supposed to arise from its great volatility and powers of expansion, by which it is diffused more quickly through the circulation than the blood. According to Schrader one drop of this substance introduced in the bill of a bird killed it in four or five minutes. Hydrocyanic acid gas mixed with atmospheric air has when inhaled destroyed dogs, cats, rabbits, and various birds, in from two to ten seconds. Magendie found that the introduction of one drop of the acid in the jugular vein caused instantaneous death; a glass tube dipped in this perilous substance applied to the tongue of a dog, produced a similar effect, which was also the result when applied to the eye.

It is not generally known that tobacco and its preparations

are deadly poisons, one drop of oil of tobacco introduced in the mouth of a dog produced violent convulsions with hurried breathing; a quarter of an hour after, the unfortunate animal seemed to be recovered, when the introduction of another drop killed it in two minutes. M'Cartney and Orfila obtained similar results, though no such effects were produced when it was applied to a nerve or the surface of the brain.

The French poet Santeuil died from having drank wine in a glass containing some snuff. In all cases of death produced by this substance the lungs are found dense and livid.

It is not only in the upas that the Indians seek the means of poisoning their missiles. In America they employ the Ticronas a juice extracted from various plants, and the preparation of which, transmitted from one generation to another is considered a valuable secret. La Condamine asserts that its mere odour is sufficient to destroy the criminals doomed to smell it, but Fontana has found by many experiments that this assertion was made upon report, which travellers too frequently rely upon to save themselves the trouble of investigation. Arrows saturated with this poison, become more active after having been dipped in hot water.

The Indians of Guiana dip their arrows in the juice of the Woorara, and the Curara, which also occasions rapid death and decomposition of the lungs. Humboldt informs us that the Curara is obtained from the bark of a tree called Vejuco de Mavacure; it is inspissated over a slow fire and then mixed with a gum drawn from the Kiracagnero. The Abbé Salvador Gilii tells us in his history of America, that he has seen the strongest animals succumb instantly when thus wounded, but the poison does not produce any effect on their meat.

196

HOMOPHAGOUS AND POLYPHAGOUS.

THESE are appellations given to certain individuals of a depraved appetite, that enables them to devour raw meat, and various other substances which most unquestionably would destroy any person not gifted or cursed with such an omnivorous digestion.

Various are the ancient stories related of such voracious wretches. Ovid describes one Erisichthon, who, as a punishment for cutting down the groves of Ceres, (very possibly to obtain fuel to cook his food,) was sentenced to perpetual hunger, and terminated his gluttonous career by eating up his own limbs. Theagenes thought nothing of an ox for his dinner; and the famed Crotonian athlete, Milo, knocked down bullocks with his fist for his daily meals, which usually consisted of twenty mine of meat and the same ration of bread. Vopiscus relates that a man was brought before the Emperor Maximilian, who devoured a whole calf, and was proceeding to eat up a sheep, had he not been prevented. To this day, in India, some voracious mountebanks devour a live sheep as an exhibition. Dr. Boehmen of Wittenberg witnessed the performance of one of these polyphagous individuals, who commenced his repast by eating a raw sheep, a sucking-pig, and, by way of dessert, swallowed sixty pounds of prunes, stones and all. On another festive occasion, he ate two bushels of cherries, with several earthern vases, and chips of a furnace. This meal was followed up by sundry pieces of glass and pebbles, a shepherd's bagpipe, rats, various birds with their feathers, and an incredible number of caterpillars. To conclude his dinner, he swallowed a pewter inkstand, with its pens, a pen-knife, and a sandbox. During this deglutition he seemed to relish his food, but was generally under the influence of potations of brandy. His form was athletic, and he could carry four heavy men on his shoulders for a league. He lived to the age of seventy-nine, but died in a most emaciated state, and, as might be imagined, toothless.

Helwig knew an old man who was in the habit of eating eighty pounds of different articles of food daily. Real Colomb mentions an omnivorous glutton, who, in the absence of any salutary aliment, satisfied his cravings with any other substance, and was once known, when hungry, to eat the contents of a sack of charcoal, and then to swallow the bag to facilitate its

digestion. One of the attendants on the menagerie of the Botanical Gardens in Paris, who bore the euphonious name of Bijou, used to devour all the offals of the theatre of Comparative Anatomy, and ate a dead lion in one day. He was active, and lived to the age of sixty. A cannibal once desolated the Vivarais, by dragging human victims to his den, where he devoured them. On the opening of the corpse of a convict in the galleys of Brest, there were found in his stomach about six hundred pieces of wood, pewter, and iron.

All these accounts might appear most exaggerated, perhaps fabulous, had not many physicians in Paris known the celebrated Tarrare. The history of this monster is as curious as his habits were disgusting. He commenced his career in life in the capacity of clown to an itinerant quack, and used to attract the notice of the populace by his singular powers of deglutition, swallowing with the utmost ease corks, pebbles, and basketsful of apples. However, these experiments were frequently followed by severe pain and accidents, which once obliged him to seek assistance in the Hôtel Dieu of Paris. His sufferings did not deter him from similar experiments; and he once tried to exhibit his wonderful faculties by swallowing the watch, chain and seals, of Mr. Giraud, then house-surgeon of the establishment. In this repast he was foiled, having been told that he would be ripped up to recover the property. In the revolutionary war, Tarrare joined the army, but was soon exhausted on the spare diet to which the troops were obliged to submit. In the hospital of Sultzen, although put upon four full rations, he was obliged to wander about the establishment to feed upon any substance he could find however revolting, to subdue his voracious hunger. These singular powers induced several physicians to ascertain how far these omnivorous inclinations could carry him in his unnatural cravings. In presence of Dr. Lorentz he devoured a live cat, commencing by tearing open its stomach, and sucking the animal's blood with delight. What was more singular, after this horrible feast, like other carnivorous brutes, he rejected the fur and skin. Snakes were to him a delicious meal, and he swallowed them alive and whole, after grinding their heads between his teeth. One of the surgeons, Mr. Courville, gave him a wooden lancet-case to swallow in which a written paper had been folded. This case was rejected undigested, and the paper being found intact, it became a question whether he might not be employed to convey secret correspondence; but having been taken up at the Prussian