storm; in 1830, they were deficient from the want of seasonable rains; and, in 1831, they were destroyed by blight. During those three years, this teoree, or what, in other parts of India, is called kesárree, (a kind of wild vetch which, though not sown itself, is left carelessly to grow among the wheat and other grain, and given in the green and dry state to cattle,) remained uninjured, and thrived with great luxuriance. In 1831, they reaped a rich crop of it from the blighted wheat fields; and subsisted upon it during that and the following years, giving the stalks and leaves only to their cattle. In 1833, the sad effects of this food began to manifest themselves. The younger part of the population of this and the surrounding villages, from the age of 30 downwards, began to be deprived of the use of their limbs below the waist, by paralytic strokes, in all cases sudden, but in some more severe than in others. About half the youth of this village of both sexes became affected during the years 1833-34; and many of them lost the use of their lower limbs. entirely, and were unable to move. The youth of the surrounding villages, in which the teoree, from the same causes, formed the chief article of food during the years 1831-32, suffered in an equal degree. Since the year 1834, no new case had occurred; but no person once attacked, had been found to recover the use of the limbs affected, and Col. Sleeman's tent was surrounded by great numbers of the youth in different stages of the disease. Some of them were very fine-looking young men, of good caste and respectable families; and all stated that their pains and infirmities. were confined entirely to the parts below the waist. They described the attacks as coming on suddenly, often while the person was asleep, and without any warning symptoms whatever; and stated that a greater portion of the young men were attacked than of the young women. It was the prevailing opinion of the natives, throughout the country,

that both horses and bullocks, which have been fed much upon teoree, are liable to lose the use of the limbs*. More recently, Dr. Kinloch W. Kirk has published some interesting remarks upon the injurious effects of this kesárree dâl upon the poorer inhabitants of Upper Sindh. His attention was first directed to the subject by a villager bringing his wife, about 30 years of age, to him with paralysis of her lower extremities, she had been so afflicted for the last four years, the man said, "it is from kesarree; we are very poor, and she was obliged to eat it for five months on end." Dr. Kirk had never heard of such effects before from any grain and asked whether it was good of its kind; finding it was so, he sent the man into the bazar to bring him a handful, which he subsequently showed to some respectable natives, and was told that disease from its use was very common all over the country. The villagers said that, if they sowed a better kind of grain, it would be plundered by the Beloochees from the hills, but that they would not take this. He did not enter a village in Sindh where this vetch was not to be found in the bazar, and daily used by great numbers of poor people, nor where several were not rendered most helpless objects by the use of it. Their general health seemed good, their only complaint being that they had no power in their legs, but they moved about lifting themselves on their arms: kesárree they described as causing "Badee," or severe pains in the joints like those of acute rheumatism in the first instance, but gradually changing into the permanent affection described, the seat of which is probably in the lumbar portion of the spinal cord. Under the use of a poisonous food of this kind, the injury which meets the eye is nothing to the unseen evil, which does not terminate with the individual; but extends itself to the children of the third and

* Op. Citat, Vol. 1, p. 135.

fourth generation. All natives know that this dâl is a poison, and eat it only because it is cheap, thinking that they can stop in time to save themselves from its consequences. Dr. Kirk adds an expression of confidence that, could the amount of the evil be known, it would awaken the sympathy of Government in behalf of the people who are compelled by want to endure it; indeed he considers that it would be a boon were its cultivation suppressed entirely.*

EXAMINATION OF THE MEDICINAL STOCKS OF BUN

NEEAS, &c.

It will not unfrequently happen that the civil surgeon will be required to examine and report upon the medicinal stock of a native trader seized under suspicious circumstances. This will generally comprise a variety of charms, the teeth of alligators, the dried teats of the jackal, or of some animal of like size, scales of the manis, tigers' claws, &c., &c., together with a few inert substances, such as chunam (lime), iron-rust, tabashir, &c., and several poisons,-white arsenic, (perhaps, bearing marks of scraping on the edge,) orpiment, realgar, crude antimony, dhatoora seeds, gunjah leaves, churrus, and the roots of aconite and hellebore. The following is a list of this kind from the Records. 1. "Ordinary bazar spirit. 2. The liquid had disappeared, the lumps are vegetable matter, nature cannot be positively stated. 3. Sugar slime. 4. Oil of Cinnamon, Ditto of Peppermint. 5. Dhatoora seeds. 6. Pills which, on analysis, yield oxide of lead. 7. Dhatoora fruits entire, with seed. 8. Vegetable powder, nature cannot be positively stated. 9. Yellow Sulphuret of Arsenic (Hurtal) and Sulphuret of Copper. 10. A quantity of the roots of the Sungya

* Medical Topography of Upper Sindh, p. 60. For ample particulars of similar effects resulting from the use of the Lathyrus Cicera and the Ervum Ervilia, or Bitter Vetch, in several of the continental states of Europe, See Taylor on Poisons, p. 535.

Bikh (Aconitum Ferox of Nipal,) a deadly poison. 11. Vegetable powder, nature cannot be positively affirmed."

RECOGNITION OF VEGETABLE POISONS,

The modes of recognizing the Vegetable poisons, most employed in India, by chemical tests and by microscopical examination, is a subject which especially demands careful investigation by our best practical chemists and botanists. Cases of mineral poisoning offer few difficulties; but-with the exception of Opium, Nux Vomica, Plumbago Rosea, and Croton Oil-vegetable matters, especially when long exposed to fermentation and putrefaction, generally defy analysis. Although rules are laid down in chemical works for the separation of Daturine and Aconitine, it can rarely be possible to detect these alkaloids, where they have only existed in minute quantities, in mixtures of decaying animal and vegetable matter, or have been exposed for days to the effects of heat and fermentation. This is a very unfortunate circumstance, as it cannot be doubted that these two are the vegetable poisons most frequently employed for homicidal purposes in this country. The late Mr. Siddons remarked, with great truth, that," The natives of Bengal are growing exceedingly expert at poisoning; and, since the hanging of a number who used arsenic, corrosive sublimate, &c.,--metallic poisons are seldom had recourse to; a fact worthy of the most serious attention."* In 1852, the Chemical Examiner indented for a powerful microscope, and matters sent for examination, such as blood and other stains, minute crystalline deposits, vegetable tissues, &c., &c., are now carefully subjected to that test. Nearly every vegetable structure, which has not lost its organic form by chemical or putrefactive decomposition, may now be distinctively recognized upon the field of a

Letter to the Civil Assistant Surgeon of Gyah, dated 10th March, 1853.

microscope. A well-conducted microscopical examination. of the tissues of the poisonous roots, seeds, barks, &c., commonly employed in India, and especially of the Root of the Aconitum Ferox and of the Episperm of the Dhatoora Fastuosa would prove a real boon to the profession, and to the cause of humanity and justice.f

In cases where vegetable poisons are given in the form of extract or decoction, and where putrefaction has much advanced, recognition of their presence by microscopical examination is, of course, out of the question. Still, except in the cases of Opium, Nux Vomica, and Gunjah, these modes of preparation seldom obtain among poisoners in India. A coarse powder, which has probably been triturated between two rough stones, is the form in which both vegetable and mineral poisons are usually mixed with the victim's food. It should be especially borne in mind that, in all cases, the preservation of vegetable poisons in suspected matters is greatly aided by the addition of a sufficient quantity of pure spirit to the compound, immediately it comes into the medical officer's possession.‡

* See Mr. G. Birkett's remarks on the detection of the Crystals of Arsenious and Oxalic Acid by the Microscope.-Medical Times and Gazette, April 28th, 1855.

† I am authorised to state that the Editors of the Indian Annuls of Medical Science will be happy to afford all the assistance in their power in the publication of the results of such investigation, and will undertake to have any careful drawings of the microscopical appearances presented by the vegetable tissues, which may be sent to them, copied for their Journal by the best Engravers.

Dr. Mouat observes,-with reference to Dr. Taylor's remark, that addition of spirit to matters intended for chemical examination materially complicates the analysis,-that it is correct, as regards Europe, where the means of making a chemical examination are always at hand; but, that it is not applicable to a country, where a suspected substance has to travel several hundred miles, and putrefaction is rapid and complete before it can be submitted to any analysis.