_Symptoms._—The symptoms recorded by Cornevin in the poisoning of animals by the fresh plants are nausea, coughing, vomiting (if possible), stupefaction, muscular tremors, and violent colic, accompanied at times by hæmaturia and always by diarrhœa and dysentery. There are pronounced respiratory and heart troubles. Pott confirms the symptoms of hæmaturia, diarrhœa, and inflammation of the stomach and intestines in the case of _A. Pulsatilla_ when fed in the green condition. According to Esser, the plant poison affects the spinal cord and the brain, the symptoms being similar to those produced by _Aconitum Napellus_. REFERENCES. 16, 63, 81, 191, 197, 198, 213, 233, 240. =Buttercups= (_Ranunculus_ sp.). A number of species of _Ranunculus_ are acrid, irritant or severely poisonous, as the case may be. There are variations in the poisonous character according to the season, and some parts of the plant are more toxic than others. At the time the young shoots develop in the spring but little of the poisonous principle is present, and some (_e.g._ _R. Ficaria_) are not then poisonous, but a larger quantity of the poisonous principle forms later, and some species are especially dangerous at the time of flowering, after which the toxicity decreases with the maturity and state of dryness of the plant. The flowers are the most poisonous, and then the leaves and stem. It does not seem to have been demonstrated that the seeds of any species are dangerous, though Henslow states that the fruits of some species, when green, appear to be most intensely acrid. Some species of _Ranunculus_ are especially harmful (_R. sceleratus_, _R. Flammula_, and _R. bulbosus_), while others are less so (_R. lingua_, _R. Ficaria_, _R. acris_). The toxic principle is volatile, and buttercups are easily rendered innocuous by drying or boiling—so much so that when dried in hay they may be regarded as a nourishing food for stock, and are readily eaten. Indeed, _R. repens_ is scarcely, if at all, injurious even when green, though a case of fatal poisoning to sheep said to be due to this species was reported in the _Veterinarian_ in 1844. Fresh _R. aquatilis_ is held to be quite harmless, and has been used as a fodder. “Along the banks of the Hampshire Avon, and other places in the same neighbourhood, it is used by the peasantry as fodder. They collect it in boats and give it to their cows and horses, allowing the former about twenty to thirty pounds a day. One man is said to have kept five cows and a horse, with little other food but what they could pick up on the heath, using no hay but when the river was frozen. Hogs eat it and will live upon it alone until put up to fatten.” (Johnson and Sowerby—_Useful Plants of Great Britain_.)