The tree called smilax is named thymium by some, and taxus by the Romans. When drunk it brings on coldness of the whole body, suffocation, and speedy death; the remedies for which are all those things which are given to those who have drunk of hemlock. * * * * * COMMENTARY. The description of the symptoms and the plan of treatment are borrowed from Nicander, or, rather, copied direct from Dioscorides. Different opinions have been entertained respecting the poisonous nature of the yew. Haller, Bulliard, and others, deny that it is poisonous; while Berkley, Ray, Matthiolus, and others, affirm that it is. Orfila holds it to be a narcotic poison (chap. iv, cl. 4.) We have known instances of its proving fatal to cattle. The newspapers lately contained a melancholy case of a boy poisoned by yew-berries at Winchester. Matthiolus is not pleased with Dioscorides for making it to be a frigorific medicine; but Orfila, it appears, gives it the same character; that is to say, he holds it to be narcotic. Virgil alludes to its poisonous qualities: Sic tua Cyrnæas fugiant examina taxos. See, also, Theophrastus (H. P. i, 5, and iii, 9); and Schulze (Tox. vet. 17). SECT. XLIX.—ON THE STRYCHNOS FURIOSA, CALLED DORYCNIUM, BY SOME. When one drinks of dorycnium, which some call strychnos furiosa, there follows a sensation, as it were, of milk to the taste; constant hiccough, watering of the tongue, and frequent ejection of blood; and there are mucous discharges by the bowels, as in dysenterical cases. They are to be remedied before any of these symptoms supervene, by those things which are taken for ephemeron, I mean emetics and clysters, and whatever else can evacuate the substance which had been taken. Honied water is a particularly good remedy; or the milk of asses or of goats and sweet wine, in a tepid state, may be drunk with a small quantity of anise. Bitter almonds also are proper, the boiled breasts of fowls, all the shell-fish eaten raw and boiled, crabs and crawfish, and the broth of them when drunk. * * * * * COMMENTARY. Our author’s detail of symptoms is taken mostly from Nicander, or, perhaps, direct from Dioscorides. The poet’s plan of treatment seems to have been much the same as that of Paulus. He omits, indeed, to make mention of emetics and purgatives as being general remedies in all cases of poisoning; but he recommends milk, must, and the crustacea, such as the pinna, echinus, &c. The other authorities supply nothing additional. Avicenna treats of it under the name of uva vulpis stupefactiva mala; he copies from Dioscorides (iv, 6; i, 7.)