"comme s'il eut été frappé d'un boulet ou de la foudre," is hardly less powerful than woorara, an Indian plant used by the natives of Guyana for poisoning their arrows: applied to a wound, it produces immediate death, but taken internally, is less speedy in its operation. There are various others known to the natives of these islands, as well as of South America, capable of producing immediate death. The action of most of these is on the nervous system. The most powerful poisons appear to act directly on it. The juice of the upas-tree, used by the Indians for poisoning their arrows, when applied to a wound, kills in five minutes; yet when three times the quantity of the poison is applied to a portion of the sciatic nerve, laid bare. for the purpose, it produces no effect. The most direct poison to the nervous system acts quickest when introduced into the circulation by an external wound; and many of the very poisons which destroy the nervous energy most suddenly when applied to a particular nerve, produce no bad effects. To one who looks on the nerves as the circulating medium of a volatile elastic fluid, such as the nervous energy is described by Mead, it will be difficult to understand the possibility of the most powerful poisons being applied to nerves without any ill effects. But may we not look upon the nervous system as the apparatus for the transmission and direction of

VOL. II.

D

the vital energy, or aura, which is the principle of life, the sanguineous system as the source of its elimination, and when a virulent poison has been introduced into it, understand why its influence is generally exerted on the nervous system long before it is exerted on the heart? Celsus says that venomous bites kill by extinguishing the vital heat. It is not by coagulating the blood, or, indeed, by any specific action on the blood that is cognisable to us, that many of the most powerful poisons produce death. The woorara produces its effects on the brain, and not the heart; the upas, it is supposed by Orfila, on the spinal column. The ticunas, a very active poison of the Indians, made from the juices of various withes orlianes, evaporated to a thick consistence when introduced into the jugular vein of a dog, kills on the spot, and, unlike the venom of the viper, does not coagulate the blood.

The curare, we are told by Humboldt, is prepared from a withe called vejuco de mavacure, with which the Indians poison their arrows; it kills the largest animals very speedily, and acts on the circulation. It is certain that the flesh of the animals killed by this very active poison is nowise impaired by it. Humboldt remarks, "it seems all the poisons come from the withes."

Raynal makes a similar observation. The creeping plants (he says) called lianes, of which there are vast numbers in all tropical woodlands,

furnished the poison which was in universal request on the continent. The immediate death that arises from this poison, he thinks, so far from coagulating the blood, when mixed with that fluid recently drawn and warm, prevents coagulation, and even, for some time, putrefaction. There is one species of poison arising from decomposition of animal matter, the intensity of whose virus in tropical climates is very little known. Some experiments have been made in Europe, mentioned by Orfila, of putrescent blood having been applied to an abraded surface; one producing death in twenty-six hours; another in eighteen; and of bile in a state of decomposition, being applied to a wound, and death occurring in twenty hours; which event, he says, does not depend on local irritation, or even of its action on the circulating system.

In hot climates, the concentrated poison of putrescent animal matter, I suspect, produces death much more speedily than Orfila states here; and its effects seem to be similar to those of asphyxia, such as came under the care of Dupuytren in three instances, arising from only inhaling the vapour of decomposed animal matter, or sulphureted hydrogen gas.

I stated, in my Eastern Travels, I had been informed by an Arab barber who practised physic, that one of the most deadly poisons was prepared

from the mucous membrane of the intestines, taken from the putrid body; and had also been told by Lady Hester Stanhope, that the Arabs made use of several poisons unknown in Europe, the deadliest of which was that extracted from the intestines of a murdered man. I was not a little surprised, very lately, to find that the knowledge of this active poison from the dead human body, known to the Arabs, and whose existence I have heard denied in Europe, was known to the native Indians of the West India Islands, and is described by Garcilasco De la Vega, in his History of the Civil Wars of the Spaniards, in the Indies, vol. 1. chapter 42: he observes, that all the Indians in the Windward Islands poison their arrows by dipping their points into dead bodies. "I shall relate,” he continues, "what I have seen happen from one of the quarters of Carjaval, which had been placed on the road of Collasuyn, which is to the south of Cusco. A party of us went one Sunday to take a walk: we were ten or twelve scholars, all mestifs-that is, the sons of Spaniards and Indians, the eldest of which was not twelve years old. Having perceived in the fields one of the quarters of the body of Carjaval, we took it into our heads to go and take a look at it; and having approached it, we found that it was one of his thighs, the fat of which had run on the ground; the flesh was of a greenish colour, and quite

corrupted. As we were looking at this horrible object, one of the most hardy of us said, 'I'll wager that there is no one here dare touch it!' Another said, 'There is!' At last one of the most daring of all, named Bartheline Monedero, thinking to perform an act of great courage, thrust the thumb of his right hand into the corrupted thigh. This action astonished us all so much, that we left him, fearing to be infected, crying out, 'Oh, the filthy fellow! Carjaval will make thee suffer for this insolence!' However, he went straight to a rivulet, which was quite near, where he washed his hand several times, and rubbed it with mud, and went home. The next day he came to school, where he showed his thumb, which was extremely swelled; but in the evening all his hand, up to the wrist, was swollen; and the day after, which was Tuesday, the swelling had reached up to the elbow, in such a manner, that necessity compelled him to acquaint his father with the cause of it. Medical assistance was called in; the arm was tightly bandaged, and every kind of remedy was made use of, which was considered would act as a counter-poison. After all this, the patient was very near losing his life; and it was with great difficulty that he escaped, after being four entire months without being able to use his pen, so weak the arm was."

When I was living in Liguanea, where the diffi