Death in the Garden: Poisonous Plants and Their Use Throughout History
248
Death in the Garden: Poisonous Plants and Their Use Throughout History
248Paperback
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Overview
Shamans and priests used these plants for their magical attributes, as a means to foretell the future or to commune with the gods.
Discover how a pot of Basil helped to conceal a savage murder.
Learn the truth about the mysterious mandrake, a real plant although many do not realise it.
Jane Austen wrote a conundrum to entertain her family; the answer is one of the plants in the book. Will you be able to solve the mystery?
Death In The Garden is based on Michael Brown’s most popular talk, popular as this subject holds a strange interest, for many will enjoy learning about these treacherous and peculiar plants, their defensive and deadly traits, as well as the folklore that has grown around them. This title will appeal to gardeners, horticulturists, nature enthusiasts and anyone who holds an interest in this strange and enchanting corner of the garden. But be warned, many of these deathly plants may already be taking root in your very own garden…
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781526708380 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Pen and Sword |
| Publication date: | 06/25/2018 |
| Pages: | 248 |
| Sales rank: | 713,553 |
| Product dimensions: | 6.10(w) x 9.20(h) x 0.70(d) |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
CHAPTER 1
AQUILEGIA
Aquilegia is said to have been named from the Latin word for an eagle, because the long spikes of the flowers resemble an eagle's talons. The common name of columbine derives from Latin for a dove, as, if you hold the flower upright, so that the spikes are pointing into the air, the flower now resembles a circle of sitting doves; rather similar to the doves that used to sit around a fountain in a medieval garden. The Culverwort name for aquilegia name derives from doves, a culver house being another name for a dovecote.
Genus:Aquilegia
Species:vulgaris
Family: Ranunculaceae
Other Names:
Columbine.
Granny's Bonnet.
Culver wort.
Herba Leonis.
Herbaceous Perennial Active Constituents:
Cardiogenic toxins.
Aquilegia grows to 90cm tall and has divided, glaucous leaves that remain attractive even when the flowers have finished. The stems and the leaves are said to be safe to eat, but the seeds and roots are poisonous, although various experts seem to disagree. In Britain, neither the Horticultural Trades Association nor The Royal Horticultural Society include it in their list of potentially harmful plants; but the University of California does list it as a harmful plant. Let the buyer beware.
The flowers of the European species tend to range in colour from white to pink, and from blue to violet; sometimes in multi-petalled forms. Aquilegia prefers damp woodland shade and if it is grown in situations that become too hot where the soil dries out, the leaves may be affected by mildew. The best cure is to cut off all the leaves, dig in some organic matter and to water when the weather becomes dry.
Many early writers ignored aquilegia as a medicinal plant. Gerard said that there was no practical use for the plant, other than for their beauty in gardens, houses and garlands and Thomas Tusser agreed with him, as he included aquilegia in his list of plants for windows and pots.
Aquilegia was meant to be good for quinsy and swellings of the throat, or as a cure for a sore mouth or sore throat. Both Parkinson and Culpepper related that in Spain it was known that some people ate the root at breakfast for several days if they were troubled by kidney stones. Parkinson also mentioned that the leaves and root could be added to Ambergris and wine for those affected by the swoonings. The seed could be powdered and used as a medicine for jaundice and other liver problems for which it was still being recommended in the early nineteenth century.
Clusius, the Flemish botanist, wrote that one of the most important physicians of Bruges, Franciscus Rapard, often powdered the seed and made a drink of it to help women to have a speedy delivery of a child in the case of difficult births. He advised a second draught if the first was not working effectively.
A more unusual use was that a blue syrup was made using the flowers to test for the acidity or alkalinity of substances, which was said to be better than using syrup of violets.
The plant is high in vitamin C, and has rather dubiously been used for scurvy; but due to its poisonous nature, nowadays it has gone back to being grown for the other main use that was mentioned in the past; as a pretty flower to decorate our gardens.
CHAPTER 2ASARABACA
A sarum is said by some authorities to be a native plant to Britain, although I have yet to see it growing wild. Turner said that he only knew of it growing in gardens, so it may have escaped into the wild. It is a low growing plant with shiny leathery leaves that are no more than 15cm above the ground. The purplish flowers hide beneath them, so if you wish to see them closely it is better to grow the plant in a pot rather than get down on your knees to admire the flowers; not that they are particularly spectacular. The seeds have an extra part on them called, an elaiosome, which in this case looks like a small caterpillar but is also tasty to the ants, who for a small gift of food, help to distribute the seeds.
Genus:Asarum
Species:europaeum
Family: Aristolochiaceae
Other Names:
Wild Ginger.
Asara bacca.
Fole Foot.
Asaron.
Hardy Perennial Active Constituents:
Asaron.
Methyleugenol.
Bornyl-acetate.
Asarabaca is one of the purging plants and the herbals suggest that it is better administered in incremental doses to avoid over-dosing the patient. This is one of the plants that would be better administered as an enema.
Dioscorides says that the root had a smell that was rather like cinnamon, most other writers say it is more like ginger, hence the common name. Having tasted the root, I would say it was more like ginger. Dioscorides mentioned that Asarum was good to encourage the menses, so it was probably used to induce abortions in larger doses, and was still being used much later because John Pechey said that, wenches use 'the decoction of it too frequently, when they think they are with child'. Most authors agreed that the plant induced upward and downward purging.
Brook said that the powdered root was a powerful snuff for clearing the head of headaches, dizziness, drowsiness and head cold. It would also clear the loss of hearing caused by blocked sinuses. Four or five grains snuffed at night would be enough to cause a discharge of matter from the nose by the following morning, which could even continue throughout the day. The warning was given that this should not be a frequent habit as it could be dangerous.
CHAPTER 3AUTUMN CROCUS
The Autumn Crocus is not actually a crocus at all, being in a different family. Colchicums are often called naked ladies because they flower alone in the autumn without the leaves. The flowers are 15cm tall and are usually a pale lilac colour, but they can be darker or even white, such as Colchicum autumnale 'Alboplenum'. There are other garden cultivars that are very attractive, including, 'Waterlily', which is a multi-petal form.
Genus:Colchicum
Species:autumnale
Family: Colchicaceae
Other Names:
Autumn Crocus.
Meadow Saffron.
Naked Ladies.
Corm Active Constituents:
Colchinine.
The broad leaves are about 30 cm long and appear early in the spring and could easily be mistaken for Wild Garlic by somebody who simply looked at the leaves without checking for a garlic odour; but this is unlikely to be frequent occurrence as Colchicum is no longer very common in the wild in Britain. But the mistake has been made and there are several documented cases. The symptoms of poisoning are said to be similar to those of arsenic poisoning and also of cholera.
Dioscorides said that the if you ate the bulbs you would die by choking, much the same as from eating poisonous mushrooms. He said that he mentions this because he did not want anybody to eat colchicum by mistake. If by chance you did, by drinking cow's milk, then the same remedies as used for mushroom poisoning may help. In Scotland during 2003, a 76-year-old man ate two Colchicum plants, mistakenly thinking that they were Wild Garlic, which he had heard would be good for the liver damage that he had sustained through alcohol misuse. After two hours, he began to feel nauseous. Within four to five he was vomiting and suffered from watery diarrhoea. After twelve hours, he was taken to the Emergency Department of the local hospital and placed in Intensive Care. For the first day of hospitalisation, his only symptoms were of a gastrointestinal nature. On the second day, his breathing began to fail and he was placed on a ventilator, whilst his heart rate fell drastically. On the third day, he began to bleed from the nose, and later in the day he died of heart failure despite attempts at resuscitation. It was estimated that he had only eaten 5g. of the leaves. There is a chance he may have survived if his liver had been working properly.
Another case recorded in 2004 involved a 71-year-old woman who again mistook the plant for Wild Garlic. She arrived at hospital twelve hours after eating the colchicum with the usual symptoms. She developed alopecia after three weeks, and had many gastro-intestinal problems, but she survived and after five months there were no signs that she had poisoned herself.
There are recorded cases of suicide attempts by ingesting colchicums. In 1967, a sixteen-year-old girl, who had threatened suicide on several occasions, ate over sixteen flowers of Colchicum autumnale. She was admitted to hospital the following morning, but only survived for another day. In 2001 a case was recorded of what appears to have been a suicide attempt, when a man ate forty colchicum flowers, but this time he survived. In August 2011, a man in the southern region of Karnataka State in South India ate Gowri Gedde, the local name for Colchicum autumnale and died three days later. But suicide using this method has a long history.
During the early 1830s there had been a drastic rise in suicide in Paris and Monsieur Dupin carried out research, before reaching his conclusion, in which he attributed the rise to the 'recurring political excitement' of the previous six years'. The number of suicides had risen from 269 in 1830, to 477 in 1835, with the majority of the suicides aged between 31 and 50 years of age, and many had chosen Colchicine as the method of death. In comparison, the London records showed that between 1834 and 1835 there had only been 83 cases of suicide. Thankfully, the British did not take to committing suicide during the turmoil of attempting to leave the European Union!
In the early nineteenth century, colchicum was being used once more as a cure for gout under the name of Tinctura Colchici, which probably made it more widely available. Contrary to what has often been reported, colchicine, the poison in the plant, has been used to commit murder. Catherine Wilson was born in 1842, and lived in Boston, Lincolnshire where she worked as a nurse. She began living with a man named James Dixon, who later died and although not deemed suspicious at the time, it was later thought that he had been poisoned by Wilson because she was tired of him drinking too much. A bottle containing colchicine was found in the room, which Wilson said she was using to treat his rheumatic fever. An autopsy had been recommended by the doctor, but Mrs. Wilson persuaded him against it, saying that James Dixon had a fear of being cut up after death. In 1862, Wilson began work for Mrs Sarah Carnell as a live-in nurse. Mrs Carnell was impressed with her nurse and altered her will, favouring Wilson. Sometime after, Wilson gave Mrs. Carnell a drink, saying that it would warm her. Carnell took a sip and spat it out because it had burned her mouth, later noticing that it had burned the bed sheets. Wilson fled to London, but was arrested and charged with attempted murder in April 1862. The drink had been found to contain enough sulphuric acid to kill fifty people. Wilson claimed that the pharmacist had made a mistake in mixing the medicine. As this could not be proven one way or the other she was acquitted, although the point was raised that if this had really been the case the bottle would have split or become too hot to handle before she could get home. Her sense of relief of the trial's outcome was short-lived because she was immediately re-arrested. Some of Wilson's previous patients, all of whom had died after altering their wills, were exhumed by the police and traces of poison were found in their bodies. She was charged with the murder of seven people but was only tried for the murder of one, Mrs Maria Soames, who had died in 1856. It was alleged that the various patients had all received treatment for gout, for which one of the common remedies was colchicine. During the trial, Mrs. Soames daughter mentioned that on numerous occasions, Wilson had given her mother a drink of brandy and eggs, that she was told would be good for her. However, her mother was usually sick soon after taking the drink, which had always been prepared elsewhere by Wilson.
The renowned toxicologist, Alfred Swaine Taylor, who in 1848 had published a book, On Poisons in Relation to Medical Jurisprudence and Medicine, was called as an expert witness. He gave evidence that helped to discern whether the cause of death was possibly cholera or poisoning. Tests for the common poisons such as arsenic, antimony and mercury had proved negative. Taylor said that he had not known of colchicum being used as a poison during the last fifteen years, but in this case, he believed it had been, and that poisoning, and not a disease that had caused the death. Dr Thomas Nunnelly was called to verify Taylor's conclusions, and he agreed on all the points discussed, the case for the prosecution, although the defence pleaded that after such a long time the evidence of poisoning was not reliable. This time, the jury was persuaded and Wilson was sentenced to death by hanging. She firmly denied being guilty, before she was led out for execution. She was publicly hanged at Newgate Gaol on at 8 am Monday 20 October 1862, in front of a crowd of 20,000 onlookers, the last woman to be publicly hanged in London. Although she had been tried and found guilty of the one murder, it was generally accepted that there had probably been many more. A broadside ballad was written, as was the usual case in such circumstances, to the tune of Ave Maria, with the chorus of:
'Catherine Wilson thus died she
A dreadful death upon the gallows high.'
A waxwork of her was displayed at Madame Tussauds.
CHAPTER 4BASIL
Basil? That is not poisonous, is it? Well, thankfully, no; but it does have a death associated with it through the story of Isabella and the Pot of Basil. The story was told by Boccaccio in The Decameron, where it was told on the fourth day, as the fifth tale, but he names the girl as Lisabetta. Keats later told the story in sixty-three verses of poetry, changing the girl's name to Isabella. The story was popular with the Pre-Raphaelite artists who based many of their paintings on medieval stories. I shall now recount the tale in my own way.
Genus:Ocimum
Species:basilicum
Family: Lamiaceae
Other Names:
Basil.
Tender Annual Active Constituents:
Eugenol.
Isabella was a young girl who lived in Messina. She had three brothers who had inherited a thriving business from their father who had recently died. The brothers spent all of their time tending to the business and trading in their shop. Isabella became very lonely, and very bored. The business began to prosper, so much so that the brothers soon realised that they needed some extra help, and so they employed a local young man named Lorenzo to assist them. Isabella and Lorenzo quickly became friends, perhaps a little too friendly the brothers thought; and even more so when one of the brothers noticed Isabella quietly entering Lorenzo's room one night ...
The brothers were unsure what to do. Isabella was of a marriageable age and they had already begun to wonder who would be a suitable match for her; somebody with a position and wealth, of that they were sure. One thing they were certain of, Lorenzo was of too lowly a status to be a suitable suitor for their sister. More importantly though, they were also worried that their sister's honour and reputation was at stake. And so, they devised a plan.
One day the brothers told Isabella that they were off to a nearby city to visit the fair and carry out some trade. They were taking Lorenzo with them and would return in a few days' time. They rode off and a few days later they returned, with tales of how much money they had made at the fair.
'But where's Lorenzo?' Isabella asked.
'Oh! Trade was very good, so we sent him on to another city to carry out more business for us. He will return soon enough.'
But he did not.
'Where is Lorenzo?' Isabella kept asking. 'Why hasn't he returned yet?'
'Business must be better than we expected. He must still be working' the brothers told her.
Yet still Lorenzo never returned, and still Isabella kept asking, 'Where is Lorenzo? When will he come home?'
'We don't know!' the brothers told her crossly, 'and why do you keep asking after Lorenzo. He has probably started work with somebody else. Stop worrying and forget about him!'
But Isabella could not stop worrying and neither could she forget her beloved Lorenzo. One night she had a dream; more of a nightmare. Lorenzo appeared to her. His clothes were torn and splattered with blood and soil. 'Your brothers murdered me' he said, 'and they had buried me in a shallow grave close to the edge of a wood.' He then told Isabella how to find his grave. Poor Isabella could scarcely sleep the rest of the night. In the morning she rose early, woke her maid and together they rode to the wood that Lorenzo had described. They searched the forest edge and soon discovered the grave exactly where he had told them. Isabella wept but was unsure as to what she should do next. She took out her knife and severed Lorenzo's head from the body and carefully wrapped it in her cloak.
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "Death in the Garden"
by .
Copyright © 2018 Michael Brown.
Excerpted by permission of Pen and Sword Books Ltd.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Table of Contents
Introduction 7
A History of Poisons 8
Witchcraft and Poisons 13
Poisoned Clothing 15
The Properties of Poisonous Plants 19
The Spiritual Properties of Poisonous Plants 23
The Writers about Poisonous Plants 25
Dangers of Potting Shed 37
A Conundrum 41
The Plants:
Aquilegia 43
Asarabacca 45
Autumn Crocus 47
Basil 51
Bay 55
Bindweed 58
Birthwort 61
Bluebell 63
Broom 66
Caper Spurge 68
Castor Oil Plant 71
Celandine Greater 74
Celandine Lesser 77
Cherry Laurel 79
Chinese Lanterns 83
Corn Cockle 85
Cuckoo Pint 87
Daffodils 91
Daphne Laureola 94
Daphne Mezeruem 97
Deadly Nightshade 99
Dragons 103
Fly Agaric 105
Foxglove 107
Giant Hogweed 109
Hedge Hyssop 111
Hellebore 113
Hemlock 117
Hemp 121
Henbane 126
Holly 133
Horsetail 137
Ivy 139
Lettuce 98
Lily of Valley 147
Mandrake 150
Mistletoe 155
Monkshood 159
Morning Glory 163
Nettles 165
Opium Poppy 167
Pasque Flower 171
Pheasant's Eye 173
Petty Spurge 175
Rue 177
Savin 181
Soapwort 182
Sea Squill 185
Strychnine 187
Tansy 190
Thom Applev 192
Tobacco 197
Upas Tree 203
White Bryony 206
Woody Nightshade 209
Wormwood 211
Yew 217
Carnivorous Plants:
Pitcher Plant 221
Sundew 223
Venus Flytrap 226
Growing Poisonous Plants 229
What to do if affected by a Poisonous Plant 232
Other Poisonous Plants 233
Poison Gardens to Visit 237
The Conundrum 241
A Final word 242
Glossary 243
Bibliography 246
