impart their intoxicating quality to the beer, and render it unusually and even dangerously heady. When ground up with wheat and made into bread, they produce a similar effect, especially if the bread be eaten hot. Many instances are on record in which effects of this kind, sometimes amusing and sometimes alarming, have been produced by the unintentional consumption of darneled bread or beer. A recent case occurred on Christmas-day (1853) at Roscrea, in Ireland, where several families, containing not less than thirty persons, were poisoned by eating darnel flour in their whole-meal bread. They were attacked by giddiness, staggering, violent tremors similar to those experienced in the delirium tremens produced by intoxicating liquors, impaired vision, coldness of the skin and extremities, partial paralysis, and in some cases vomiting. By the use of emetics and stimulants all were recovered, though greatly prostrated in strength. The narcotic principle in these seeds has not yet been discovered. When distilled with water they yield a light and a heavy volatile oil; but that the narcotic virtue resides in these oils, has not yet been shown. No volatile alkali, like the nicotin of tobacco (p. 316), has been detected in the water and oils which distil over. 5°. SWEET GALE.-Though now, I believe, out of use in this country, the sweet gale (Myrica gale) is another native narcotic, of which the qualities appear to have been familiar to the ancient inhabitants of our islands. All the northern nations are said to have used this plant in former times to give bitterness and apparent strength to their fermented liquors. In Sweden this practice still prevails; and, as far back as 1440, King Christopher of Sweden confirmed an old law, which inflicted a fine upon those who collected this plant before the proper season, or from another person's land.* * BECKWITH'S History of Inventions (Bohn's edition), vol. ii. p. 385. THE RHODODENDRONS. 437 A tradition prevails in Ireland that the Danes knew how to make beer out of heather; and Boethius has preserved an early Scotch tradition of a similar kind. "In the deserts and moors of Scotland," he says, "there grows an herb named heather, very nutritive to beasts, birds, and especially to bees. In the month of June it produces a flower of purple hue as sweet as honey. Of this flower the Picts made a delicious and wholesome liquor. The manner of making it has perished with their extermination, as they never showed the craft of making it except to their own blood."* It is just possible that the grain of truth contained in this tradition may be, that the Picts flavoured their barley-worts with twigs of flowering heather; or that, like other northern nations, they used the narcotic gale which grows among the heather, to give a bitter flavour and a more intoxicating quality to the liquor they made from them. 6°. THE RHODODENDRONS form a well-known group of plants in which much narcotic virtue resides. The flowers of the Rhododendron arboreum are eaten as a narcotic by the hill people of India. The rusty-coloured leaves of the Rhododendron campanulatum are used as snuff by the natives of India, and the brown dust which adheres to the petioles of the kalmias and rhododendrons is used for a similar purpose in the United States of North America—(DECANDOLLE). The Rhododendron chrysanthemum, a Siberian bush, is one of the most active of narcotics; but whether it is employed in its native country as a narcotic indulgence, I am not aware. The Azalea pontica (fig. 76), a kindred shrub, which grows abundantly on the borders of the Black Sea, and * A more precise tradition, current in Teviotdale, has been preserved in LEXDEN'S Remains, p. 320, and in Mr. Christmas's very curious book, The Cradle of the Trein Giants (vol. ii. p. 198), to which I am indebted for the above extract from Boethius. Fig. 76. hangs out its tempting flowers in the season of honey-making, is said to be the source of the narcotic quality for which the Trebizond honey is famous. The effects of the Euxine honey, according to Pallas, resemble those produced by the bearded darnel, and occur where no true rhododendrons grow. The natives, he adds, are well aware of the poisonous qualities of this azalea. Goats, which browse on its leaves before the pastures become green, feel its influence, and both cattle and sheep are sometimes killed by it. The extraordinary effects which the honey, extracted from the flowers of this azalea produced upon the soldiers of Xenophon, bear ample testimony to their narcotic qualities. Azalea pontica-The Armenian Scale for plant in flower, with the I might notice many other plants which, though not employed as indulgences, have yet been frequently observed in common life to exhibit narcotic effects. Thus, among heath-plants, the Andromeda polifolia, a small shrub found wild in the bogs of northern Europe and America, is an acrid narcotic, and proves fatal to sheep. Similar properties have been observed, in the United States, in the Andromeda mariana, which is there called kill-lamb, or stagger-bush, because it is supposed to be poisonous to lambs and calves, producing a disease called the staggers. leaves unexpanded, 1 inch to 5 feet. -Scale for leaves and cluster of flowers, 1 inch to 3 inches. In the same country the leaves of the Kalmia latifolia *See THE SWEETS WE EXTRACT. NARCOTIC ODOURS. 439 are poisonous to many animals, and are reputed to be narcotic, but their action is feeble. Bigelow states that the flesh of pheasants which have fed on the young shoots is poisonous to man; and cases of severe illness are on record which have been ascribed to this cause alone. This property reminds us of those active ingredients of opium and the Siberian fungus which can pass unchanged through the milk and other liquid excretions of persons who consume them. About New York and in Long Island the Kalmia angustifolia is believed to kill sheep, and is known by the names of sheep-laurel, sheep-poison, lamb-laurel, and lambkill. The flowers of the kalmia exude a sweet honey-like juice, which is said when swallowed to bring on a mental intoxication, both formidable in its symptoms and long in duration (TORREY). In this it appears closely to resemble the Armenian azalea. Finally, I may remark that, according to Dr. Bird, the odour of vanilla intoxicates the labourer who gathers it. Even the perfumes of the rose, the pink, and other common sweet-smelling flowers, act on some persons as narcotic poisons (ORFILA). And the vapours arising from large quantities of saffron are said to produce similar effects-headache, apoplexy, and sometimes death. So much does the constitution of the individual exalt and increase the physiological action of substances which, to the mass of mankind, are not only harmless, but really sources of refined pleasure and enjoyment. 20 CHAPTER XXII. THE NARCOTICS WE INDULGE IN. GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS. Extended use of narcotic indulgences.-Numbers of men among whom they are consumed. The use of them to be restrained chiefly by moral means. Their agricultural and commercial importance.-Total annual production and value.—Their wonderful properties, and interest to the physiologist.-Analogy between diseased states of mind, natural and artificial.-Do all our feelings arise from physical causes?-Special properties of the different narcotics.-Defective state of our knowledge.-National influence of narcotics.-They react upon the constitution and character.-Coincidences in Asiatic and American customs.-Ancient connection between the continents.-General summary. I CANNOT dismiss the subject of the narcotics of common life, without drawing the attention of my readers to a few of the more interesting considerations which the facts above enumerated suggest to us. 10. THEIR Extended use.- -And the first reflection which occurs, as we cast a backward glance over the whole subject, is the almost universal use of narcotic indulgences. Siberia has its fungus-Turkey, India, and China, their opiumPersia, India, and Turkey, with all Africa from Morocco to the Cape of Good Hope, and even the Indians of Brazil, have their hemp and haschisch-India, China, and the Eastern Archipelago their betel-nut and betel-pepper--the |