Thus
foxglove is not only a dangerous but a "subtle" poison.
Among other plants which may cause serious mischief, but are seldom
suspected, are such harmless-looking flowers as the meadowsweet,
herb-paris, the common fool's-parsley, found growing in quantities in the
gardens of unlet houses and neglected ground which has been in
cultivation, mezereon, columbine, and laburnum. Meadowsweet has the
following set against its name: "A few years since two young men went from
London to one of the Southern counties on a holiday excursion, on the last
day of which they gathered two very large sheafs of meadowsweet to bring
home with them. These they placed in their bedroom at the village inn
where they had to put up. In the course of the night they were taken
violently ill, and the doctor who was called in stated that they were
suffering from the poisonous prussic-acid fumes of the meadowsweet
flowers, which he said almost overpowered him when he came into the room.
The flowers were at once removed, and the young men, treated with suitable
restoratives, were by next morning sufficiently recovered to undertake the
journey home." [1] Without knowing what the young men had had for supper,
it seems perhaps rather hasty to blame the meadowsweet.
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