POISONING BY PRIMULA

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXI, 9 October 1928, Page 2

POISONING BY PRIMULA

SYDNEY MAN’S EXPERIENCE AN EXTRAORDINARY CASE i Through contact with one of the commonest \tinter flowering plants in suburban gardens, a Sydney professional gardener has for seven months lain at the point o£ death (says an Australian paper). His case is regarded by specialists as extraordinary and emphasises the unrecognised menace to amateur gardeners and others in one of our most popular garden plants. ..Mr Spahno js a well-known Sydney master-gardener, whose skill in. his profession is proverbial. Early this year Mr Spahno was at work on a flower* bed bordered by the ornamental plant known as Primula Malaeoides. Ho bad a small cut or abrasion on his hand, which he had not covered with a bandage, believing the hurt trivial. During bis work this injured band came into contact with several of the border primulas. Later in the day be was using spray containing lime and sulphur, some of which fell on the cut, sealing it. 'Thereafter the trouble, which was believed due to the primula, began. Ill’s band swelled up and turned black. Maddening pain and irritation, set in, and he giew so ill that a doctor was called and the patient was hurried to the Royal Prince Alfred- Hospital, as a case of acute “blood-poisoning.” ■'Blood-poisoning” (septicaemia) is a term which is usually confined to general invasions of the body by the germs of sepsis, which have* gained access through some break in the skin. It was soon discovered, however, that Mr Spahno’s symptoms were not typical of flio usual germ-infection. In his case the skin turned black and ultimately peeled off, and, spreading from his originally infected hand, maddening irritation set in which the physicians were unable to alleviate. For a time his life was despaired of. .Skin disease experts were now called in and many leading .Macquarie Street specialists saw the patient, whose case admittedly puzzled them. Finally they came ten the conclusion that the case was actually one of “Primula-poisoning.” That the Primula can be an excessively dangerous plant was recognised in England as far back as 1910, when there was an outbreak of poisoning among professional gardeners. At that time a craze started for a henhouse plant named Primula Obconcia, known popularly as Chinese Primrose. When handled, minute hairs of the plant remained on the skin, setting up first itching and then a spreading inflammation which proved very difficult of treatment. The Primula favoured by Australian gardeners is the Malaeoides type, a hardy plant, which in this climate can he •frown anywhere out-of-doors. Up. to the present it has not been considered particularly poisonous. In tile case of Mr .Spahno, however, the poisoning was of a virulent type, and (what is a disquieting point), spread in spite of the physician’s efforts, to cover the whole of his body. No treatment could bring relief. Finally, after Mr Spahno had been several weeks in hospital, the doctors said they could do nothing further, and lie was. taken Lome. He is still bedridden, having remained thus for seven months. His wife says there has been no change in his condition since he left the hospital, which as the physicians could not alleviate ’ his sufferings, lie left in little better condition than he entered. The case is of unique interest both

to the medical profession and the layman. Admittedly there is some doubt as to the extent of the role played by the primula in the original seizure. But there seems little doubt as to the final result being due to the plant or to fairly frequent occurrence of primula-poisoning among gardeners (either amateur of professional), who handle the plant. One well-known skin specialist consulted by “Smith’s” said that Primula, Malaeoides was responsible for many minor cases of poisoning, and that there was some-doubt as to the source of the plant-poison, some believing it a toxin contained in the pollen. Apparently such types of plant-pois-oning are not well understood. Recenti research lias unearthed a. large class of skin-trouble due to common garden plants. The best known is that due to poison-ivy, a creeper common in America. Another skin poison is contained in the ordinary daffodil and narcissus, and sets up “lily-rash” in . flowerpickers when those blooms are grown commercially. Still another exists ,in titree,, and many other, types of eucalptus. Mr J. 11. Maiden, who made a study of Australian, gums, pointed out (so long ago as 1904) that grey gum, spotted gum, and “box” would set up deniatitis (skin inflammation) not only to those handling them but to any susceptible person, in thc-ir proximity. The latter statement is significant in view of the belief of some skin-specialists that prim-ula-poisoning is due to pollen, and hence might possibly be carried to a human being by the wind.