POISONOUS PLANTS

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXIV, 6 August 1931, Page 12

POISONOUS PLANTS

SOUTH. AFRICAN EXPERIENCES In coiiscquenco of recent tragedies, medical men have issued a. warning concerning the dangers encountered bv placing fooil on the bare ground while picnicking, and also by casually sucking blades of grass. Mr 11. Horning, of Grootfontcm, South West Africa, lias fallen a victim to poisoning by alleged “harmless” vegetation. Idlv plucking a blade, of grass, Mr Horning put it in bis mouth as be was walking along. A spore of seed of simgus adhering to the. grass entered Ins stomach, some time after which he bneamo violently ill. This illness puzzled both doctors ’and patient until the latter suddenly remembered the grass incident. The fungus had taken root on the side of his stomach, where it formed an abscess. Operations were unavailing and a kind of cancer developed, fiom which Mr Horning has now died. _ A similar case also happened in Jonannesburg recently, and thorp is the case of a mining engineer in Rhodesia, vv.iu, through also sucking a blade of glass, got a parasite of a spider into ns system, which, ultimately, led to Jis Natives, in Swaziland especially, tiie Tfnnskci and Rhodesia, arc wed aware that death lurks in veld grasses, and witch doctors habitually use fuugus-m----fectcd vegetation as ingredients .or poison. :