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Article REVIEW OF NEW PUBLICATIONS. Page 1 of 8 →
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Review Of New Publications.
REVIEW OF NEW PUBLICATIONS .
An authentic Accsuni ef an Embassy from the King of Great Britain to the Emperor of China Taken chiefly frum the Papers of his Excellency the Earl of Macartney , K . B . His Majesty ' s Embassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to the Emperor of China , & c . By Sir George Staunton , Bart . L . L . ~ D . P . K . S . & c . 2 vols . ^ to . with Engravings , besides a folio Volume of Plates . 4 / . 4 J ; . in boards . Nicol . HcOSTIVUeP FIIOM OUR LAST . ]]
TI 7 E resume our extracts from this interesting and splendid work with VV pleasure . ' Concerning the supposed npas , or poison-tree of . Java , of which the ac- " count by Foersch attracted little notice , at least in England , till it . vvas admitted in a note to Dr . Darwin ' s celebrated poem of the Botanic Garden , inquiries were made by Dr . GiUan , and others belonging to the embassy . in and had
Foersch had certainly been a surgeon for some time Java , travelled into some parts of the interior of the country ; but his relation of a tree so venomous as to be destructive , by its exhalations , at some miles distance , is compared there to the fictions , of Baron Munchausen , or as a bold attempt to impose upon the credulity of persons at a distance . Yet , it thought a discredit to the country to be & ed of producinga '
as was suspe ^ vegetable of so venomous a quality , a Dutch dissertation has been written in refutation of the story . It appears from thence , that information was requested , on the part of the Dutch government of Batavia , from the Javanese prince , in whose territories this dreadful vegetable was asserted to be growing ; and that the prince , in his answer , denied any knowledge of such a production . Rtimphius , indeed , a respttftaWe author in natural history ,
of the last century , mentions a tree growing at Macassar , to which he gives the name of toxicaria ; and relates , that not only the red resin contained a deadly poison , but that the drops falling from the leaves upon the men employed in colle & ing this resin from the trunk , produced , unless they took particular care in covering their bodies , swellings and much illness ; and that the exhalations from tbe tree were fatal to some small birds attempting to perch upon its branches . But many of the particulars of this account , author
however far removed from that of Foersch , are given not upon the 's own observation , and may have been exaggerated . It is a common opinion , at Batavia , that there exists in that country a vegetable poison , which , rubbed on the daggers of the Javanese , renders the slightest wounds incurable ; though some European praftitioners have of late asserted , that they had cured persons stabbed by those weapons , but not without having taken the precaution of keeping the wound long and procuring a
suppuraopen , tion . One of the keepers of the medical garden at Batavia assured Dr . Gillan that a tree distilling a poisonous juice was in that collection ; but th . it its qualities were kept secret from most people in the settlement , lest the knowledge of them should find its way to the slaves , who jni tf ht be tempted to make an ill use of it . * VOL . IX , K K
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software.
Review Of New Publications.
REVIEW OF NEW PUBLICATIONS .
An authentic Accsuni ef an Embassy from the King of Great Britain to the Emperor of China Taken chiefly frum the Papers of his Excellency the Earl of Macartney , K . B . His Majesty ' s Embassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to the Emperor of China , & c . By Sir George Staunton , Bart . L . L . ~ D . P . K . S . & c . 2 vols . ^ to . with Engravings , besides a folio Volume of Plates . 4 / . 4 J ; . in boards . Nicol . HcOSTIVUeP FIIOM OUR LAST . ]]
TI 7 E resume our extracts from this interesting and splendid work with VV pleasure . ' Concerning the supposed npas , or poison-tree of . Java , of which the ac- " count by Foersch attracted little notice , at least in England , till it . vvas admitted in a note to Dr . Darwin ' s celebrated poem of the Botanic Garden , inquiries were made by Dr . GiUan , and others belonging to the embassy . in and had
Foersch had certainly been a surgeon for some time Java , travelled into some parts of the interior of the country ; but his relation of a tree so venomous as to be destructive , by its exhalations , at some miles distance , is compared there to the fictions , of Baron Munchausen , or as a bold attempt to impose upon the credulity of persons at a distance . Yet , it thought a discredit to the country to be & ed of producinga '
as was suspe ^ vegetable of so venomous a quality , a Dutch dissertation has been written in refutation of the story . It appears from thence , that information was requested , on the part of the Dutch government of Batavia , from the Javanese prince , in whose territories this dreadful vegetable was asserted to be growing ; and that the prince , in his answer , denied any knowledge of such a production . Rtimphius , indeed , a respttftaWe author in natural history ,
of the last century , mentions a tree growing at Macassar , to which he gives the name of toxicaria ; and relates , that not only the red resin contained a deadly poison , but that the drops falling from the leaves upon the men employed in colle & ing this resin from the trunk , produced , unless they took particular care in covering their bodies , swellings and much illness ; and that the exhalations from tbe tree were fatal to some small birds attempting to perch upon its branches . But many of the particulars of this account , author
however far removed from that of Foersch , are given not upon the 's own observation , and may have been exaggerated . It is a common opinion , at Batavia , that there exists in that country a vegetable poison , which , rubbed on the daggers of the Javanese , renders the slightest wounds incurable ; though some European praftitioners have of late asserted , that they had cured persons stabbed by those weapons , but not without having taken the precaution of keeping the wound long and procuring a
suppuraopen , tion . One of the keepers of the medical garden at Batavia assured Dr . Gillan that a tree distilling a poisonous juice was in that collection ; but th . it its qualities were kept secret from most people in the settlement , lest the knowledge of them should find its way to the slaves , who jni tf ht be tempted to make an ill use of it . * VOL . IX , K K