4. Depressant. Symptoms: vertigo, vomiting, abdominal pain, confused vision, convulsions, paralysis, fainting, sometimes asphyxia.
5. Asthenic. Symptoms: numbness, tingling mouth, abdominal pain, vertigo, vomiting, purging, delirium, paralysis, fainting.
6. Irritant. Symptoms: burning pain in throat and stomach, thirst, nausea, vomiting. Death by shock, convulsions or exhaustion; or starvation by injury to throat or stomach.
SPECIMENS LISTED BY CUSTOMS AND EXCISE
DEPARTMENT AS IMPORTED BY DOCTOR GUNTRAM
SHATTERHAND
Jamaica dogwood, fish-poison tree (Piscidia erythrina): Tree, 30 ft. White and blood-coloured flowers. Inebriant. Toxic principle: piscidine. W. Indies.
Nux-vomica tree, poison-nut, crow-fig, kachita (Strychnos nux-vomica): Tree 40 ft. Smooth bark, attractive fruits, which have bitter taste. Greenish-white flowers. Seeds most poisonous part. Convulsivant. Toxic principle: strychnine, brucine. S. India, Java.
Guiana poison-tree (Strychnos toxifera): curare arrow-poison taken from bark. Creeper. Death within one hour from respiratory paralysis. Toxic principles: curare, strychnine, brucine. Guiana.
St Ignatius's bean (Strychnos Ignatü): small tree, seeds yield brucine. Convulsivant. Philippines.
False Upas-tree (Strychnos tieute): large climbing shrub. Strychnine or brucine from leaf, seed, stem or root-bark. Java.
East Indian snakewood (Strychnos colubrina): climbing tree. Yields strychnine, brucine. Convulsivant. Java, Timor.
Ipecacuanha (Psjchotria ipecacuanha}: shrubby plant. Depressant. Toxic principle: emetine, from root. Brazil.
White-woolly Kombe bean, Gaboon arrow poison (Stropanthus hispidus): woody climber, 6 ft. Toxic principle: strophan-thin, incine. Asthenic. W. Africa.
Ordeal-tree, poison tanghin (Tanghinia venenifera or cerbera tanghin): small evergreen tree, 20 ft. Fruit purplish, tinged with green. Toxic principle: tanghinine, cerberin. Asthenic. Madagascar.
Upas-tree, Malay arrow-poison tree (Antiaria toxicaria): jungle tree - 100 ft. before branches start. Wood light, white, hard, milk-bearing. Toxic principle: antiarin, from milky sap. Asthenic. Java, Borneo, Sumatra, Philippines.
Poison ivy, trailing poison oak (Khus toxicodendron): climbing shrub. Greenish-yellow flowers. Stem contains milky juice - irritant. Toxic principle: toxicodendrol.USA.
Yellow oleander, campanilla, be-still tree (Thevetia peruviana): small tree. All parts can be fatally toxic, particularly fruit. Pulse slows, vomiting, shock. Hawaii.
Castor bean plant (Kicintis communis): seeds are source of castor oil, also contain toxic principle, ricin. Harmless if eaten. If it enters the circulation through scratch or abrasion is fatal within 7-10 days. One hundredth of a milligram can kill a 200 Ib. man. Loss of appetite, emesis, purgation, delirium, collapse and death. Hawaii, S. America.
Common oleander (Nerium Indicum): evergreen shrub. The roots, bark, juice, flowers and leaves all fatally toxic. Acts chiefly on the heart. Used in India as leprosy treatment, abortifacient, means of suicide. India, Hawaii. One death was due to the victim's having eaten meat cooked over an open fire, spitted on a stick of oleander wood.
Rosary pea, crab's eye, Jequiritz bean (Abrus precatorius): climbing shrub. Small shiny red seeds weight average 1.75 grains, used by Indian goldsmiths as weights. Seeds are ground down into a paste with a little cold water, made into small pointed cylinders. If these are inserted beneath skin of human or animal death occurs within four hours. India, Hawaii.
Jimson weed (Datura stramonium): variety of thorn apple plant, found in N. Africa, India. Also: Ololiuqui (D. mete-loides) from Mexico, and D. tatula from Central and South America. All three are hallucinatory. D. stramonium's apples are smoked by Arabs and Swahilis, leaves eaten by E. African Negroes, seeds added to hashish and leaves to hemp by Bengalese Indians. D. tatula was used as a truth-drug by Zapotec Indians in courts of law. Addiction to toloachi, a drink made from D. tatula, causes chronic imbecility,
Gloriosa superba: spectacularly beautiful climbing lily. Roots, stalks, leaves contain an acrid narcotic, superbine, as well as colchicine and choline. Three grains of colchicine are fatal. Hawaii.
Sand-box tree (Hura crepitans}: whole tree contains an active emetocathartic, used as a fish-poison in Brazil. Also contains crepitin, same group of poisons as ricin. Harmless if swallowed, must be taken into circulation through wound to be fatal. Death comes in 7-10 days. C. and S. America.
Pride-of-India, Chinaberry tree, China tree (Melia azedarach}: small tree. Beautiful dark-green leaves, lavender blossoms. Fruit contains toxic narcotic which attacks entire central nervous system. Hawaii, C. and S. America.
Physic nut (Jatropha curcas): bushy tree. Raw seeds violently purgative, often fatal due to exhaustion. Caribbean.
Mexican tuber, camotillo: wild potato, grows generally. According to Indian tradition, it is plucked during the waning of the moon; it is alleged to begin deadly action the same number of days after consumption as it was stored after being dug up. Toxic principle: solanine. Central and S. America.
Divine mushroom (Amanita mexicana): closely related to European Fly Agaric. Black mushroom, eaten fresh or steeped in warm milk laced with agave spirits. Causes hypersensitivity of the skin surface, ultra-acute hearing and sight, then hallucinations of several hours, followed by deep melancholia. Active principle unknown. Central and S. America.
Bond finished his reading. He handed the papers back. He said, 'Doctor Shatterhand's garden is indeed a lovesome thing, God wot.'
'And you have of course heard of the South American piranha fish? They can strip a whole horse to the bones in less than an hour. The scientific name is Serrasalmus. The subspecies Nattered is the most voracious. Our good doctor has preferred these fish to our native goldfish for his lakes. You see what I mean?'
'No,' said Bond, 'frankly I don't. What's the object of the good doctor's exercise?'
8
SLAY IT WITH FLOWERS
IT WAS three o'clock in the morning. The noise of the traffic to Yokohama had died. James Bond didn't feel tired. He was now totally absorbed in this extraordinary story of the Swiss doctor, who, as Tiger had originally said, 'collected death'.
Tiger wasn't telling him this bizarre case history for his entertainment. There was going to come a moment of climax. What would that climax be?
Tiger wiped his hand over his face. He said, 'Did you read a story in the evening edition of the Asahi today? It concerned a suicide.'
'No.'
'This was a young student aged eighteen who had failed his examination for the university for the second time. He lived in the suburbs of Tokyo. There was construction work on a new department, a department store, going on near where he lived. He went out of his room on to the site. A pile-driver was at work, sinking the foundations. Suddenly this youth broke through the surrounding workmen and, as the pile came crashing down, laid his head on the block beneath it.'
'What a ghastly business! Why?'
'He had brought dishonour on his parents, his ancestors. This was his way of expiation. Suicide is a most, unfortunate aspect of the Japanese way of life.' Tiger paused. 'Or perhaps a most noble one. It depends how you look at it. That boy, and his family, will have gained great face in his neighbourhood.'
'You can't gain face from strawberry jam.'
'Think again, Bondo-san. Your posthumous VCs, for instance?'
'They're not awarded for committing suicide after failing in an examination.'
'We are not so demokorasu as you are.' There was irony in Tiger's voice. 'Dishonour must be expunged - according to those of us who remain what you would describe as old-fashioned. There is no apology more sincere than the offering up of your own life. It is literally all you have to give.'
'But even if this boy failed for the university, he could have gone for a lower standard of examination, for a lower grade of college. As you know, we say "Blast!" or perhaps a stronger word if we fail an examination in Britain. But we readjust our sights, or our parents do it for us, and have another bash. We don't kill ourselves. It wouldn't occur to us. It would be dishonourable rather than honourable. It would be cowardly - a refusal to stand up to reverses, to life. And it would give great pain to our parents, and certainly no satisfaction to our ancestors.'