POISONED ARROWS.

Samoa Times and South Sea Gazette, Issue 4, 27 October 1877, Page 3

POISONED ARROWS.

A PAPER on " Poisoned Arrows " appears in a recent number of the " < 'oiiteinporarv Review," from which we ham that

" accounts given by the missionaries of the proper nature of the poisons used to rentier arrows noxious, appear to show that the natives of the North of the New Hebrides ami Hanks' Islands ilo not themselves attach importance to the effects of the substance with which the arrows arc poisoned, hut seem to regard the innocuous human hone, forming the point of the weapon, as a powerful agent in producing deleterious effects. The poisons, according to the evidence of the missionaries, are derived from vegetables ; the plants used in the Banks' Islands being " Toe," a species of Euphorbiacece, and "Coke," a climbing plant, allied to Strychnia. The same evidence declares the fact that the usual effects of wounding with arrows so prepared are inflammation, and occasionally tetanus; but the important remark is also made that the natives of the South Pacific are very subject to tetanus, '■ after wounds not produced by poisoned arrows " ; and this disorder is also common among the natives independently lof wounding. Professor Hall'ord, of Melbourne University—an authority on snakes and bites —gives evidence to the effect that dogs and pigeons exhibited no evil effects after heing wounded in various ways by poisoned arrows obtained from the Solomon Islands, and by the substances obtained from these weapons. That Dr. Messer's observations on this subject therefore afford good grounds for believing that many of the reports relating to the deadly nature of the anows used by the South' Sea Islanders are decidedly erroneous, there can be no reasonable doubt, and that many of the cases of so-called poisoning are due simply to mental fear; and the physical irritation inducing tetanus seems also a fair inference. Hut there can be no doubt that at the same time travellers and missionaries, by careful observation, . might furnish scientific men with secure . data upon which to establish sound