A Deadly Mistake in the Wilds
A local man's near-fatal encounter with water hemlock serves as a grim warning about the importance of botanical knowledge in rural life.
A few years ago, a young man living two miles from me dug up some roots along the rocky margin of a creek, mistaking them for aromatic spikenard. He ate sufficient of the roots to cause intense convulsions, which lasted full 20 hours. His throat and mouth kept filling with ropy, glairy mucous. He could not swallow and medication was limited chiefly to inhaling chloroform and hypodermic injections of morphia and atropia. He gradually recovered and is well now. The root he ate was water hemlock or cicuta, which is intensely poisonous. If the young man had been a better observer of things that grow, he would never have made the mistake that came near costing him his life.
“He ate sufficient of the roots to cause intense convulsions, which lasted full 20 hours.”
This story highlights the historical necessity of foraging knowledge in a time before modern medical access was readily available in rural Washington. It serves as a reminder of the dangers lurking in the landscape that early settlers had to learn to navigate through trial and error.
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