POISONED BY MONKSHOOD.

On Christmas day the family of Mr. Lloyd, farmer, Boakley Farm, near Malmesbury, were poisoned through eating roots with their Christmas dinner. Mr. Lloyd, his wife, and elder daughter partook of monkshood, which had been dug up in mistake for horseradish. They were seized with alarming symptoms, the prominent features of which were very weak intermittent pulsation, numbness, and tingling all over the body. Mrs. Lloyd, shortly after having partaken of the poisonous root, succumbed, and notwithstanding that medical aid was summoned and emetics administered, Mr. and Miss Lloyd remained in a precarious state. Apropos of the poisoning, a correspondent points out a method by which persons with no botanical knowledge may distinguish between the deadly monkshood and the useful horse-radish. The root of the former plant is what is called fusiform—that is, it is thickest in the middle and tapers towards both ends; similarly shaped roots may be seen in the radish and beet. The root of the horse-radish, no matter what its thickness may be, is always cylindrical—that is, of the same thickness throughout.