This section is from "The Horticulturist, And Journal Of Rural Art And Rural Taste", by P. Barry, A. J. Downing, J. Jay Smith, Peter B. Mead, F. W. Woodward, Henry T. Williams. Also available from Amazon: Horticulturist and Journal of Rural Art and Rural Taste.
A few years ago there was in the Royal Botanical Gardens, at Kew, a specimen of probably the most poisonous plant ever introduced into England. It was the Jatropha urens, the properties of which are so noxious that its possession is positively dangerous. The ex-curator of the gardens was one day reaching over it, when its fine, bristly stings touched his wrist. The first sensation which he felt was a numbness and swelling of the lips; the action of the poison was on the heart, circulation was stopped and he soon fell, unconscious; the last thing he remembered being cries of "run for the doctor." Either the doctor was skillful, or the dose of poison injected not quite, though nearly, enough to cause death; but afterwards the young gardener, in whose house the plant was placed, got it thrust into a corner, and would not come within arm's length of it. He watered the offender with a pot having an extremely long spout. In a short time, however, the plant disappeared altogether, and another specimen of the genus Jatropha, which was afterwards introduced, vanished in the like mysterious manner.
It was presumed that the attendants were secretely determined that such plants should not be retained in the houses, to cause the possibility of an accident such as that which happened to their curator.
 
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