A ghastly superstition was attached to the Yew when thus
A ghastly superstition was attached to the Yew when thus growing in a churchyard, that it would prey upon [621] the dead bodies lying beneath its sombre shade. So Tennyson writes (_In Memoriam_):–
“Old Yew! which graspest at the stones That name the underlying dead, Thy fibres net the dreamless head, Thy roots are wrapped about the bones.”
The juice of the tree and of its leaves is a rapidly fatal poison, the symptoms corresponding in a very remarkable way with those which follow the bites of venomous snakes.
No known poison but the Yew produces the lazar-like ulcerations upon the body, on which Marlowe lays such stress–(Jew of Malta):–
“In few, the blood of Hydra–Herne’s bane, The juice of _Hebron_, and Cocytus’ breath, And all the poisons of the Stygian pool.”
The witches in _Macbeth_ include it in their accursed brew:–
“Liver of blaspheming Jew, Gall of goat, and _Slips of Yew_.”
The Yew tree is called “Hebon” by Spencer, and “Jew of Malta” by other writers of Shakespeare’s time. The leaves are bitter, nauseous, and acrid. The succulent covering of the fruit is soft and slimy, mawkishly sweet, and mucilaginous. The leaves have a dangerous effect on the circulation of the heart, and when taken with any freedom are as fatal as the Foxglove.
Before the new Shakespeare Society, 1882, it was contended and proved to the satisfaction of the Society, that “the cursed Hebena,” the “leperous distilment poured into the chambers of mine ears,” told of, so pathetically, by the sad ghost of Hamlet’s father, was the [622] poison of the Yew, and identical with Marlow[e]’s juice of Hebron.
Ray mentions that a gardener employed in clipping a Yew tree at Pisa, could not proceed with his work for more than half-an-hour at a time without being seized with a violent pain in the head. Nevertheless, deer, sheep, and goats can eat the foliage with impunity.
The fresh leaves were administered to three children near Manchester for worms. Yawning and listlessness came on, and the eldest vomited a little, but neither of them complained of any pain. They all died within a few hours of each other.
Because being then green, on the Sunday next before Easter, the branches of the Yew tree have been used as a substitute for the Palms which symbolise the entry of Jesus into Jerusalem.
The symptoms induced by provings of the leaves and juice in toxic quantities, have been sick headache, with giddiness, feeble, faltering pulse, coldness of the extremities, diarrhoea, and general prostration. So that for this combination of symptoms, as in severe biliousness, or as in the auditory vertigo of Meniere’s disease, small doses of the diluted tincture are found to give prompt and effectual relief. The leaves contain a volatile oil, tannin, and a bitter principle “taxina,” which is also furnished by the seeds. An extract of Yew has been pronounced a useful narcotic by more than one physician of repute: and in some parts of Germany a decoction of the wood is a well-known remedy against hydrophobia.
