Health and Temperance

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · May 20, 1886

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 12, No. 19.

Health and Temperance.

Poisonous Tea.

A RECENT New York dispatch to the San Francisco Chronicle gives the following facts relative to the poisoning of the crew of the bark Syringa:—

The bark sailed from Brunswick, Ga., for Hamburg, about five months ago. Her crew consisted of the captain, two mates, the third officer, the steward, and eight sailors. They had not been long at sea when all the officers, the steward, and several of the men were attacked violently with diarrhea. To this was added an itching on the soles of the feet and a numbness which, beginning at the feet, gradually crept up the legs. Their eyesight was also affected, but not sufficiently to interfere materially with sailing the ship. In due time the Syringa arrived at Hamburg, when the second mate was discharged and another man taken in his stead. After taking in a cargo, Captain Wright set out for this city. They had been at sea but a short time when all their former symptoms, which had disappeared while they were at Hamburg, again manifested themselves in an aggravated form. The steward also became somewhat ill again, but the new second mate was not taken down and the third officer continued comparatively well. Captain Wright endeavored to ascertain the cause of this mysterious malady. He examined the food and cooking utensils, but found nothing to which he could attribute a poisonous character except the tea. He was inclined to suspect that, because those who drank the strongest tea were the sickest. He had two pet rabbits on board; he determined to feed them on tea leaves. One refused to eat the tea leaves; the other did eat and died in a few hours. Tea was now tabooed, but although they gave up the cause of their trouble, Captain Wright and his brother, the first mate, so far as seeing was concerned, grew worse. They gradually became so blind that they could not take observations, or took them so badly that their calculations were unreliable.

As nobody on board knew anything about navigation at all, the Syringa from this time forth was sailed by guess-work. Finally, with the aid of friendly craft going in the same direction, she at last found her way into New York harbor. She reached New York seventy-two days after leaving Hamburg. The two Wrights immediately sought the advice of an oculist, but it is feared that they will remain permanently blind. An examination of the tea by an expert showed that it contained a large proportion of mineral poison.