11. Vegetable: White Snakeroot
White Snakeroot, despite its decidedly evil-sounding name, looks like a perfectly innocent little shrub, with a pretty spray of white flowers. This plant contains a toxin called Tremetol which can lead to uncontrollable trembling, vomiting, intestinal problems, delerium, coma and death. So far, so standard for horribly toxic plants, but the reason why Snakeroot is on this list is because you don't have to go anywhere near it to receive a toxic dose. Most of the time, if you abstain from eating strange plants that you found in the woods (advisable), you can avoid poisoning, but the White Snakeroot is so toxic that you can become ill from just
drinking the milk of a cow who has eaten it. In the 1800s, thousands of people at the American frontiers fell sick and died from what they called Milk Sickness. It was so endemic that it could wipe out half the population of a frontier settlement and the recommended treatment of bloodletting only served to make matters worse. It became such a problem that a prize of $600 (the equivalent of nearly $15,000 today) was offered to the person who could find the cause of the poisonous milk. A young woman named Dr.
Anna Pierce Hobbs discovered the culprit in the 1830s after she learnt about the effects of White Snakeroot from a woman of the Shawnee tribe and put two-and-two together to realise it was the same toxin that had made its way into the milk. In true, 19th century style, however, Hobbs' discovery was not recognised and she was not paid the $600 because of her lady bits. It was not until the 21st century that she was officially recognised for her achievement.
Fun Fact: White Snakeroot poisoning via Milk Sickness is thought to have been what killed Abraham Lincoln's mother,
Nancy Hanks Lincoln, in 1818.