The jatropha berry (a type of spurge) was to blame for this mass poinsoning. But then the people who ate them were rather trusting and uncurious.
” – Bristol, May 24, – This city was yesterday the scene of an extraorodinary and alarming event:- that of upwards of a hundred persons being seized almost simultaneously with alarming symptoms, through eating of a poisonous berry, called the jatropha. Messrs. Visger, Miller, and Co., who are large manufacturers of a peculiar kind of oil which is extracted from these berries, are in the habit of importing large quantities of them, and recently had a cargo arrive, in a vessel called the Miranda. This ship has been discharging her cargo, and yesterday, the packages of berries were being removed from the wharf on the quay to the manufactory, when one of them by some means broke, and its contents were cast out and scattered about the streets. A number of children and some grown persons ate a quantity of the berries, and immediately became so alarmingly ill that it was found necessary to place them in the Infirmary and under the care of various medical gentlemen in the city. The greatest apprehensions were felt for the results, not fewer than 100 persons having been thus violently attacked with illness. However, in the evening it was announced that a considerable number had been effectually cured, and the remainder of the sufferers were convalescent.”
The Stamford Mercury, 26th May, 1848.