THE TOXICOLOGY OF PLANTS IN SOUTH AFRICA

First Edition: 631 pages, 135 plates and text illustrations, red cloth gilt on spine, a very good copy.

S2A3 Biographical Database of Southern African Science (https://www.s2a3.org.za/bio/Biograph_final.php?serial=2722)
Professor Douw Gerbrand Steyn, (1898-1988) was the pioneer research worker on veterinary plant poisonings and mycotoxicoses in southern Africa and published extensively in both the scientific and lay press, especially on plant poisonings. His work resulted in the recognition and consequent avoidance of the many uniquely southern African, and often massively fatal, plant intoxications. He was author or co-author of more than 200 publications, amongst which his standard handbook The toxicology of plants in South Africa (Johannesburg, 1934) was particularly important. Another book on toxicology, Vergiftiging van mens en dier (poisoning of humans and animals) followed in 1949. His contributions were widely recognised, inter alia by the following awards: The Senior Captain Scott Medal of the South African Biological Society (1941; he was its president in 1936), the Havenga Prize for Medicine of the Suid-Afrikaanse Akademie vir Wetenskap en Kuns (1954), the Gold Medal of the South African Veterinary Association (1977), and honorary doctorates from the Universities of Pretoria (1970) and Vienna (1980). He served on many committees and commissions of inquiry. In 1966 the South African Chemical Institute held a symposium in his honour.