CHEMICAL SCIENCE. 209 



but not very severe. Once begun, it can only be left off by very gvaduany 

 diminishing the daily dose, as a sudden cessation causes sickness, burning- 

 pains in the stomach, and other symptoms of poisoning, very speedily fol- 

 lowed by death. As a rule, arsenic-eaters are very long- lived, and are 

 peculiarly exempt from infectious diseases, fevers, etc.; but, unless they 

 gradually give up the practice, invariably die suddenly at last. In some 

 arsenic works near Salzburg- with which he is acquainted, he says the only 

 men who can stand the work for any time are those who swallow daily doses 

 of arsenic, the fumes, etc., soon killing the others. 



Prof. E. Kopp has also stated ( Comptes Rendits, 18-">6), that he found in the 

 course of a series of experiments upon arsenic acid, which was manu- 

 factured upon a great scale, and largely employed in calico printing by 

 him, that the weight of the body rapidly increased, some twenty pounds 

 having been gained in the course of the two months during which he was 

 subject to absorb the acid, his hands having been frequently in contact with 

 the arsenical solution : arsenic being detected the while in his solid and 

 liquid excrements. As soon, however, as the exposure to the arsenic ceased, 

 his weight began to decrease, and in nine or ten weeks fell back to its nor- 

 mal, one hundred and fifty pounds. It is reasonable, therefore, that 

 direct, positive evidence like this, though the instance be solitary, where 

 the subject of the experiment was a healthy, vigorous man, and a trained 

 observer, ought to outweigh almost any amount of negative testimony, such 

 as has been brought forward by physicians who have not witnessed similar 

 effects upon their diseased patients, when the latter were treated with arseni- 

 cal preparations. Another fact, says Prof. Heisch, mentioned to me by some 

 friends, is well worthy of note. They say : " In this part of the world, when 

 a graveyard is full, it is shut up for about twelve years, when all the graves 

 which are not private property by purchase are dug up, the bones collected 

 in the charnel house, the ground ploughed over, and burying begins again. 

 On these occasions, the bodies of arsenic-eaters are found almost unchanged, 

 and recognizable by their friends. Many people suppose that the finding of 

 their bodies is the origin of the story of the vampire." In the Medicinisches 

 Jahrbitch des Oster: Kaiser staates, 1822, muest FoJge, there is a report by 

 Professor Schallgruber, of the Imperial Lyceum at Giiitz, of an investigation 

 undertaken by order of government into various cases of poisoning by 

 arsenic. After giving details of six post-morUm. examinations, he says : " The 

 reason of the frequency of these sad cases appears to me to be the famili- 

 arity with arsenic which exists in our country, particularly the higher parts. 

 There is hardly a district in Upper Styria where you will not find arsenic in 

 at least one house, under the name of hydrach. They use it for the com- 

 plaints of domestic animals, to kill vermin, and as a stomachic to excite an 

 appetite. I saw one peasant show another, on the point of a knife, how 

 much arsenic he took daily, without which, he said, he could not live; the 

 quantity I should estimate at two grains." 



In this connection it must not be forgotten that, in the opinion of many 

 scientific men, the healing action of various mineral waters may depend, in 

 part at least, upon the arsenic which these springs are known to contain : 

 a doctrine which is publicly taught by several of the chemical professors at 

 Paris. 



F. H. Storer, Esq., in a recent communication to Sittiman's Journal on this 

 subject, says : 



Taken as a whole, the medical evidence which has fallen under our 



18* 



