U4 



THE ALUMNI JOURNAL. 



slain in battle, and but a few years ago 

 an English missionary, Bishop Patter- 

 son, died in agony from a slight wound 

 from one of those weapons. While, quite 

 recently, an account was given in one of 

 the medical journals, of a tribe who en- 

 venomed their arrows with mud from a 

 particular swamp, which they had found 

 by experience produced rapid and fatal 

 symptoms of lock-jaw, evidently an 

 early and active, if somewhat unscien- 

 tific, use of the tetanus bacillus. 



After once learning the properties of 

 these substances it was an easy step to 

 begin to use them in food and drink, and 

 we find the priests, as the most intel- 

 ligent and educated class, in ancient 

 times, as now among the savages, pass- 

 ing down from generation to generation 

 the secrets of this art. In one of the 

 early Egyptian papyri it is mentioned 

 that " whosoever shall disclose this name 

 (referring to some one of the sacred 

 mysteries) shall suffer the penalty of 

 the peach," thereby indicating that at 

 this early period the deadly prussicacid, 

 and the method of preparing it by dis- 

 stillation, had been discovered, and was 

 in use by the priesthood. 



As early as Homer's day the properties 

 and uses of various powerful drugs were 

 undoubtedly known. Fair Helen of 

 Troy, for instance, is related to have 

 given her husband Menelaus and his re- 

 tainers a sleeping draught of ' nepenthe,' 

 the night that she eloped with the ill- 

 omened Paris. This draught, like the 

 drugged cake given by Jason, at Medea's 

 instigation, to the dragon guarding the 

 golden fleece, is supposed to refer to the 

 use of opium; while the story of Circe 

 changing the comrades of Ulysses into 



various animals by her enchanted wine, 

 has been supposed to refer to the peculiar 

 intoxicating effects of other vegetable 

 drugs, like Cannabis Indica, added to 

 overdoses of alcohol. 



The Greeks, until their downfall as a 

 nation, made but little use of poisons for 

 private malice. They employed them 

 as a means of suicide, as for instance, in 

 the case of Demosthenes, and also for a 

 special purpose, i. e. for public execu- 

 tions. This was probably owing to the 

 great respect they paid to the human 

 body, which made them unwilling to dis- 

 figure it unnecessarily by decapitation or 

 otherwise. The state poison used by 

 the Athenians was a strong infusion of 

 the poison hemlock, cotiium niaculatum, 

 and one of the most interesting and most 

 touching passages in all ancient literature 

 is the description by Plato of the death 

 of Socrates, by this means, B. C. 399. 

 Socrates was a thoroughly upright man, 

 a good citizen, a capable soldier, a wise 

 and elevating instructor, but he had 

 raised a host of keen personal enemies 

 by his brusque manners, his new 

 doctrines, and his exasperating methods 

 of public argument. Condemned to death, 

 finally, on the charge of corrupting the 

 young men, he disdained to ask for 

 mercy, and spent his last day with his 

 friends, talking on various subjects of in- 

 terest, cheering them, and convincing 

 them of his perfect readiness to meet 

 death. Finally, at sunset, the fatal 

 draught was brought in ; he drank it 

 quietly, and when, after a little time, the 

 poison took effect he lay down on the 

 couch, covered his face with his robe and 

 passed away. It is interesting to notice 

 that the symptoms of the poison as given 



