154 PEOF. ATTFIELD — POISOXS NOT ALWAYS POISOXS. 



get accustomed to the eating of vegetable poisons, and perhaps 

 animal poisons, but they questioned whether mineral poisons could 

 be so absorbed without producing the usual effects. • That is the 

 opinion you will find recorded in all the old books and in the older 

 editions of the current works on toxicology. But it is now certain, 

 from impartial observations, that many persons do accustom them- 

 selves to eat arsenic. They take a piece of white arsenic — five, six, 

 or even seven grains — and swallow it, and it produces no unpleasant 

 effects at all. They begin when young with small (|uantities, but 

 at last they are able to take at one dose the amount I have men- 

 tioned. The notion is that it improves the complexion of the lady 

 portion of the community, and gives strength to the men.* These 

 are all the cases I think it desirable to bring before you 

 respecting the fact — for it obviously is a fact — of poisons not 

 being always poisonous. They all support my conclusions respect- 

 ing the poison-eating habits of the three species of animals I have 

 introduced to your notice. 



I bring this subject before the Society not only for its own 

 intrinsic interest — and every new truth, however insignificant 

 it may appear, is a distinct addition to the sum total of human 

 knowledge, and must have its value — but in the hope that it may 

 encourage even those members Avho have not had any previous 

 special scientific training to make similar investigations. When 

 I commenced these observations, I was quite ignorant of Natural 

 History ; but that did not prevent me from being sufficiently 

 interested to follow them out. I am quite convinced that, with- 

 out going from the four walls of one's house, one might, especially 

 by the aid of a microscope, make many investigations of this kind. 

 One might hope, nay expect, that members of a Natural History 

 Society, many of whom are botanists and acquainted with the 

 plants of this county, might also help to throw light on the ques- 

 tion of the poisonous or non-poisonous properties of certain plants. 

 The yew, for example. The yew has been said to be poisonous to 

 animals, and there can be no question that it is so sometimes. It 

 is quite certain that some animals have been seen to eat the yew, 

 and have been killed by it. Animals have died and leaves of the 

 yew have been found in them. It is also pretty clear that at least 

 the stones of the fruit of the yew tree are more or less poisonous. 

 I was chemically engaged in a case some time ago, in which the 

 fruit of the yew had been eaten by children, who became very ill, 

 one of them dying. That child ate a large quantity of the fruit, 

 including stones. The probability is that the pulp of the fruit is 

 not noxious, but that the stones are. But observations are wanted, 

 and niimbers of observations are wanted. In a large Society like 

 this, doubtless some members have already made, or they may in 

 future make, observations on plants like the yew, poisonous to 



* See ' riiarmaceutical Journal,' vol. i, 2iid series, p. 556, ancl vol. ii, 2nd 

 series, p. 337. Liebis^'s ' Theories of the Action of Poisons ' will be found in 

 the ' Pharmaceutical Journal' for November, 1841. 



