30 PKOCEEDINGS OF THE 



be the other. This may explain a certain reticence on the part 

 of classical writers as regards banes. Their allusions suggest 

 that a good deal was known about them, but that the topic was 

 not a ' respectable ' one. 



There have, however, been other sequels to the popularization 

 of this kind of knowledge. Both in the old world and in the new 

 the possibilities were utilized in ways that have been deemed 

 legitimate. Vegetable poisons are employed in regions so remote 

 as Guiana and the Himalaya to render the missiles of blowpipe 

 and bow more effective as weapons. In the best days of Athenian 

 culture they were used as a means of inflicting capital punish- 

 ment more seemly in Greek eyes than the modes of decapitation 

 and strangulation which commend themselves yet to races less 

 refined. African communities, whose polity embodies the logical 

 application of socialist doctrine, have made an expert knowledge of 

 poisons the scientific basis of an elaborate juridical system. Prior 

 to the advent of our era the same knowledge enabled man to 

 perform without discomfort to his fellows the always ])ermis8ible 

 and often imperative ceremony of suicide. Both before and since 

 the promulgation of our more humane beliefs the discreet use of 

 poison was a recognized method of settling private and public 

 disputes. By degrees it was reahzed that in personal quarrels the 

 practice is apt to be inconvenient, and the opinion gradually 

 developed that addiction to the habit is not consonant with 

 'good manners.' But, if history may be trusted, the use of 

 poison as a stereotyped weapon of statecraft has been stamped 

 with the authority and approval of Kings and Popes. Half in 

 earnest, a learned friend has suggested that the human record 

 almost indicates that, given the opportunity, man has found it 

 difficult to resist the temptation to poison either his neighbour or 

 himself. At all events, few branches of natural history have been 

 studied more assiduously or more successfully. 



The study of poisons induced a search, just as assiduous, for 

 antidotes. If this counter-study were less successful it was more 

 widely diffused. The belief has been entertained at some period 

 by most peoples, and is firmly rooted in the minds of many races 

 still, that, all cases of illness must be due either to witchcraft or 

 to poison. The object therefore was to secure some specific w hose 

 presence on or in the person might counteract the effects of charm 

 and bane. Sooner or later events showed that the ideal had not 

 been attained, and man was driven to the supplementary expedient 

 of administering an antidote after the real or supposed effects 

 were manifest. If the result usually proved disappointing, there 

 were occasional instances of a])parent success. The substance 

 administered sometimes was remedial against an ailment whose 

 symptoms had been mistaken for the effects of a tpupfxaKov 

 urSpocpoyov. 



Gradual realization of the facts and the further discovery that 

 even lethal substances, warily used, may be potent remedies, led 

 to some re-orientation of view. The 0fip/u(K«. while still 



