THE UPAS TREE 



Yet even in the time of Homer the sense of humanity 

 seems to have decided against poisoned arrows as being both 

 unnecessary and cruel, just as, in our own times, explosive 

 bullets have been condemned, and are no longer used by 

 civilized nations. But we should remember that until man 

 became so expert with the bow and spear and so civilized by 

 tribal fights as to be able to do without poisons, they were a 

 very useful help in the struggle for civilization. Hundreds 

 of thin pieces of bamboo about six inches long were 

 regularly carried by certain African tribes. When dipped 

 in poison and afterwards placed in paths in the ground, 

 they formed a very efficient protection against barefooted 

 enemies. 



The Antiaris alluded to above is the famous Upas tree of 

 Java. The tree was said to grow in a desert with not 

 another living plant within ten miles of it. Such was the 

 virulence of its poison that there were no fish in the waters. 

 Neither rat, nor mouse, nor any other vermin had ever been 

 seen there ; and when any birds flew so near this tree that 

 the effluvia reached them, they fell dead — a sacrifice to the 

 effects of its poison. Out of a population of sixteen 

 hundred persons who were compelled, on account of civil 

 dissensions, to reside within twelve or fourteen miles of the 

 tree, not more than three hundred remained alive in two 

 months. Criminals condemned to die were offered the chance 

 of life if they would go to the Upas tree and collect some of 

 the poison. They were provided with masks (not unlike 

 our modern motor- veils), and yet not two in twenty returned 

 from the expedition. 



All the foregoing statements were for years implicitly 

 believed. They were vouched for by a Dutch surgeon resi- 

 dent in Java. Medicine is a profession, and Holland is a 



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