iv " BUNSENIANA " 93 



with impunity ; and on the other hand Bunsen, who 

 was a great smoker, could not drink tea. He used 

 to say that if he drank a cup of tea even at breakfast, 

 and certainly in the evening, it would keep him awake 

 during the whole night. Again, one has seen many 

 men who would be completely upset by smoking a 

 cigar, who yet, like Johnson, would drink any number 

 of cups of strong tea at night and sleep well after- 

 wards. 



Another instance of the accommodating power 

 of the human body occurred to me many years ago 

 (1861). I investigated the question of the alleged 

 power exhibited by the Styrian peasants to eat arsenic. 

 This was laughed to scorn by Dr. Alfred Taylor in 

 his well known book on Toxicology, but it turned out 

 to be perfectly true. I obtained evidence through 

 my friend Pebal, who was professor at Gratz, which 

 not only satisfied me, but everyone who took the 

 trouble to go into the question, that the peasants in 

 Styria are able to swallow with impunity four times 

 the amount of what is usually a fatal dose of white 

 arsenic. I obtained a sample of the materials used 

 by these peasants they call it " Hidrach," which 

 is a corruption of " Hlittenrauch," thus showing the 

 origin of the material and it turned out to be pure 

 arsenious oxide. The object of their taking arsenic 

 is said to be to preserve their wind in carrying 

 loads up the mountains. Whether it did so or not 

 I do not know, but any doctor who prescribed four 

 grains of arsenic would very soon be brought up 

 for manslaughter if not for murder ; and yet those 

 peasants took that quantity with impunity. 1 



1 Micro-organisms can also, like macro-organisms, be gradually 

 accustomed to doses which are absolutely bactericidal to the same species 

 when not so acclimatised, and the ready acclimatisation of bacteria to 

 poisons is now generally admitted (Metchnikoff). 



