INFLUENCE ON THE HUMAN SYSTEM. 81 



€ast," and yet the functions of life go on glibly as 

 usual ! And to tell an uneducated man, in sucli 

 circumstances, that he was actually imbibing 

 poison enough to kill a thousand cats, would pro- 

 voke the reply given to a doctor by such a man : 

 *' Well, doctor, you seem to be divided as to how 

 poor Cook came by his death, but it's clear it 

 wasn't a room full of tobacco-smoke — else /must 

 have the lives of ten thousand cats, dogs, and the 

 like of such stupid animals." 



But neither cats nor dogs are poisoned in such 

 circumstances. There must, therefore, be some 

 counteraction, which either renders the poison 

 innocuous, or modifies it to an extent which prac- 

 tically comes to the same result. 



It is certain that man gradually renders himself 

 proof against any of the known poisons — at all 

 events against the most powerful of the increas- 

 ing, and, it appears, testless catalogue. The 

 curious statistics of opium and its compounds are 

 well known as such " familiar demons ;" but it is 

 not generally known that arsenic has been made 

 a fountain of beauty, vigour, and longevity. I 

 refer the curious in such matters to the * Chemistry 



G 



