184 



CLASS VIII. 



POISONS, MINERAL, VEGETABLE, AND ANIMAL. 



Poison^ though a very popular term, is yet, in some respects, 

 a vague and indefinite one ; as substances that are most noxious 

 and destructive to one class of animals are perfectly harmless to 

 others. Henbane Qiyoscyamus niger^ Linn.), which is eaten with 

 impunity by horses, oxen, goats, and swine, proves most baneful 

 to the canine genus. Opium, on the contrary, may be taken in 

 considerable quantities, by dogs, without serious injury ; but it 

 rarely fails to prove fatal to the human subject. The phellandrium 

 aquaticum kills horses, while oxen eat it without harm ; and the 

 hedgehog, we are told, will devour cantharides with impunity in 

 large quantities. Poisons have, therefore, been divided into re- 

 lative and common, or such as are hurtful only to particular 

 classes of animals, and those which prove destructive to all, as 

 the several oxides of mercury, arsenic, and copper ; the concen- 

 trated acids, &c. &c. 



Dogs are not unfrequently poisoned either by accident or de- 

 sign ; and as the circumstance it sometimes discovered in time for 

 relief to be afforded, so a knowledge of counter-poisons, and of 

 the general treatment proper on such occasions, form material 

 branches of canine pathology ; and as also, when no relief can be 

 obtained, it is still very desirable for the ends of justice (when 

 wilful poisoning is suspected), to be enabled to establish the fact 

 of administering, and of the nature of the subject administered ; 

 so an acquaintance with the various substances commonly em- 

 ployed for this purpose, the symptoms produced by them, and the 

 appearances that the parts acted on present after death, are neces- 

 sary portions of the canine medical practice. 



The hmits of the present work will necessarily confine me to 

 noticing such articles only as, by their popularity, are most likely 

 to be made use of purposely to destroy, and such as chance may. 



