14tj PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [anNO 1751. 



The fact above related was shocking enough to have made M. H. abandon his 

 project : however curiosity got the better of his fear, and he even took a strong 

 fancy to repeat the experiment. It would have been inhuman, not to say cri- 

 minal, to make it on any other person but himself: therefore he resolved to run 

 the risk, or rather persuaded himself, that he should run none, because he 

 shoukl be timely enough to flee from the danger, as soon as the effect of the 

 poison should come to a certain pitch. Besides, he was encouraged by the good 

 success of the foregoing example. Therefore he disposed every thing as at 

 the first time, and he staid in the closet. In about an hour's time he perceived 

 his legs to bend under him, and his arms became so weak, that he could scarcely 

 use them. He had but just time enough to come quickly out of the closet, and 

 get down into the yard; where he ordered wine and sugar to be brought him, 

 as he had before done for the young lad. Such was the first danger, which he 

 incurred in preparing the American poison : the second was not inferior to it. 



After having dissolved the poison of Ticunas in water, and reduced it to the 

 consistence of an extract in the manner above described, he put it into a phial, 

 which he stopped very exactly, and locked up in a desk till he should have occa- 

 sion to use it in the experiments he intended to make. He began these experi- 

 ments on the 6th of June 1748; which was so hot a day, that he stripped to 

 his shirt, and had his breast and arms exposed to the air. In his left hand he 

 held the phial, the cork of which flew up to the cieling with vast rapidity. At 

 the same instant there issued out of this phial a yellowish vapour, of a very pene- 

 trating smell, which was soon followed by the extract itself, that spread itself all 

 over the rim of the neck of the bottle. He was so stupified at this unexpected 

 accident, that he imagined (as it was very possible) that the bottle was broken in 

 pieces; and as soon as he saw his hands, arms, and breast, coloured in several 

 places. by the poison, which had besprinkled them in the explosion, he looked on 

 himself as a dead man: which must certainly have been the case, if the bottle 

 had burst, and the pieces of glass had scratched or cut him. But luckily that 

 did not happen; and he soon resumed courage: when, after some minutes, he 

 found himself quite as well as before the explosion of the poison, the effect of 

 which is almost instantaneous; and it gave him no other trouble than to wash 

 and dry himself very carefully. 



From this accident he learned that this poison, thus prepared, ought not to 

 be put into glass bottles close stopped, but should rather be kept in a glazed 

 earthen pot, covered with paper only ; since it was susceptible of so great an effer- 

 vescence. Therefore he put it into a gallypot; and the experiments, which he 

 made with this same poison a good while afterward, convinced him, that there is 

 no reason to apprehend, that it would lose any of its activity by evaporation. 



These two facts plainly show how much precaution ought to be taken, when 



