LECTURE IV. 



ON ANIMAL AND VEGETABLE POISONS* 



THE advantages of studying natural history and 

 chemistry in all their respective branches, in no 

 instance perhaps can be more powerfully illus- 

 trated, than by pointing out the destructive influ- 

 ence upon the human frame of those substances 

 in nature, or produced by art, denominated 

 poisons; and which are derived from the animal, 

 the vegetable, and the mineral kingdoms. Man, 

 at a very early period, must have become ac- 

 quainted with the baneful effects of animal and 

 vegetable poisons. To the first, he would un- 

 avoidably be liable, from accidentally being 

 brought in contact with venomous animals, whose 

 attacks he could not at all times elude ; to the 



* Having been prevented from following up ray intention 

 of giving a lecture on the mineral, as well as on the animal 

 and vegetable poisons ; I have endeavoured to supply the 

 deficiency, by introducing at the termination of ihe second 

 lecture on poisons, a synoptical table, in which those of the 

 mineral kingdom have, I trust, been sufficiently noticed, to 

 answer every practical purpose. 



