CHAPTER X 



POISONS FROM mOBGANIC SOURCES USED BY MALAYS 



ARSENIC 



Arsenic is one of the eommoneat agents used by the 

 homicide and by the suicdde or taken by accident : it is 

 an important factor in many widely used preparations — 

 for instance, those for combating pests on fruit trees, 

 weeds, etc., in the West and white ants, flies, etc., in the 

 East, and in the treatment of disease ; from such sources 

 it may cause calamity through crime or carelessness. 

 The white arsenic of commerce, arsenious acid, was 

 formerly sold without restriction in the market-place 

 of Kota Bharu, Kelantan, for rat's-bane mider the 

 Kelantan name of tuha or ieha iiktt-s. It is also known 

 as ivarangan puteh, and used to be exposed for sale in the 

 market-place at Indian stalls^ or it could be bought at 

 any Chinese ** drug-shop " in the form of curiously 

 shaped stratified masses which had evidently been 

 chipped from the flues of some chemical factory. 



These broken lumps of arsenic probably came from 

 Burmah by way of Singapore, or from the flues of 

 certain factories in China. A specimen of tuba tikm 

 bought in the Kota Bharu bazaar for a few cents in 

 1905 was analysed by Mr, P. Burgess, Government 

 Analyst, Straits Settlements ; it was found by him to 

 be pure arsenious oxide, or white arsenic. Arsenic is 

 found as a local product in some of the tin-mining 

 districts where Chinese smelters work with tin ore 

 containing arsenical pyrites, the sulphide of iron, and 

 arsenic. Anybody could purchase any quantity for use 



