POISONS FROM INOBGANIC SOURCES 227 



for seven days longer, and brush it well with the juice 

 of a sour lemon. After the rust has been cleared away, 

 rub it with arsenic (wararigan) dissolved in lime-juice, 

 wash it well with spring-water, dry and anoint with 

 cocoa-nut oil" The process has been described else- 

 where as due to the action of acids on a blade forged by 

 beating steel and iron together when in a state of half 

 fusion. 



For use as a Malay poison tuba tikits is pounded in a 

 mortar with pips of the lime fruit ; except for its gritti- 

 ness, as it is colourless, and practically speaking 

 tasteless, it can hardly be detected when mixed with a 

 cooked curry and rice, into which a poisonous dose can 

 be so easily dropped. White arsenic is used not only 

 alone by Malays, but is sometimes combined with 

 opium, datm-a seeds, and metallic mercury (which see, 

 p. 233). A combination of this sort is referred to by 

 Malaya as a deadly poison {rmhun hesar). The strength 

 and violence of arsenic as a poison has been recognised 

 from very early times. It is stated to have been 

 discovered in the third century (Ref, 8), and it is curious 

 that the plan of procuring it for homicidal purposes on 

 the plea of " killing rats " should have been in vogue 

 from the fourteenth century down to the present day 

 (Ref. 5). In Chaucer's '* Canterbury Tales " we read : — 



And forth he gootb, no longer wolde he tarie. 

 Into the toun, un-to a pothecarie. 

 And preyed him, that he him wolde selle 

 Som poyson, that hemighte his rattes quelle ; 



This cursed man hath in his hond y-hent 

 This poyaon in a box, and sith he ran 

 In-to the nexte stret«, iin-to a man 

 And borwed (of) him hotels three ; 

 And in the two his poyson poured he ; 



The quotation above is taken from the Pardoners 

 Tale (Ref. 7). Thiee rioters in a tavern agreed to 



1&— 3 



