2 
POISONS : THEIR EFFECTS AND DETECTION. [§§ 2, 3 . 
§ 2. The oldest Egyptian king, Menes, and Attalus Phylometer, the 
last king of Pergamus, were both famous for their knowledge of plants. 
Attalus Phylometer was acquainted with hyoscyamus, aconite, conium, 
veratrum, and others ; he experimented on the preparation of poisons, 
and occupied himself in compounding medicines. Mithridates Eupator 
stood yet higher : the receipt for the famous theriaca, prepared in later 
years at an enormous price, and composed of fifty-four different ingredi¬ 
ents, is ascribed to him. The wonderful skill shown by the Egyptians 
in embalming and technical works is sufficient to render it fairly certain 
that their chemical knowledge was considerable ; and the frequent opera¬ 
tions of one caste upon the dead must have laid the foundations of a 
pathological and anatomical culture, of which only traces remain. 
The Egyptians knew prussic acid as extracted in a dilute state from 
certain plants, among the chief of which was certainly the peach ; on a 
papyrus preserved at the Louvre, M. Duteil read, “ Pronounce not the 
name of I. A. 0. under the penalty of the peach ! ” in which dark threat, 
without doubt, lurks the meaning that those who revealed the religious 
mysteries of the priests were put to death by waters distilled from the 
peach. That the priests actually distilled the peach-leaves has been 
doubted by those who consider the art of distillation a modern inven¬ 
tion ; but this process was well known to adepts of the third and fourth 
centuries, and there is no inherent improbability in the supposition that 
the Egyptians practised it. 1 
§ 3. From the Egyptians the knowledge of the deadly drink appears 
to have passed to the Romans. At the trial of Antipater, 2 Verus brought 
a potion derived from Egypt, which had been intended to destroy Herod ; 
this was essayed on a criminal, he died at once. In the reign of Tiberius, 
a Roman knight, accused of high treason, swallowed a poison, and fell 
dead at the feet of the senators : in both cases the rapidity of action 
appears to point to prussic acid. 
The use of poison by the Greeks, as a means of capital punishment, 
without doubt favoured suicide by the same means ; the easy, painless 
death of the state prisoner would be often preferred to the sword by one 
tired of life. The ancients looked indeed upon suicide, in certain in¬ 
stances, as something noble, and it was occasionally formally sanctioned. 
Thus, Valerius Maximus tells us that he saw a woman of quality, in the 
island of Ceos, who, having lived happily for ninety years, obtained 
leave to take a poisonous draught, lest, by living longer, she should 
happen to have a change in her good fortune ; and, curiously enough, 
this sanctioning of self-destruction seems to have been copied in Europe. 
1 Zosemus of Alexandria gives a drawing of a still which ho states is copied from 
the ancient temple of Memphis in Egypt. Analyst, xxx. 295, 1905; and Hoeffer, 
Histoire de Chimie, vol. i. p. 262. 
2 Jos., Ant., b. xvii. c. 5. 
