ARSENIC. 
§ 747 -] 
below upwards, and analysis will detect minute quantities of arsenic in 
all portions of the plant. 
It lias, however, been shown by Gorup-Besanez, 1 that if arsenious 
acid be mixed with earth, and plants grown in such earth, they only take 
up infinitesimal quantities of arsenic. Hence, in cases of cattle poison¬ 
ing, any defence based upon the alleged presence of arsenic in the pasture 
will be more ingenious than just. 
The influence of arsenical fumes as evolved from manufactories upon 
shrubs and trees is in general insignificant. Pines and firs, five to six 
years old, have been known to suffer from a disease in which there is a 
shedding of the leaves, the more tender herbage being at the same time 
affected. Whatever dangers the practice of steeping corn intended fox 
seed in a solution of arsenious acid, as a preventive of “ smut,” may 
possess, it does not appear to influence deleteriously the growth of the 
future plant. 
Superphosphate of lime is frequently rich in arsenic. Dr Edmund 
Davy asserts that plants to which such phosphate is applied take up 
arsenic in their tissues, and M. Andonard has made a similar statement. 
Tuson 2 has also undertaken some experiments which confirm Andonard 
and Davy’s researches. The bearing of this with relation to the de¬ 
tection of arsenic in the stomachs of the herbivora needs no comment. 
§ 747. Effects on Animal Life.—Animalcules. —All infusoria and 
forms of animalcule-life hitherto observed perish rapidly if a minute 
quantity of arsenious acid is dissolved in the water in which they exist. 
Insects. —The common arsenical fly-papers afford numerous oppor¬ 
tunities for observing the action of arsenic on ordinary flies ; within a few 
minutes (five to ten after taking the poison into their digestive organs) 
they fall, apparently from paralysis of the wings, and die. Spiders and 
all insects into which the poison has been introduced exhibit a similar 
sudden death. It is said that in the neighbourhood of arsenical 
manufactories there is much destruction among bees and other forms 
of insect life. 
Annelids. —If arsenious acid is applied to the external surface of 
worms or leeches, the part which it touches perishes first, and life is 
extinguished successively in the others. If a wound is made first, and 
the arsenious acid then applied to it, the effects are only intensified and 
hastened. There is always noticed an augmentation of the excretions ; 
the vermicular movements are at first made more lively, they then 
become languid, and death is very gradual. 
Birds. —The symptoms with birds are somewhat different, and vary 
according to the form in which the poison is administered, viz. whether 
as a vapour or in solution. In several experiments made by Eulenberg 
1 Annal. d. Chemie u. Pharmacie, Bd. cxxvii., H. 2, S. 243. 
2 Cooley’s Dictionary, art. “Arsenic.” 
