Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1891-04-02
MYSTERIOUS POlSONS.

w - -htOSS Tot0ONS.
The True Stories About Them are More
Wonderful than the False Ones.
Not long ago daily newspaper con-
tanned paragraph dated New London
Conn.,, which told how a farmer and his
wife were overpOwered by the noxious
fumes of stick of poison alder which
mad been thrown Tito the kitchen stove
and how physician had hard strug-
gle to save their lives. A reporter
showed it to a well-known scientist who
mas made the study of toxicology a
speciality, and asked him whether there
could possibly be any truth in it. Here
Is what the professor said:
~ Dung man, take out your note
book, sit down and listen and 1 will
tell you something about a subject that
the public knows less about than any
other subject in the world. That story
isn't true, and nothing like it ever was
true or ever will he true. 1t is of
exactly the same character as the fol-
lowing myths which l am going to re-
late to you.
"On the island of Java grows the
oohun upas tree, which owes it's noto-
rlety to Foersch, surgeon in the en-
ploy of the Dutch East India Co., who,
nearly hundred years ago, told some
wonderful stories about it. He related
how the carnations of this tree killed
all ANIMALS that approached it; how the
birds that flew too near it fell dead;
how criminals that We're condemned to
death We're allowed to collect leaves
from the tree, and that only two out of
twenty ever returned: how it grew in a
valley, with no tree or plant within ten
miles of it, all being barren waste,
strewn with human and other bones. 1t
was beautiful story. and the world be-
ieved it. Scientists discovered in 1910
that the upas was a very poisonous tree,
whose effects were similar to those of
poison ivy.
Next is the manchineel, poisonous
evergreen tree which grows in the West
India islands. This tree was said to be
even more deadly than the upas and
1T was generally supposed that drop of
its juice falling upon the skin had the
same effect as the application
of a red-hOt iron. The milky juice of
this tree is undoubtedly highly poison
Gus, but such stories as the above are
highly exaggerated. This poison, like
our poison sumach, affects some per-
sons more seriously than others. 1t is
said that the smoke from burning
manchineel wood produces temporary
blindness. This is true in a measure.
though it does not affect every one in
the same way. Berthold Seemann. the
botanist, was blind for few days after
he had gathered some of the leaves of
the tree on the coast of Florida. and
some of the crew were blind for nearly
week from having made fire of the
wood.
''DramatiStS as a rule do not know
the first thing about poisons. Nathaniel
Lee, in his tragedy of Alexander
makes one of his characters administer
apoison to the conqueror of the world,
which.
Mixed with his wine, a single drop gives
death.
And sends him bowling to the shades below.
After swallowing this terrible mix
ture, Alexander goes through the latter
part of the fourth and most of the fifth
act, kills a man, makes fine speech,
raves wildly, RECEIVERS his senses, and,
after a fine dying address, goes off.
Now. there isn't poison in the world
which can produce such an effect.
There is Il poison, little known to play
wrights. which has a much more Won
derful effect than this, but very few
people know anything about it. After
it is swallowed the person walks about
for time varying from half an hour to
two hours: then his skin, and even the
whites of his eyes, become of strange
purplish, livid color. He may feel per-
fectly well, when suddenly acute pain
will set in, and in few minutes
he dies. This effect is produced by
nitro benZine.
Then there is Philip Messenger,
who in his play, The Duke of Milan"
shows that he doesn't know the first
thing about toXicology. One of the
characters scatters poisonous powder
over a flower, which is afterward given
to female. Some of the powder falls
on her hand, and when her lover sa-
lutes the tips of her fingers he dies.
Pure aconite itself, the most powerful
of all known vegetable poisons. would
hardly produce that effect.
The most powerful and deadly pois-
on in the world and at the same time
the oldest one known to mankind is
prussic acid. To illustrate it's antiquity:
An Psychologist has read on an Egyp-
tian papyrus preserved at the Louvre.
Pronounce not the name of j. A. o. I'M
der the penalty of the peach The only
poison which can be distilled from the
peach is prussic acid. SO that it must
have been known to the Egyptian. A
knight in the reign of 'Tiberius, accused
of high treason, swallowed poison and
fell dead at the feet of the senators.
No poison but prussic acid, and that on
ly in concentrated state, would have
had this effect. The prussic acid that is
sold in drug stores is only diluted stuff,
a small percentage of the
real acid Pure prussic acid is made
only in chemical laboratories, and it is
so powerful that We're a person to in
hale the fumes arising from it in one
good Whit he would drop dead.
Another interesting poison is the
dhatoora of the Hindoos, a species of
which these people admin
lister to persons of high rank to produce
tits distilled from the seeds
of the common thorn apple, which
grows as plentifully in New Jersey as
it does in India. N. Y. Sun.
Almost a Hint.
Mr.. Goldbug-What Il beautiful little
hand YOU have. Miss Gitthar.
Miss Gitthar-Yes. ma often says that