Weekly expositor. (Brockway Centre, Mich.) 1882-1894, 1891-04-24
MYSTERIOUS POISONS.
THE DEADLY GROWTHS AND
DRUGS ABOUNDING.
Tho True stories About Them Arc More
Wonderful Than are Any cf the
False Ones-Vegetablo gnd
Mineral Poisons.

his wife wore overpowered by the
noxious furno; of stick of poison
alder which had been thrown in to the
kitchen stove, and how physician.
had a hard struggle to save their lives
A reporter showed it to a we'll
known scientist who has made the
study of toxicology, n specially, and
asked him whether there could possibly
be any truth in it. Here is what the
professor said:
Young man, take out your note
book, sit down and listen and | will
tell you something about subject that
the public knows less about than any
ether subject in the world. That story
isn't true, and nothing like it ever was
true or ever will be true. 1t is OF
exactly the same character as the
following myths which I'm going to
relate TO you.
"On the island of Java grows the
bOhUR UpdS tree. which owes its
notoriety 10 Focrsch, a surgeon in the
employ OF tho Dutch East India com
pany, who, nearly hundred years
ago, told some wonderful stories about
it, He related how the emanation OF
this tree killed all animals that APP
preached it; how the birds that flew
too near j. fell dead; how criminals
that were condemned TO death were
| allowed TO collect leaves from the tree,
and that only two out Of twenty ever
returned; how it grew in valley,
with no tree or plant within ten miles
Of it, all being "a lauren waste, strewn
with human and other bones 1t was
n beautiful story and the world believed
it. Scientists discovered in 1910 that
the upas was n very poisonous tree,
whose effects were similar to those OF
poison ivy.
Next is the manchinecl. poison
Gus evUrgreen tree which grows in the
! West India Islands. This tree is said
TO be more deadly than the Upas, and
it was generally supposed that drop
Ct its juice falling upon the skin had
the same effect as the application
of red-hot iron. The milky juice OF
this tree is undoubtedly highly poison
Gus. bu. such stories rs the above are
highly exaggerated. This poison
like our poison sumach. affects some
persons more seriously than others.
| 1t il 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 a fire Of some of the wood
"Dramatists as rule don't know the
first thing about poisons. Nathaniel
Lee in his tragedy of Alexander
makes one Of his characters admins
ter poison 20 the conqueror of the
world which.
Mixed with his wine single drop gives
death.
And sends him howiing TO the shades
below
After swallowing this terrible mix
ture. AicIdR1er goes through the lat
ter part q the fourtt and most OF the
fifth act, kills n man, makes n fine
speech. raves wildly, RECEIVERS his
senses, ald, after fine dying address,
goes of. Now there isn't a poison in the
world which can produce such an effect.
There is n poison. little known to play
wrights, which has 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; thcn his skin, and even
the whites of his eyes, become of
strange purplish. livid color. He may
feel perfectly well, when suddenly acute
pain will set in. and in few moments
he dies. This effect is produced by
nitro benzinc.
Then there is Philip Massinger
who in his play, The Duke of Milan,
shows that he doesn't know the first
thing about toXicology. One of the
characters scatters n poisonous powder
over flower, which is afterward given
to female. Some of the powder falls
on her hand. and when her lover sal
utes the tips OF her fingers he dies.
Pure aconitine itself, the most power
full of all known vegetable poisons,
would hardly produce that effect
The most powerful and deadly poi
son in the world and at the same
time the oldest one known to mankind
is prussic acid. To illustrate its antiq-
uity: An Psychologist has read on an
Egyptian papyrus preserved at the
Louvre. PRONOUNCE not the name OF
, j. A. O. under the penalty of the
peach. The only poison which can be
distilled from the peach is prussic acid
so that il 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 tAe Senators. No poison but
prussic acid, and that only in con-
centrated state, would have had tn:s
effect. Tho prussic acid that is sold
IN drug stores il only the dill lted stuff,
containing small percentage of the
real acid. Prussic acid is made only
in chemical laboratories, and it is SO
powerful that were a person TO inhale
the fumes arising from il in one good