Evening star., 1922-11-26

NEW YORK dealers are just now
y displaying unusually interesting
collections of antiques. and, because
of the great vogue of the resplendent
Italian period, there is almost pre-
ponderance of renaissance goods of
every kind, including much jewelry
and personal ornaments. Accordingly,
it is not beyond the realm of the
possible for the experiences of the
Zurich collector to be repeated if this
country.
All this leads US back once more
into the fascinating mystery of the
poisons and poisoners of these spa
cious and forbidding times. 1t takes
us back much farther-in fact. to the
very beginnings of the use of poisons
by humanity. Two things are not
too easy to pictur-the great an
tiquity of the employment of poisons
and the fact that the poisoner, now
an abominable monster, was once the,
master and king of men. and later,
even within modern times. the right
hand of great potentates.
The most primitive peoples on the
earth know and use poisons. usually in
warfare and religious rites. The saw
age tribes of the unconquered ANA
zon hinterland make darts for their
blow guns which are dipped in vege-
table poisons and serpent venom. The
Moros on Mindanao, in the southern
Philippines, had a pleasant habit of
planting in the tangled jungle paths
sharpened bamboo sticks. the points Of
which had been dipped in a poison ex-
tracted from the sting ray. Our SOL
diers stumbled upon these savage de-
fenses and suffered extreme tortures
from the slight scratches, or died if
prompt medical attention was not at
hand.
But the Amazonian and the Moro are
comparatively far advanced over the
stage i'll which man came first to em-
ploy poisons. Anthropologists consider
that the use of animal poisons, such as
both these tribes know, came thou
sands of years later than the first en-
ployment of noxious vegetable extracts.
The latter were probably first employed
in rites and in battle by the medicine
men and shamans of neolithic and pos
sibIy paleolithic times. and these pre-
historic alchemists became the first
kings through their dark knowledge. 1t
is not hard to imagine the power such
leaders must nave exerted over savage
men when they were able to throw reb-
personal enemies to death without
blow, or tip the spears and arrows of
their tribes with a magical substance
that turned foes into corpses at a touch
The Greeks appear to have been most
familiar with these vegetable extracts
Theophrastus mentions aconite. Socrates
drank the potion of hemlock, and it is
fairly certain that the Hellenes knew
most of the common vegetable poisons
of the modern pharmacopoeia-the
foxglove from which we take digitalis:
the oleander. the belladonna yielding
nightshade. the strychnos, black helle-
bore. thorn apple and poppy. They also
knew the sulphides of arsenic.
The Romans were acquainted with
some of the animal poisons as well as
mineral drugs Of lethal potentialities.
Agripplna conspired with the infamous
Locusta to poison Claudius with a dish
Of mushrooms supposed to have con-
tanned some highly mysterious poison,
but the modern critical mind must con-
clude that these women did nothing
more subtle t.,an to ply the emperor
with a dish Of noxious fungi, Of the
kind know, to every high school bot
anist. Loousta was put in prison for
this unsuccessful attempt, but kept
alive to dispatch the emperor's foes.
Later sne did away with Britannicus
for Nero, an imperial service which
won her a pardon, got her established
in noble splendors and saw her pro-
vided with a number of pupils. to whom
she taught her art. in the interest Of
the state. .....vy II