SECT. XXVII.—ON THE PRESERVATIVES FROM POISONS.
Of the doctrine of poisonous substances, the most difficult part is the prophylactic; because those who administer poisons in a concealed manner, prepare them so as to deceive the most skilful. Thus they take away the bitterness of deleterious substances by mixing them with sweet things, and the fetid smell by a mixture with aromatics. Sometimes in diseases, while appearing to administer such things as wormwood, southernwood, opoponax, and castor, for a beneficial purpose, they mix poisons with them; or they give them in the food, namely, in the harder and more complex articles, mixing the poisons with them. Wherefore a person who entertains suspicions, ought to avoid all prepared dishes and every intense quality, such as sweetness, saltness, and acidity; and in particular to take plenty of water, for when the appetite is satiated, the particular qualities are afterwards easily detected. There is likewise another efficacious mode of prophylaxis: for they who suspect anything of this kind should take such things as will blunt and take away the effect of the poisons, as dried grapes with walnuts, rue, a lump of salt, and citrons. Let them also take rape-seed to the amount of a drachm in wine, or the leaves of calamint, or Lemnian earth, and twenty leaves of rue, and they will not be hurt by any poison. And certain antidotes taken with wine every day to the amount of an Egyptian bean will protect completely, such as the one from skink, that from blood, and the Mithridate, which king Mithridates took every day as a preservative from deadly poison; and being captured by the Romans, he drank twice of a deadly poison, and not being able to despatch himself thereby, he killed himself with his sword. And since people are sometimes exposed to deleterious things accidentally in desert places without design, if they happen to take up their abode under certain trees, such as pines or firs, they ought to be on their guard against deadly animals, which fall from them and the roofs of houses, and keep the vessels in which their wine is contained, and in which they boil victuals, well covered up, as has been stated when treating of the preservatives from venomous animals.
Commentary. Nearly the whole contents of this section are taken from Dioscorides. (Præf.)
The account of the treatment given by Aëtius is somewhat fuller than our author’s, but not materially different.
Avicenna makes mention of the same medicines as Dioscorides, and says nothing of any other remedies.
Of the substances mentioned by our author, and the others as preservatives from poisons, some are demulcents, and may be supposed to act by obtunding the acrimony of poisons, such as figs, walnuts, and rape-seed; some are simple absorbents, such as Lemnian earth, which probably resembled red ochre, and was also emetic: some are stimulants, such as rue, calamint, and wine; and some are refrigerant acids, such as citrons, which may be supposed to act as analeptics and restoratives. Virgil mentions this property of the citron:
“Media fert tristes succos tardumque saporem
Felicis mali: quo non præsentius ullum,
Pocula si quando sævæ infecere novercæ
Miscueruntque herbas, et non innoxia verba,
Auxilium venit, ac membris agit atra venena.”
Georg. ii.
See in particular Simeon Seth (in voce Κιτρὰ); and Athen. (Deip. ii.) Dr. Paris states that when a narcotic poison has been ejected from the stomach, citrons or any fruit containing a vegetable acid will produce the best effects. (See Pharmacologia i, 254.)