(From Dr. Richard Mead’s Preface to his “Essays on Poisons,” 1702.)
It has been shown elsewhere (Vol. I., page 52) how intimate was the connection between ancient pharmacy and poisoning. In Greek the terms came to be almost synonymous, and there is an echo of the same association of ideas in the words Poison and Potion, which a few centuries ago were used in English without much distinction.
The priests of Egypt, the Æsculapians of Greece, and perhaps still more the herbalists of that country and of Italy, necessarily learnt many things from their studies of medicinal plants. They found herbs which would cause sleep, furnish dreams, and confuse the brain. They professed and perhaps believed in their ability to accomplish far more with their philtres than the vegetable world was capable of, but the common people had no means of checking their claims, and such science as there was tended to support them. In the palaces of kings, in the tents of generals, and in all the high places where intrigues, jealousies, and enmities found their fullest scope, pharmaceutical skill was much sought after; in some cases to dispose of rivals, but more usually to counteract the murderous schemes which in those times constituted so large a portion of statecraft. There was nothing the brave men of old dreaded so much as secret poisoning. It is impossible to say how far this crime was practised. Suspicion and terror may have exaggerated its records, but on the other hand it is equally possible that thousands of deaths may have occurred from poisons which were not attributed to that cause.
Hecate and her daughters Medea and Circe figured prominently in Greek legends as inventors and discoverers of poisons. The magic arts for which they were all famous were closely associated with deadly drugs. They were supposed to live in the island of Colchis, the name of which still recalls a vegetable which for many centuries retained the reputation of possessing the most venomous properties. Colchicum was discovered by Medea, but to Hecate is attributed the earliest use of aconite.
Kings studied pharmacy and invented antidotes. Orpheus, the physician and poet, who preceded Æsculapius, wrote a poem on precious stones, in which he relates that Theodomas, son of Priam, King of Troy, had learned how to administer these as antidotes to poisons. The marvellous properties of the antidote invented by Mithridates, King of Pontus, is one of the commonplaces of medical history. Down to the seventeenth century theriaca, emeralds, and bezoar stones were the antidotes to all poisons recognised by the faculty.
Biblical Poisons.
No case of poisoning either suicidal, murderous, or accidental, is alluded to in the Bible, unless we regard the story of the wild gourds (2 Kings, ch. iv, v. 39) as coming within the last description. The suicide by poison of Ptolemeus Macron is mentioned in 2 Maccabees, ch. x, v. 13, but though this was a frequent practice among the Greeks and Romans when the New Testament was written, no allusion to it is found in the sacred writings. It may be that the apostles who include “pharmakeia” among the crimes of the heathen had in mind the degradation of the art to homicidal purposes, but it is more likely that they only intended to denounce its application to the service of lust or its consequences.
The word Rosh occurs eleven times in the Old Testament, and is usually rendered gall, often in association with wormwood. In two instances, however (Hosea, ch. x, v. 4, and Amos, ch. vi. v. 12), it is translated hemlock in the authorised version, and this is retained in the revised version for the passage in Hosea. Apparently the word was a generic one for pernicious or nauseous weeds; but as Rosh also means head some commentators have thought that the poppy was intended.
The word translated poison in Deut. ch. xxxii, v. 24, Job, ch. vi, v. 4, Psalms, lviii, v. 4, and cxl, v. 3, is Chemah, and always means something burning. It is often used to indicate fierce anger. The verse mentioned in Job is obviously a reference to the very ancient practice of dipping arrows into some poison, an application of pharmacy from which we derive our term toxicology.