[209]. M. R. S. T. iv, P. iii, p. 278.
[210]. “Nous adoptons la division suivante, en six classes, de tous les poisons connus, et de toutes les manières possibles par lesquelles les substances vénéneuses peuvent nuire au corps humain: Poisons Septiques—Poisons Stupefians, ou Narcotiques—Poisons Narcotico-Acres—Poisons Acres, ou Rubefians—Poisons Corrosifs, ou Escarotiques—Poisons Astringens.”
[211]. Belloc surmises that where acrid poisons have been administered, narcotics may have been taken to relieve pain; and thus that a sort of combination of the symptoms of both classes may be produced.
[212]. Pharmacologia. Edit. 5th, vol. i, page 225, c. Antidotes.
[213]. Journal de Physiologie Experimentale, (1er numero Janvier 1821.)
[214]. The adoption of this term led to a very extraordinary error in medicine—the application of Arsenic in the form of vapour, together with the fumes of frankincense, myrrh, and other gums, in a paroxysm of Asthma! This frightful practice arose from confounding the gum Juniper, or Vernix of the Arabians, which by their medical writers was prescribed in fumigations, under the name of Sandarach, for the Σανδαρακη of the Greeks.
[215]. Orfila. Toxicolog. General.
[216]. Pharmacologia, edit. v, vol. 2, art. Arsenici Oxydum.
[217]. A very large quantity is annually prepared from the sublimate which collects in the chimneys and flues of the smelting works and burning houses in Cornwall. We have examined samples prepared according to the improved process of Dr. Edwards, and found them to be perfectly free from foreign admixture: a fact of much greater importance than the reader may at first imagine. Those who require farther information upon this subject may consult a paper in the first volume of the Transactions of the Royal Geological Society of Cornwall, by J. H. Vivian, Esq. entitled “Observations on the processes for making the different preparations of Arsenic, which are practised in Saxony.”
[218]. Bergman ii, 286. We are, however, upon the authority of Mr. Richard Phillips, inclined to consider this statement of its specific gravity incorrect. He found that when transparent it did not exceed 3·715, and, when opaque, 3·260.