Of all substances with which we are acquainted this is perhaps the most deadly. If only a few grains of it be taken into the stomach, it proves fatal; and it has frequently proved the more injurious from its deceitful appearance, in which it somewhat resembles salt or white sugar. Carelessly left in places open to the access of children, arsenic has not unfrequently been mistaken by them for sugar, and has been attended with the most dreadful consequences. If thrown on heated coals, however, it is immediately known, by the smell of garlic, and the white fumes which it gives out. The best remedy for this poison is said to be a few scruples of liver of sulphur (sulphuret of potash), dissolved in half a pint or a pint of water, and administered a little at a time, as the patient can bear it.
Notwithstanding its deleterious qualities, arsenic is occasionally used in medicine, though in extremely small doses; and it has, in particular, been found efficacious in many cases of intermittent fever.
It is employed as a poison for rats and mice; and, diluted with water, it attracts and poisons flies, whence it is sometimes called by the French, poudre a mouches. There cannot, however, be too great caution used either in the preparation, or in the application, of this fatal poison.
243. YELLOW ORPIMENT is a mineral substance of lemon colour, which consists of arsenic in combination with sulphur; and in the proportion of about fifty-seven parts of the former and forty-three of the latter.
It is about thrice as heavy as water; and is found both in a massive and crystallized state; but the crystals are so confused that their figures cannot easily be determined.
The orpiment of commerce is an artificial production, and is chiefly imported from different parts of the Levant. The Turks, and other Orientals, use it in the depilatories which serve to render bald the top of the head. A very beautiful, but fugitive pigment, called King’s yellow, is prepared from this mineral; and other preparations of orpiment are occasionally used by painters, and also by dyers and calico printers. The whole of these, however, are extremely poisonous.
Orpiment is found in a natural state, along with copper and other ores, in Natolia, Servia, Hungary, Turkey, and some other countries.
244. REALGAR, or RED ORPIMENT, is a mineral substance of red or orange colour, which consists of arsenic in combination with sulphur; and in the proportion of seventy-five parts of the former, and twenty-five of the latter.
It is somewhat more than three times as heavy as water; and occurs sometimes in a crystallized, and sometimes in a massive or disseminated state.
This production, which, by ignorant persons, is not unfrequently mistaken for red lead, is in considerable request by painters, dyers, and calico printers. In China it is manufactured into small pagodas and other ornaments. And the Chinese form it into medical cups, and use lemon juice which has stood for some hours in them, as a cathartic. Realgar is poisonous, but by no means so much so as arsenic ([242]).