order of beauty can only be manifested in representing the highest content, i. e. the sublime. The more intensely the heart of a poet adores beauty, the more certainly will he throw aside accidental, negative, and insignificant contents to grasp the heavenly and sublime, which, because they task far more his genius and art skill. enable him to represent in far higher perfection the beauty he adores.

ART. V-1. Elements of Medical Jurisprudence. By THEODERIO ROMEYN BECK, M.D., LL.D. 1860.

2. Traité sur le Venin de la Vipére, sur les poisons Americains, sur le laurier cerise et sur quelques autres poisons. Par L'ABBÉ FONTANA. Florence. 2 vols. 4to.

3. Philosophical Transactions from 1810 to 1812. Articles by SIR BENJAMIN COLLINS BRODIE.

4. Traité des poisons tires de règnes minéral, végétal et animal, ou toxicologie générale. Paris.

THERE are few results for which we are more indebted to modern science than the increased facilities it offers for the detection of crime in cases in which, not many years ago, criminals escaped with impunity, and people were affrighted lest a way should be opened to the wholesale commission of secret assassinations while the law was powerless to intervene. The many dark ways of dealing death which were known to those versed in the secrets of alchemy made men tremble lest a word or an act would provoke the vengeance of those who knew how to strike without fear of punishment, and induced the general dread that every one had his hand raised against his neighbor. The stealthy poisoner laughed to scorn the laws which could not see death lurking in a crumb of bread or a pair of gloves, and in despite of whose most watchful efforts the monarch was not safe upon his throne nor the peasant in his hut. The best evidence of this general distrust is to be found in the practice handed down from time immemorial of having all eatables first tasted by those who had prepared them, lest some poisonous ingredient should be present. A system of police as active and prying as that engaged in bringing to light plots and conspiracies

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against governments was kept in operation by every one who could afford it, and men were liable to arrest on the mere shadow of suspicion. This constant dread, and those untiring precautions, increased the very evil they were meant to avert, and at no time did the crime of poisoning flourish so widely as when governments labored most to suppress it. The mystery which attached to some of the most celebrated cases in the past gave birth to the grossest exaggerations, and the historical records of poisoning are defiled by much fabulous matter respecting the potency and modus operandi of secret drugs. Probably the most interesting fiction-if fiction, indeed, it be— is that which ascribed to many poisonous agents the property of gradually sapping the foundations of life and causing death with unerring certainty in a given period of time. Nearly every history contains interesting narratives of such cases; and oftentimes the narrator delights to paint in tragic colors the baneful operation of some deadly potion on the human system. To this property Tacitus alludes in his Annals when relating the iniquities of Nero. To avoid suspicion, he says, a slow and wasting poison was employed, so that the system seemed to sink under disease.*

Locusta, a well known sorceress, was Nero's tool in this nefarious business; and so well known had become her name that it was almost as universally abhorred as that of her master. The most celebrated case in which she was engaged was the poisoning of Britannicus, the son of Agrippina. It is, of course, doubtful what drug she used on this occasion; but it is probable that it was aconite, as this article was well known in ancient times, and its poisonous properties especially understood in Rome. Chemical extraction did not then exist, and so aconitine, the active principle of aconite, could not have been used. But aconite produces symptoms so very decided, even when taken in small doses, that suspicion would be at once aroused, and so the project of slow poisoning be defeated. Yet it is not Yet it is not without temerity that some

"Exquisitum aliquid placebat quod turbaret mentem et mortem differret.' -Annal., xii, 66.

This is by no means certain. Several of the most celebrated toxicologists and chemists, including Fontana. Gay Lussac, Lavosier, and Brodie, are of opinion that aconitine must have formed at least one of the ingredients in the po son administered by Mithridates, the King of Pontus, to i is w.ves and daughters, and which proved so rapidly fatal to them, but had no effect when administered to himself, because, as we are told, he had fortified his system by the constant se of antidotes. Poison having no effect on him, he had to fall upon his sword. (Vide Livy. Lib., 52.)

authors have entirely rejected the idea of slow poisoning, since the past, through its traditional records, exhibits many otherwise unaccountable facts which impartial criticism does not deny, but of which it confesses we have lost the principle of explanation. Some very grave authors-among them Plutarch, Quintilian, and Theophrastus-support this opinion by many examples; and these men were ever careful to sift popular traditions and cast away the chaff. Theophrastus, in speaking of aconite, says that the sorceress prepared a poison from this plant the virulence of which could be so regulated that it would kill in a month or a year; and Plutarch expressly tells us that Aratus, of Sycion, died from the effects of a slow poison which caused a disease of the lungs and impaired his intellect. To this may be added the authority of Tacitus and the almost universal belief which formerly prevailed that skilled poisoners could regulate the effect of their doses with mathematical precision.

If this art of slow poisoning ever did exist, we have certainly lost it, for not even the most delicate chemical processes can produce a poison the effect of which may be thus determined. In the present century the mysterious death of Prince Charles of Augustenburg, Crown Prince of Sweden, revived the question in an interesting manner on the continent of Europe, and led M. Lodin, Professor of Medicine at Lynkoping, to the belief that the Prince had been killed by slow poison.

Dr. Rossi, physician to the Prince, acted in a very suspicious manner, having made but a superficial post mortem examination. The body was therefore exhumed, and the disorganized condition of the liver and spleen could be accounted for by M. Lodin on no other hypothesis than the administration of a slow poison. This explanation, however, was rejected by the whole medical profession, and M. Lodin found himself compelled to surrender his opinion. This settled the question among scientific men, and to-day none are found who admit the stories of slow poisoning with which early histories are replete.

The principal vegetable poisons we know the ancients to have been acquainted with are aconite, hemlock, and poppy; and the various composite poisons contained all or some of these. Hemlock was extensively used among the Greeks, and after numberless private crimes had been committed by its agency, the government adopted it as a means for destroying malefactors; and we

know it caused the death of one of the best and the greatest men of antiquity. If nothing else, the fact that Socrates was poisoned by hemlock would render the study of this drug highly interesting, and we find that Wepfer has written a monogram on the subject. Owing to the varieties of the plant we cannot determine whether it was the conium maculatum, or common hemlock, or the more virulent acuta aquatica the Athenians employed. Wepfer suggests the latter, as its greater rapidity of action better accords with the facts related of Socrates and others. Moreover, the scarcity of water-hemlock explains the economy of the Athenian government, which allowed only a limited amount each year to the public executioner, who, on this supply being exhausted, had to furnish it at his own expense.

Plato, in his dialogue on the Immortality of the Soul, remarks that the executioner advised Socrates not to talk lest the hemlock would operate too slowly; not being influenced by any motives of humanity but that less of the drug might be used. This is confirmed by what Plutarch relates of Phocion. The executioner had not hemlock enough to ensure a speedy death, and Phocion was compelled to pay for it himself, remarking, at the same time, that in Athens a man had to pay for every thing, even to his own death. It is not very clear, then, which variety of hemlock the Athenians used, nor to what previous preparation they subjected the plant before administering it. It is probable, however, that some other powerful ingredient was combined with the hemlock, as death generally supervened before the full effects of hemlock poisoning fully developed themselves. Nor could they depend solely on a drug the operation of which is so very uncertain that whilst a few grains will powerfully affect some persons, others can bear eight or ten times the quantity with impunity. At the best, it was a very barbarous mode of punishment; and when we reflect on the bitter sufferings Socrates had before his eyes after the fatal draught should be drained, we must admire still more the calm heroism of his last moments.

We find the train of symptoms from poisoning by waterhemlock thus enumerated by Orfila.* At first there is dazzling which is followed by obscurity of vision, vertigo, headache, often acute and excruciating, a vacillating walk, heartburning, dryness of the throat, ardent thirst, vomiting of

* Orfila's Toxicology, vol. ii, p. 148.

;

greenish matter, frequent and uninterrupted respiration, and tetanic contraction of the jaws. The other symptoms differ sometimes death comes on at once, or is preceded by delirium or attacks resembling epilepsy, and sometimes the head swells to an enormous size. The abdomen and face are generally swollen after death and the mouth is filled with green froth. This plant is eminently fatal to animals, and Linnæus, in his Tour to Lapland, relates that at Tornea hundreds of cattle were annually destroyed by it, and their flesh became so tainted with the virus that the mere contact of it produced loathsome and gangrenous sores.

Hemlock was frequently used for medicinal purposes, but its action was found to be so unreliable, and especially its narcotic properties so uncertain, that but little value is set upon it at present. Aconite and poppies were the favorite poisons of the Romans, and there is no doubt that Locusta mixed them in the deadly draught she administered to Britannicus. Theophrastus says that aconite formed the basis of all slow poisons, and that one Thrasyas had acquired a widespread reputation for the skill with which he prepared it so as to suspend its effect for any length of time. The ancients were acquainted with none of the mineral poisons, as far as can be ascertained*; and hence we must suppose that they were restricted chiefly to the articles mentioned. There is one animal poison, however, quite celebrated in the annals of ancient poisoning, since by means of it Domitian

This is another remark which a more extended research would have proved to be erroneous. None could have any familiar acquaintance with the principal metals without discovering that deadly poisons are combined with them. This acquaintance was possessed not only by the Greeks and Romans, but also by the still more ancient Hebrews. Homer frequently speaks of copper; the Greeks of his time wrote on lead and brass. (See Eschenburg's Classical Literature, Part iv, p. 331) Could they have known these metals without having any knowledge of arsenic and verdigris? And what are we to say of Theophrastus' treatise on Mineralogy? Did this learned Greek treat of the minerals while ignorant that there were deadly poisons amongst them? Again, we read that Melanpus, of Argos, one of the most ancient physicians whose names have reached us, cured Iphiclus, one of the Argonauts, by administering to him the sesquioxide of iron. (Apollodor., 1, 9, § 12.) In several parts of Genesis the metals are familiarly spoken of. Surely," says Job, "there is a vein for silver, and a place for gold where they fine it. Iron is taken out of the earth, and brass is molten out of the stone." (Chap. xxviii, 1, 2.) It will be admitted that this testimony is sufficiently satisfactory as to the fact that the ancients were not ignorant of mineral poisons; were it otherwise it would be easy to multiply proofs. Egyptologists have no doubt that the ancient Egyptians used arsenic in their embalming processes; but whether they did or not, certain it is that both the Greeks and Romans were well aware that there were minerals, very small particles of which would destroy human life as effectually as the sword.

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