Toxicity

“ But to say that a substance is a poison is to say at least that it is a noxious drug,—that it is a medicine, not an aliment,—that its effects are pathological, not physiological,—and that its use should therefore be exceptional, not habitual. ”

“ They would limit prohibition to the more deadly stimulants, not dreaming that the fatal habit is sure to reproduce its fruit from the smallest germs; that the poison-vice, in fact, is infallibly progressive, ever tending to goad the morbid craving of the toper to stronger and stronger poisons or to a constant increase in the quantity of the wonted stimulant: from cider to brandy, from laudanum to morphine, from tonic bitters to rum, from a glass of wine to a dozen bottles, from beer and tobacco to the vilest tipples of the dram-shop. ”

“ Is it absolutely indispensable for us to poison ourselves in order to know that such and such a plant is harmful and that another contains the healing substance which destroys the effects of the poison? ”

“ It is indeed good for humanity that it is known to only a few toxicologists, but that in itself reveals the fact, monsieur, that an exceedingly clever and secret attack has been made upon your life. A single puncture of the skin with one or other of those pins which were placed so conveniently at your bedside when you sprang out to meet the intruder, and you would by this time have been buried as one whose death had been due to natural causes!”
I held my breath. This declaration by one of the greatest professors of toxicology in Europe staggered me. ”

“ I severely retorted. “It was while carrying this poem from one newspaper to another that you secured that bit of print upon the blank side of which you yourself printed the obituary notice with which you savored your revenge upon the woman who had disappointed you.”
“You know that? Then you know where I got the poison with which I tipped the silly toy with which that weak man fooled away his life?”
“No,” said I, “I do not know where you got it. I merely know it was no common poison bought at a druggist’s, or from any ordinary chemist.” ”

“ But where the poison is introduced into the system so insidiously that the subject is unconscious of its absorption until its effects are produced, then it is not a question of antidotes, but the problem is, How shall we counteract its consequences, and how shall we keep our patients alive until the life-destroying agents have ceased to put in jeopardy the vital powers? ”

“ When doctors find something they do not understand, they say: “Oh, let us try it on an animal; better try it on an animal than a man.” Yes; but if the animal does not give the same result, and if that which is poison to man [20] is not poison to the animal, then the results of your experiment may be a widespread, unintentional poisoning added to the intentional poisonings of the day. ”

“ There are but few poisons which destroy life in a few minutes. Omitting the strong mineral acids, carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, with the irrespirable gases,—Prussic acid, the cyanides, oxalic acid, and occasionally strychnine, are the chief poisons coming under this head.
B. Irritant Poisons (symptoms mainly pain, vomiting, and purging) .
Arsenic, antimony, phosphorus, cantharides, savin, ergot, digitalis, colchicum, zinc, mercury, lead, copper, silver, iron, baryta, chrome, yew, laburnum, and putrid animal substances. ”

“ It is the selling of that which is a real, a subtile and very destructive poison—a poison which, by men in health, cannot be taken without deranging healthy action, and inducing more or less disease, both of body and mind; which is, when taken in any quantity, positively hurtful ”

“ Disease is brought about by obstructions and inhibitions of vital processes.... The basis is chronic auto-intoxication from food poisoning. It is brought about by abusing the body in many ways ... by living wrongly in whatever way.... Bad habits of living enervate—weaken—the body, and in consequence elimination is impaired.... The inability of the organism to rid itself of waste products brings on auto-toxemia. ”

“ It is with no light-heartedness that the physiologist causes the blood to flow, inoculates disease, injects poisons. I know the thought which animates my friends and my colleagues when they make their experiments: it is never without the most profound pity that we dare to take a healthy, gay, confiding animal, and give him chloroform, or inject a poison into him. This respect for pain, far from decreasing with age, on the contrary goes on increasing. ”

“ Only remember one thing -- a small dose is a remedy, a large one is poison. One drop will restore life, as you have seen; five or six will inevitably kill, and in a way the more terrible inasmuch as, poured into a glass of wine, it would not in the slightest degree affect its flavor. ”

“ And yet, after a little practice, the human system may be deluged with this powerful, narcotic poison,—a man's mouth may be kept swimming, month after month, with the strongest juice of the strongest tobacco,—his very perspiration may be so filled with this intense poison, that, falling on the battle-field, the most loathsome beast of prey will not touch his body. ”

“ One may become ill, poisoned, through inhaling the perfume of a flower which to another may afford exquisite enjoyment. Another may become ill, poisoned through the aura of an animal whom another will unharmed fondly caress. Thus, the fact is apparent that poisons, per se, do not exist, but that under certain conditions all qualities are inimical to physical existence.
Gentola—As you are aware, doctor, many persons with impunity consume alcoholics and narcotics sufficient in quantity to kill one unaccustomed to their use. ”

“ It absorbs the necessary water from the tissues, and thus it acts as a corroding poison. It is also a functional toxin, because it depresses the activity of organs by injuring the innervation. The poison affects the brain, and as the cerebral gray matter, especially its pyramidal cells, are the physical instruments of thought, will, and memory, or the means of communication between the soul and the outer world, the exercise of these spiritual functions is checked or inhibited by it. ”

“ For my subject matter, as I proceed in the fulfilment of my task, will now lead me to consider her in the light of being the producer of various noxious substances as well; in consequence of which it is that we are in the habit of charging her with our crimes, and imputing to her a guilt that is our own. She has produced poisons, it is true; but who is it but man that has found them out? ”

“ Tolerance increases with increasing doses, and in a comparatively short space of time poisonous doses are taken with impunity as far as immediate danger to life is concerned. The toxic effects of the poison are shown in characteristic perversion of the functions of the nervous system and of the mind. ”

“ And, inasmuch as it is so, is it not a great detriment at least to our health to carry this mass of filth around with us, from day to day, from week to week, and from year to year—absorbing its poison back into the circulation? ”

“ Guy defines a poison to be any substance which, when applied to the body externally, or in any way introduced into the system, without acting mechanically, but by its own inherent qualities, is capable of destroying life. ”

“ What would be said of a man who introduced poison in any degree into the food or drink of his child? Is the poisoning of the household atmosphere by the ignorant, thoughtless, or selfish smoker morally more defensible? ”

“ It is only when they find their proper food, decaying matter, that they begin to multiply, and in that act they secret a poison, toxin, which is absorbed, and, entering the circulation, causes in the individual a special class of symptoms peculiar to that toxin, or poison. ”

“ The evidence derived from the effects of suspected food, drink, or medicine is better than that drawn from the effects of the vomited matter or contents of the stomach. But an important objection has been made to both, namely, that what is poison to man is not always poison to the lower animals, and that, on the other hand, some of the lower animals are poisoned by substances not hurtful to man. ”

“ Have you really measured the world by scrutinies, or through alembics and crucibles? For you must indeed be a great chemist, and the elixir you administered to my son, which recalled him to life almost instantaneously" --
"Oh, do not place any reliance on that, madame; one drop of that elixir sufficed to recall life to a dying child, but three drops would have impelled the blood into his lungs in such a way as to have produced most violent palpitations ”

“ Anything which is inappropriate to any case will produce a ‘deleterious’ influence upon it, and is therefore a poison to it. Food may thus be for the time being a poison to the sick man, as really as a noxious drug. Indeed a noxious [Pg 118] drug may be to him a cure, while in the same quantity it would be perhaps even a fatal poison to him if he were well. ”

“ Now observe, this slander is compared in the text to poison—“the tongue is an unruly evil, full of deadly poison.” The deadliest poisons are those for which no test is known: there are poisons so destructive that a single drop insinuated into the veins produces death in three seconds, and yet no chemical science can separate that virus from the contaminated blood, and show the metallic particles of poison glittering palpably, and say, “Behold, it is there!” ”

“ The materia medica of the schools, to-day, includes upwards of two thousand substances the number increasing daily and when viewed dispassionately it presents what? A list of drugs, chemicals, dye- stuffs, all subversive of organic structures. They are all antagonistic to living matter: all produce disease when brought in contact in any manner with the living domain as a matter of fact, all are poisons. Now, what logical standing can a system have, that employs, as remedies for diseases, those things that produce disease in healthy persons? ”

“ I do not overdraw the picture when I declare that millions of human beings die annually from the effects of poison contracted in this way, in some form of suffering or other; for, by insinuating its effects into and poisoning the whole man, it complicates various disorders and renders them incurable. ”

“ There are ten kinds of poison, and when they soak it in one poison, it injures like so, and when they soak it in another poison it does more damage. And so there are ten kinds of poison, each one worse than the other, that is, more harmful. ”

“ It was for that reason that I was enabled to administer an antidote without making an exact diagnosis. Now, as you are well aware, toxicology is a very strange study. Even common table-salt is a poison, and has caused death. ”

“ In such cases a few persons believe the potion swallowed by the patient to be harmless; but the vast majority of mankind, though they know nothing of this particular case and this special person, believe the arsenic, the strychnine, or whatever the drug used, to be poisonous, for it has been set down as a poison by mortal mind. ”

“ Before quitting the subject, however, I have to add, that there is another purpose, besides procuring direct evidence, to which experiments with animals may be applied with great propriety;—namely, the settling disputed questions regarding the physiological and pathological properties of a particular poison. The science of toxicology is not yet by any means so perfect, but in particular cases topics may arise, which have not hitherto been investigated, and which it may be necessary to determine by experiment. ”

“ They all kill when we let them have full play. This is obviously the reason why they are called toxicants and intoxicants. They bear resemblance in action to the poison which once in the history of a past civilization sped on the tip of an arrow from a discharged bow. ”

“ The diseases which we find most difficult to cure, even by the most radical application of natural methods, are cases of drug-poisoning. Substances which are foreign to the human organism, and especially the inorganic, mineral poisons, positively destroy tissues and organs, and are much harder to eliminate from the system than the encumbrances of morbid materials and waste matter produced in the body by wrong habits of living only. ”

“ The toxic substances which are generally believed to be associated with the causation of mental disorders may be divided into three great classes: (a) those which arise from the morbific products of metabolism within the body itself “auto-intoxicants”; (b) those due to the invasion of the blood or tissues by micro-organisms ”

“ Bunglers that you are, don't use arsenic or any mineral poison; they leave traces; you will be found out. Use vegetable poisons; poison your fathers, poison your mothers, poison all your families, and their inheritance will be yours—fear nothing; you will go unpunished! You have committed murder by poisoning, it is true ”

“ These five narcotising and intoxicating poisons are used, more or less, by half the people in the world, giving some considerable pleasure at times, but destroying, more or less, the health of all who use them, and gradually stunting the form and otherwise undermining the well-being of the entire human race. ”

“ Or, which is rather worse, do you, directly or indirectly, live by poisoning others, by encouraging the immoderate use of those refreshments, which, taken to excess, disorder the reason, ruin the soul, and prove no better than slow poison to the body? ”

“ Each of the three kingdoms of Nature furnishes a number of poisons, the investigation of whose chemical properties and physiological actions, and that of the symptoms to which their administration gives rise, the lesions of structure which they occasion, and of the medical treatment which they require, constitutes an elaborate branch of science designated by the term Toxicology, and of which I have more fully treated in my work on Medical Jurisprudence. ”