#book of poisons

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"We shall never understand the beneficial effects of a poison unless we first contemplate the havoc it can wreak."

Gustave SCHENK.

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[Socrate’s Poisonning]

"Socrates was not alone in dying from the hemlock cup, which was a regular method of executing those condemned to death by the law in the ancient world. A certain humanity in the use of this method of execution can be seen in the practice of mixing opium with the draught of hemlock to reduce the malefactor's agony. It appears from Plato's description of Socrates's death -- which is as exact as that of a modern physiologist -- that opium had also been added to the philosopher's cup of hemlock, for the symptoms differ slightly from those of pure hemlock poisoning."

[G. Schenk, the Book of Poisons]

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The book of Poisons - intro -

" Nevertheless, man's estrangement from nature is irreversible. Urbanization long ago rendered him incapable of seeing into the true heart of undisturbed nature. Yet it is as well to remember that even when the harmony of natural conditions is left undisturbed, nature is not always beneficent to man. When we consider the various natural poisons -beginning with those contained in plants- which are capable of acting upon us with sudden and lethal violence, we are looking at nature in her pristine state, where the will and works of man have no parts.

We who have grown accustomed to facing weapons of war of immense destructive efficiency -including substances whose toxic effects are derived from cosmic energy- do well to appreciate that, even without human intervention, nature has at her disposal powerful forces to which man is no more immune today than he was thousands of years ago. First among these are the plants. Some mysterious common instinct seems to have led all the peoples in the world to discover -independently of one another and long before the dawn of history, when there was no way in which knowledge could be transmitted across wide tracts of land or across the oceans -the tremendous potentialities for good or ill that reside in plants. They used these powers sometimes in wisdom for the benefit of the tribe, and sometimes in in hate as deadly weapons against their enemies.

For the poisons contained in plants possess this dual character. They can bring healing or death; their effect may be beneficial or lethal.

Nowadays, when we think of harmful or deadly vegetable poisons, our imagination ranges far afield. We recall the arrow poisons of the South American Indians, the magic potions of shamans or medicine men, the plant juices which intoxicate, evoking wild or wonderful hallucinations, and finally bring about the addict's physical ruin. It rarely occurs to us that the vegetable poisons in our immediate environment, in the surrounding meadows and the nearby woods, are capable of equally deadly effects. Nor do we remember that the very same destructive force inherent in poisons is able to cure us when we are sick. It is in the nature of plant poisons that their otherwise deleterious action may protect the human body from damage or destruction by disease. There are few vegetable poisons which cannot also be used for therapeutic purposes. Even cicutoxin, the bitter principle in water hemlock, is used in extreme dilution as a medicament in homoeopathy; although, in allopathy, cicutoxin is regarded as one of the few substances which is exclusively toxic.

It is always a good thing to face the facts without delay.

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Vegetable Poisons in Our Immediate Environment - Water Hemlock -

Beside the ponds and marshes of Europe grows the water hemlock, Cicuta virosa, an umbelliferous plant popularly and appropriately known as cowbane or beaver poison. The toxin contained in this plant is so virulent and so horrifying in its effects that the water hemlock may well be said to typify the lethal power of plants. hemlock, cicutoxin, is a typical convulsivant poison.

[...] Here and there one of the detached, fleshy roots floats up against the edge of the pond. Anybody eating these roots would notice only that they had a flavor resembling carrot or parsley. They smell like celery, and so well camouflaged is their utterly lethal nature that it is easy for children or the ignorant to pick them up and use them for food. This plant assumes an even more phantasmal quality when we recollect that it was precisely the stems of water hemlock from which, throughout the bucolic period of Ancient Greece and the whole antique world, Pan pipes where made.

[...] Peoples living close to nature have always been aware that the poison content of water hemlock's celery-like juice is highest in spring, and that a single tuber, the rhizome, contains a lethal dose, the virulence of which is not exceeded even by strychnine.

[...] The victim of cicutoxin presents a terrifying picture. His pupils are dilated and absolutely rigid. His eyes are turned inwards and downwards. There is a rattling in his throat. His breathing, if it is audible at all, makes a bubbling noise and often stops completely. He foams at the mouth and his pulse is weak. He looks as though he were already in his death agony, but again and again he comes back to life. It is life in the Inferno however, life in the hemlock hell. For once the first seizure is over the sufferer, chocking and groaning, begins to breath more or less normally once more and consciousness returns, as though some devilish power were giving him back his faculties so that he should experience his agony to the full. The seizures recur time after time at fifteen min intervals. If the victim has a strong constitution and a sound heart, his suffering will be protracted. At last total exhaustion brings about another faint, which leads to death. In the event of a particularly violent convulsion or an attack of respiratory paralysis, he may perish of asphyxiation, although the circulation is practically normal. Is it true that death occurs a few hours after ingestion, but these hours are so full of agony as to appear endless.

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[Extract from the Book of Poisons by Gustave Schenk ]

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