Poisons are substances that can cause disturbances to organisms, usually by chemical reaction or other activity on the molecular scale, when a sufficient quantity is absorbed by an organism. In medicine (particularly veterinary) and in zoology, a poison is often distinguished from atoxin and avenom. Toxins are poisons produced via some biological function in nature, and venoms are usually defined as biological toxins that are injected by a bite or sting to cause their effect, while other poisons are generally defined as substances which are absorbed through epithelial linings such as the skin or gut.
One probable hindrance to the adoption ofchemical weapons by theUnited States was theArmy’s Chief of Ordnance, Brigadier GeneralJames W. Ripley, who was notoriously hostile toward newweapons. Moreover, the use of poisons inwar was commonly consideredunethical, and an 1863 directive from theU.S. War Department (the “Lieber Code”) barred their use. Yet, just as some Northerners might have agreed with a snuff proponent from Vermont that “any mode of Warfare ishonorable in putting down openrebellion,” some Southerners might have concurred with theMississippian who argued that usingstrychnine andarsenic was justified against a foe “whose whole and sole aim is ourdestruction.” John Doughty considered themoralquestion of usingchlorine and “arrived at the somewhat paradoxical conclusion, that its introduction would very much lessen the sanguinary character of the battlefield, and at the same time render conflicts more decisive in their results.”Confederate incendiaries expert John Cheves disapproved of poisoning and favored “stifling” the enemy “with the materials ordinarily used in war” as “more consonant with the spirit of the age” and “more practicable and quite as effectual.” He argued, “There is as much difference between poisoning and stifling as there is between throwingdust in a man’seyes & putting his eyes out yet where only momentaryblindness is wanted the first will do as well as the last.”
In response toTacky’s Rebellion in 1760 inJamaica, the colony’sHouse of Assembly passed alaw naming a newcrime, “obeah.” This important statute led the way in establishing obeah as a phenomenon understood by colonial authorities as a singular anddangerousproblem. Investigating the Jamaica assembly’s decision within a widerCaribbean andAtlantic context and alongside the near-contemporaneous “Makandal conspiracy” inSaint Domingue, which was interpreted byFrench planters as a mass outbreak ofpoisoning, shows how similar practices came to be interpreted and constructed in different ways in different colonial cultures. The practices used by Tacky’s “obeah man” and Makandal’s followers were conceptually and practically similar, deriving from African understandings ofmedicine in which substances could be imbued withspiritualpower. Why, then, did theFrench colonists emphasize poison while theBritish emphasized obeah (which they glossed with the term “witchcraft”)?
Son, I don't have money even to buy poison. Please help –
Dadasaheb Phalke in a letter to his son Bhalchandra in late 1930s, quoted in "Dadasaheb Phalke's family wants Bharat Ratna for him". Hindustan Times. 27 April 2013. Retrieved on 26 December 2013.
Let me have A dram of poison, such soon-speeding gear As will disperse itself through all the veins That the life-weary taker may fall dead And that the trunk may be discharg'd of breath As violently as hasty powder fir'd Doth hurry from the fatal cannon's womb.
Un gros serpent mordit Aurèle. Que croyez-vous qu'il arriva? Qu' Aurèle en mourut? Bagatelle! Ce fut le serpent qui creva.
In a manuscript commonplace book, written probably at end of 18th Cen. See Notes and Queries. March 30, 1907, p. 246.
Hier auprès de Charenton Un serpent morait Jean Fréron, Que croyez-vous qu'il arriva? Ce fut le serpent qui creva.
Imitation from the Greek. Found also inŒuvres Complèts de Voltaire, III, p. 1002. (1817). Printed as Voltaire's; attributed to Piron; claimed for Fréron.
The man recover'd of the bite, The dog it was that died.
Oliver Goldsmith,Elegy on the Death of a Mad Dog. Same idea in Manasses—Fragmenta. Ed. Boissonade. I. 323. (1819).
While Fell was reposing himself in the hay, A reptile concealed bit his leg as he lay; But, all venom himself, of the wound he made light, And got well, while the scorpion died of the bite.
All men carry about them that which is poyson to serpents: for if it be true that is reported, they will no better abide the touching with man's spittle than scalding water cast upon them: but if it happen to light within their chawes or mouth, especially if it come from a man that is fasting, it is present death.
Pliny the Elder,Natural History, Book VII, Chapter II. Holland's translation.
In gährend Drachengift hast du Die Milch der frommen Denkart mir verwandelt.
To rankling poison hast thou turned in me the milk of human kindness.
Talk no more of the lucky escape of the head From a flint so unhappily thrown; I think very different from thousands; indeed 'Twas a lucky escape for the stone.
John Wolcot (Peter Pindar),On a Stone thrown at George III.
