[107] With the poison of the Indians, however, the ancients could not be acquainted, as it is prepared from a plant unknown in Europe before the discovery of America. Kalm, in his Travels, does not name it, and in that he has done right; for, as the plant is now to be found everywhere, no government could guard against a misapplication of it, were it publicly known. [108] They say a poison can be prepared from aconite so as to occasion death within a certain period, such as two, three, or six months, a year, and even sometimes two years. Those, we are told, whose constitutions are able to hold out longest, die in the greatest misery; for the body is gradually consumed, and must perish by continual wasting. Those die easiest who die speedily. No remedy has been found out for this poison.--Theophr. Hist. Plant. ix. c. 16. [109] Livius, lib. viii. c. 18. [110] Taciti Annal. lib. iv. c. 8. [111] The account given by Tacitus deserves to be read; see lib. xii. c. 66. [112] The history of this horrid affair may be found both in Tacitus, Annal. xiii. c. 15 and 16, and in Suetonius, vi. cap. 33. Respecting Locusta, see also Juvenal, sat. i. 71. [113] This account is given by Aulus Gellius from the now lost works of Tuditanus.--Noct. At. lib. vi. cap. 4. Cicero often speaks of the magnanimity of Regulus; as, for example, in his Oration against Piso, and in his Offices, book iii. chap. 27; but he makes no mention of his having been poisoned. Valerius Maximus also, book i. chap. i. 14, says nothing of poison. [114] Apollonii Vit. lib. vi. c. 14. [115] Histor. Animal. lib. ii. c. 45. [116] Lib. ix. c. 48, and lib. xxxii. c. 1. [117] In Linnæi Systema Nat., through an error of the press, stands _Laplysia_, which word has since become common. Ἀπλυσία signifies an uncleanness which cannot be washed off; and in Aristotle’s History of Animals, b. v. ch. 15, and Pliny, b. ix. ch. 45, it is the name of a zoophyte. In the like manner other errors in the System of Linnæus have been copied into the works of others, such as _Dytiscus_ instead of _Dyticus_, &c. [118] J. B. Bohadsch De quibusdam animalibus marinis. Dresdæ, 1761, 4to, p. 1-53. In this work there is a full description, with a figure of this animal, under the name of _Lernæa_, which was used in the first editions of Linnæus. [119] The accounts given by the ancients of the sea-hare have been collected in Grevini Lib. de Venenis, Antverpiæ 1571, p. 209. In the Annals of Glycas, iii. (_Script. Byz._), it is said that Titus was despatched by this poison; and in the first book, b. 27, he says the sea-hare occasions speedy and inevitable destruction to man.