“To give an exact and particular account of the Nature and Manner of acting of Poisons is no easy matter; but to Discourse more intelligibly of them than authors have hitherto done, not very difficult.” (From Dr. Richard Mead’s Preface to his “Essays on Poisons,” 1702.) It has been shown elsewhere (Vol. I., page 52) how intimate was the connection between ancient pharmacy and poisoning. In Greek the terms came to be almost synonymous, and there is an echo of the same association of ideas in the words Poison and Potion, which a few centuries ago were used in English without much distinction. The priests of Egypt, the Æsculapians of Greece, and perhaps still more the herbalists of that country and of Italy, necessarily learnt many things from their studies of medicinal plants. They found herbs which would cause sleep, furnish dreams, and confuse the brain. They professed and perhaps believed in their ability to accomplish far more with their philtres than the vegetable world was capable of, but the common people had no means of checking their claims, and such science as there was tended to support them. In the palaces of kings, in the tents of generals, and in all the high places where intrigues, jealousies, and enmities found their fullest scope, pharmaceutical skill was much sought after; in some cases to dispose of rivals, but more usually to counteract the murderous schemes which in those times constituted so large a portion of statecraft. There was nothing the brave men of old dreaded so much as secret poisoning. It is impossible to say how far this crime was practised. Suspicion and terror may have exaggerated its records, but on the other hand it is equally possible that thousands of deaths may have occurred from poisons which were not attributed to that cause. Hecate and her daughters Medea and Circe figured prominently in Greek legends as inventors and discoverers of poisons. The magic arts for which they were all famous were closely associated with deadly drugs. They were supposed to live in the island of Colchis, the name of which still recalls a vegetable which for many centuries retained the reputation of possessing the most venomous properties. Colchicum was discovered by Medea, but to Hecate is attributed the earliest use of aconite. Kings studied pharmacy and invented antidotes. Orpheus, the physician and poet, who preceded Æsculapius, wrote a poem on precious stones, in which he relates that Theodomas, son of Priam, King of Troy, had learned how to administer these as antidotes to poisons. The marvellous properties of the antidote invented by Mithridates, King of Pontus, is one of the commonplaces of medical history. Down to the seventeenth century theriaca, emeralds, and bezoar stones were the antidotes to all poisons recognised by the faculty. BIBLICAL POISONS.