No case of poisoning either suicidal, murderous, or accidental, is alluded to in the Bible, unless we regard the story of the wild gourds (2 Kings, ch. iv, v. 39) as coming within the last description. The suicide by poison of Ptolemeus Macron is mentioned in 2 Maccabees, ch. x, v. 13, but though this was a frequent practice among the Greeks and Romans when the New Testament was written, no allusion to it is found in the sacred writings. It may be that the apostles who include “pharmakeia” among the crimes of the heathen had in mind the degradation of the art to homicidal purposes, but it is more likely that they only intended to denounce its application to the service of lust or its consequences. The word Rosh occurs eleven times in the Old Testament, and is usually rendered gall, often in association with wormwood. In two instances, however (Hosea, ch. x, v. 4, and Amos, ch. vi. v. 12), it is translated hemlock in the authorised version, and this is retained in the revised version for the passage in Hosea. Apparently the word was a generic one for pernicious or nauseous weeds; but as Rosh also means head some commentators have thought that the poppy was intended. The word translated poison in Deut. ch. xxxii, v. 24, Job, ch. vi, v. 4, Psalms, lviii, v. 4, and cxl, v. 3, is Chemah, and always means something burning. It is often used to indicate fierce anger. The verse mentioned in Job is obviously a reference to the very ancient practice of dipping arrows into some poison, an application of pharmacy from which we derive our term toxicology. POISONING IN ROME. Livy tells the story of the earliest of the poison leagues. He is dependent on older historians for his facts, as the alleged events happened some three centuries before he wrote; about the year 330 B.C. in fact. A number of patricians died one after the other, their illnesses presenting similar symptoms, but the causes of these could not be traced. At last, however, a female slave gave information to the Ediles of a group of twenty Roman ladies of the highest position who, she said, occupied themselves in concocting poisons, and administering them to their husbands or others who had become inconvenient to them. The confederacy was directed by two women named Cornelia and Sergia, and although Livy says 20, some accounts give the number of the conspiratresses as 170, while others total it at 366. Cornelia and Sergia were brought before the magistrates, and indignantly denied that they had done more than prepare wholesome beverages and medicines. On this the slave, whose own life was in jeopardy, demanded that they should themselves be required to take some of these compounds. They were granted permission to consult with their associates before doing this, and in the interval they all poisoned themselves. Livy states that this story is not told by all the contemporary narrators.