The poisons known to the Asiatics were arsenic, aconite, opium, and various solanaceous plants. There has been a myth floating through the ages that a poison exists which will slay a long time after its introduction. All modern authors have treated the matter as an exaggerated legend, but, for my own part, I see no reason why it should not, in reality, be founded on fact. There is little doubt that the Asiatic poisoners were well acquainted with the infectious qualities of certain fevers and malignant diseases. Now, these very malignant diseases answer precisely to the description of a poison which has no immediate effects. Plant small-pox in the body of a man, and for a whole fortnight he walks about, well and hearty. Clothe a person with a garment soaked in typhus, and the same thing occurs--for many days there will be no sign of failure. Again, the gipsies, speaking a tongue which is essentially a deformed _prakrit_, and therefore Indian in origin, have long possessed a knowledge of the properties of the curious “_mucor phycomyces_.” This was considered an alga by Agaron, but Berkeley referred it to the fungi. The gipsies are said to have administered the spores of this fungi in warm water. In this way they rapidly attach themselves to the mucous membrane of the throat, all the symptoms of a phthisis follow, and death takes place in from two to three weeks. Mr Berkeley informed me that he has seen specimens growing on broth which had been rejected from the stomach, and that it develops in enormous quantities on oil-casks and walls impregnated with grease. The filaments are long, from 12 to 18 inches, and it is capable of very rapid development. There is also a modern poison, which, in certain doses, dooms the unfortunate individual to a terrible malady, simulating, to a considerable extent, natural disease,--that is phosphorus. This poison was, however, unknown until some time in the eleventh century, when Alchid Becher, blindly experimenting on the distillation of urine and carbon, obtained his “_escarboucle_,” and passed away without knowing the importance of his discovery, which, like so many others, had to be rediscovered at a later period. § 5. The Hebrews were acquainted with certain poisons, the exact nature of which is not quite clear. The words “_rosch_” and “_chema_” seem to be used occasionally as a generic term for poison, and sometimes to mean a specific thing; “_rosch_,” especially, is used to signify some poisonous parasitic plant. They knew yellow arsenic under the name of “_sam_,” aconite under the name of “_boschka_,” and possibly “_son_” means _ergot_.[4] In the later period of their history, when they were dispersed through various nations, they would naturally acquire the knowledge of those nations, without losing their own. [4] R. J. Wunderbar, _Biblisch-talmudische Medicin_. Leipzig, 1850-60.