The Meta-Encyclopedia

Poison

Poison names 2 different subjects across the 6 encyclopedias on this shelf. Each is set out below.

Poison any substance that

Aiton's Encyclopedia (1910)

any substance that, if introduced into the system, tends to impair health or cause death. The term is difficult to define. Even water, the most wholesome of substances, may, if injected into a vein, destroy the blood cells and cause death. Then, too, quantity is a factor. A small dose may be helpful; a large dose, death. Even strychnine may be administered in minute quantities as a remedy for paralysis and dyspepsia. Another fact is well expressed by the popular saying, "What is one man's meat is another man's poison." An old-fashioned classification serves the present purpose: CORROSIVES. These poisons, like lye, eat away the lining of the throat, stomach, and intestines. Corrosive sublimate or soluble chloride of mercury is of this type. Makers of looking-glasses, thermometers, barometers and the like, in which mercury is employed for backing, are especially subject to mercurial poisoning. The acids known as sulphuric, nitric, hydrochloric, oxalic, and carbolic, as well as some of the alkalies, are of this type. The only remedy is washing out the stomach. Ptomaine belongs here. As to remedies it may be said in general that an acid is an antidote for an alkali and an alkali an antidote for an acid. IRRITANTS. These are poisons that cause inflammation, especially of the swallow, stomach, and parts of the alimentary canal . Arsenic, lead, copper, zinc, and phosphorus are leading poisons of this class. Paris green is an arsenical poison. Many a child has been poisoned by the phosphorus found in the heads of matches. The bite of a rattlesnake belongs to this class. Many of the gases, as coal gas, are irritant and highly poisonous. Alcohol and nicotine belong to this division. NERVE-DESTROYING POISONS. Prominent poisons of this sort are prussic acid, opium, strychnine, aconite, and belladonna. In case of poisoning, the physician with his stomach pump should be summoned in all haste. In the meantime a drink of hot water, all the better if strong with mustard, may induce vomiting. The emetic will be aided in doing its work if the patient lie face downward with the head hanging over the edge of the bed and if the inside of the throat be tickled with a feather. For some of the more common poisons, the remedies most likely to be at hand are: Acids.--Muriatic, oxalic, acetic, sulphuric, nitric. Antidotes: Soapsuds, magnesia, limewater. Carbolic Acid .--Antidotes: Flour and water, mucilaginous drinks. Prussic Acid.--Antidote: Ammonia in water. Alkalies.--Lye, potash, hartshorn, ammonia. Antidotes: Vinegar, lemon juice in water. Arsenic.--Rat poison, Paris green. Antidotes: Milk, raw eggs, sweet oil, lime-water, flour and water. Bug Poison.--Corrosive sublimate, blue vitriol, sugar of lead, saltpetre, lead. Antidotes: Whites of eggs or milk in large doses. Chloroform.--Remedy: Artificial breathing and a dash of cold water on the face. Carbonate of Soda.--Copperas, cobalt. Antidote: Soapsuds. Iodine.--Antimony. Antidotes: Starch and water, strong tea. Mercury.--Antidotes: Whites of eggs, milk, mucilages. Opium.--Morphine, laudanum, paregoric, soothing powders or soothing syrups. Antidotes: Strong coffee, hot bath. Keep awake and keep moving at any cost. Charcoal has a power of absorbing poisons. Powdered charcoal stirred in water and taken in quantity is a harmless remedy for many poisons. It should be taken immediately and at intervals of ten minutes. See Socrates ; Ordeal ; Borgia ; Mushroom ; Loco; Sumac ; Nightshade ; Ivy ; Pneumonia

Poison a game played by children in the following manner

Aiton's Encyclopedia (1910)

a game played by children in the following manner: A chip or similar object is thrown down in the midst of a plot of sward; the children then hold hands and run around it in a ring swaying in and out, trying to make some one of their number step on "the poison." The moment that this is accomplished, they abandon their poisoned playmate, who chases about the playgrounds trying to touch and poison some one else before he can sit. Those who are remote from the poisoned child jump up and run about, and the game continues until someone is caught and poisoned. Then the game recommences by circling around the original source of venom. Sometimes the game is played by allowing the poisoned member of the ring to drop out. The circle starts around again until another playmate is poisoned, and thus the game continues till but few, or only one, is left unpoisoned. See Games

What Has Changed in the Last Century

Aiton's 1910 list of household antidotes is exactly the part that modern toxicology has thrown out. Neutralising a swallowed acid with alkali (or the reverse) is now considered dangerous, since the reaction generates heat and gas in an already burned stomach; syrup of ipecac and feather-tickled vomiting have been abandoned as well, with the American Academy of Pediatrics formally withdrawing its advice to keep ipecac at home in 2003, and routine stomach-pumping is now rare. "Ptomaine" as a cause of food poisoning was dropped altogether once bacteria such as Salmonella and their toxins were identified. What replaced the folk remedies is institutional: the first US poison control centre opened in Chicago in 1953, specific antidotes arrived (naloxone for opium and morphine, licensed in the United States in 1971; antivenom for rattlesnake bite from the 1920s onward), and only activated charcoal survives from Aiton's list, in narrower use than the "harmless remedy for many poisons" described here.

Written for this edition, 2026.