In like manner, few
persons will object to a drop or two of the frightful corrosive, sulphuric
acid (vitriol), in a glass of water, to which it communicates an agreeably
acid taste; and most of us have, at some period or other of our lives,
imbibed prussic acid, arsenic, and other deadly poisons under the orders
of the physician, or the first of these in the more pleasing form of
confectionary. Arsenic is said by Dr. Pearson to be as harmless as a glass
of wine in the quantity of one-sixteenth part of a grain; and in the cure
of agues it is so certain in its effects, that the French Directory once
issued an edict ordering the surgeons of the Italian army, under pain of
military punishment, to banish that complaint, at two or three days'
notice, from among the vast numbers of soldiers who were languishing under
it in the marshes of Lombardy. It would seem that no poison taken in small
and diluted doses is immediately hurtful, and the same thing may be said
of other agents. The tap of a fan, for instance, is a _blow_, and so is
the stroke of a club; but the one gives an agreeable sensation, and the
other fells the recipient to the ground. In like manner the analogy holds
good between the distribution of a blow over a comparatively large portion
of the surface of the body and the dilution or distribution of the
particles of a poison. A smart thrust upon the breast, for instance, with
a foil does no injury; but if the button is removed, and the same momentum
thus thrown to a point, the instrument enters the structures, and perhaps
causes death.

But the misfortune is, that poisons swallowed for the sake of the
agreeable sensations they occasion owe this effect to their action upon
the nervous system; and the action must be kept up by a constantly
increasing dose till the constitution is irremediably injured. In the case
of arsenic, as we have seen, so long as the excitement is undiminished all
is apparently well; but the point is at length reached when to proceed or
to turn back is alike death. The moment the dose is diminished or entirely
withdrawn, symptoms of poison appear, and the victim perishes because he
has shrunk from killing himself. It is just so when the stimulant is
alcohol. The morning experience of the drinker prophesies, on every
succeeding occasion, of the fate that awaits him. It may be pleasant to
get intoxicated, but to get sober is horror. The time comes, however, when
the pleasure is at an end, and the