Abd Razak, Dzulkifli
(1995)
A Brief History of Poisons.
The Sun.
Abstract
"Let me have, A dram of poison, such soonspeeding
gear, As will disperse itself through all the veins, That the liftweary talker may fall dead, And that the trunk may be discharged of' breath, As violently as hasty powder
fir'd, Doth hurry from the fatal cannon's womb."
Today, poisonings are a significant cause of mortality and morbidity. A 16th century physician, Paracelsus
noted that all substances known to man are poisons, and only the amount or dose determines the effect. As
such, poisons have been part of the history of mankind. From the days of Socrates to the present time, poisons
have never ceased to be an integral part of man. A number of wellknown
literature's never failed to mention
the word 'poisons' since time immemorial. The famous being William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet:
In more recent times, Agatha Christie in her writings often used poisons as part of her plot. Since 1920 until
1975, among the 85 books that she wrote, 41 involved poisons; whereas of the 148 short stories written,
poisons were implicated in 24 of them. Likewise, Lewis Carroll in her famous book 'Alice in Wonderland,' wrote:
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