ARSENIC EATING.

Evening Star, Issue 11605, 19 July 1901, Page 7

ARSENIC EATING.

Styria, a duchy having a population of about a million and a-balf, and lying south of Gra'z, in the mountainous portion of the great German confederation, is noted for itt arsento eaters. Arsenic eaters abound in city, village, and neighborhood, and in .thousands of casta every adult in a family usfts it almost the Bame as sugar. Heilland tells of a Bf.yrian peasant who contracted the poison-eating habit by taking one and a-half g'ains of arsenic on the first day, three on the second, and, five and a-balf on the third. Tni« man increased the doses so that by the end of the firs yeaf he wai regularly eating twejve grains of the drug three times a day wthout viable harm. Maclagan mentions the oase of a man who daily consumed tweaiy-tW6 and one'-half graln—Hseven and' one-half grains before each meal—of the poisonous drag, la. his estimation this was something truly extraordinary. Heilland'* oase is, of course, much ,raore wonderful, but Dr Kerr reokona both aa freaks, and gives it as his opinion that the regular poispn-taikers of Sfyria do not average more than five and one-half grains during each tweiityfuur hours.—* Health.'