HOW POISONS WERE TRIED ON MAN.

Otago Witness, Volume 06, Issue 2899, 6 October 1909, Page 80

HOW POISONS WERE TRIED ON MAN.

From a very early period scifti«© has J bean gradually built up by experimental j methods, and even the ancaenis were cognisant eff the ; fact that the remedial propertdes of substances could only be proved by actual experiment. Not only > animals but human beings were , utilised j for this purpose by many famous physicians in the Slidd'le Ages.. Criminals had been cpnd.en;nod , to death were generally selected, for these . experiments. Vivisection of the live human subject was prac- • ti-sed by the Alexandrian sfchool •in the j times of the Ptolemies. Erasistratus and i Horophilus, pupils of Chrysippusof Cnidus, i 1 experimented upon 6CQ condemned, crimi- ! < nals hawdod oveT to them by Ptolemy ' Soter. Their conduct, however, met with th© reprobation of their contemporaries. Celsus and Galen reproached Herophilus | | with "cruel and useless sacrifices", of human feeling, whil* Tertullian called him i roundly "an executioner who gave linger- t ing death with refined cruelty." t The Cowrt physicians of Attalus (King j * of Perganms) and slithridatea (King of x Pontus) were authorised in virtue of their I oißce to try poisons upon criminals, and were accused by their jealous colleagues of pluming themselves ugon their privileges, t while leF-s favoured practitioners were j compelled to content themselves with cocks aud. dogs to experiment upon. I Brassavola of Ferrara studied little-known l and doubtftii remedies by testing their j effects on criminals, and Fallopius, his £ pupil, who -eventually made su-ch important » physiological liscoveries, followed his *: master's example. ■ It is recorded that Cosmo de Medici, c Ci.and Duke of Tuscany, on one occasion g ordered the magistrate of Pisa to band j 6 over two men to Fallopius. "in ord<>r that | he may put them to Vloath in whatever ! ° v::y ho pleases, snd then pr.atomise * ti'om."' FnMoniuss however, sseing the ' " r. .-n were (onchmned to c'eatii, se^ms to ! " i tos acted with both di<jnity and ' hu-nanity. Iff gave tihem ea^h eiuht '.•■•vnif. o! opium; one died and the other ; pcoverc J. Po?mo p:ij-dcnad t>>3 hitler unfortunate, ' h-.:t, v vv.e n. nv bp'i'-'ve corttempor iry f! -• rd-. Fallopiti-, (\kl not: ha cave the v i.:,ni e.i'ht ui-r.ins more, and this ti'r.2 h hi died —The Ho-ntai. .o