PROOF AGAINST POISON.

Waipa Post, Volume XXIV, Issue 1425, 10 November 1923, Page 7

PROOF AGAINST POISON.

IMMUNITY OF ANIMALS. Some animals can absorb enough poison to kill a regiment of men without suffering any ill-effects at all. Morphia, for instance. Of this deadly drug a goat can swallow with impunity enough to kill 1000 human beings. Cats seem morphia-proof. They can take quantities of the poison without being made in the least sleepy. On the contrary, morphia seems to exr cite these animals. A pigeon has been known to eat 800 grains of morphia mixed with its food in a fortnight. Here, again, the bird was not in any way harmed; Rabbits will eat belladonna to such an extent that their flesh becomes poisonous, while they themselves are not any the worse. Cantharidin is not so deadly as the poisons already mentioned, yet one grain has been known to kill a human being. You might, however, give a whole spoonful to a hedgehog without doing him the slightest harm. Arsenic is one of the few poisons which kill all forms of life —insect, animal and vegetable—and of the vegetable poisons there is one—namely, nicotine —which is even more deadly in its effects upon the lower animals than it is upon mankind.