"Prussic" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... having a smell as of an old pipe, in the pores of which, particularly of meerschaum clay, it may be found. It is also narcotic and very poisonous, one drop killing reptiles, as if by an electric shock: in this mode of action it is like prussic acid. But this empyreumatic oil consists of two substances; for, if it be washed with acetic acid, it loses its poisonous quality. It contains, therefore, a harmless oil, and a poisonous alkaline substance, which the acetic acid combines with and removes. ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 34, August, 1860 • Various
... mephitis[obs3], malaria, azote[obs3], sewer gas; pest. [poisonous substances, examples] Albany hemp[obs3], arsenious oxide, arsenious acid; bichloride of mercury; carbonic acid, carbonic gas; choke damp, corrosive sublimate, fire damp; hydrocyanic acid, cyanide, Prussic acid[ISA:chemsubcfp], hydrogen cyanide; marsh gas, nux vomica[Lat], ratsbane[obs3]. [poisonous plants] hemlock, hellebore, nightshade, belladonna, henbane, aconite; banewort[obs3], bhang, ganja[obs3], hashish; Upas tree. [list of poisonous substances(on-line)] ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... go through it and I shall keep my end up.' And he adds, 'Death I don't care a hang about! What worries me is the thought that they're going to cut my head off. Ah, if the governor could only hit on some trick to send me straight off to the next world before I had time to say knife! A drop of Prussic acid, ...
— The Crystal Stopper • Maurice LeBlanc
... takes,' said the child, bringing Rowland a small bottle labelled 'Prussic acid' from ...
— Gladys, the Reaper • Anne Beale
... it is found in, a ratio of from 5 to 10 per cent., is of the same character. It preserves for use other elements in the juice of the grape. As a stimulant, alcohol is, in my opinion, at once a deadly poison and a valuable medicine, to be ranked with belladonna, arsenic, prussic acid, and other toxical agents, which can never be safely dispensed with by the medical faculty, nor safely used by laymen as a stimulant, except under medical advice. As to my experience, it is very limited; and, in my judgment, it is ...
— Study and Stimulants • A. Arthur Reade
... communication. He recommends much caution in the extraction of those portions of taenia, which have remained partly in the intestine; and says that Dr. CAGNOLA proposed touching the extruded portion with prussic acid, in hopes of killing the whole animal by means of this violent poison. Dr. GARLEKE adopted this plan on an extruded portion of four inches in length, and in one hour afterwards the whole ...
— North American Medical and Surgical Journal, Vol. 2, No. 3, July, 1826 • Various
... rammed at him as if it were mother's milk," the lads "had enough blood on tap to run a sizeable slaughterhouse"; then a British fighter "swallowing a lobster salad on top of a whiskey sour, with a dose of prussic acid by way of dessert"; and references to my knowledge of the "Freds," "Toms," or "Dicks" of the Sporting Press of London, and to my familiarity with "Charlies," "Fitzs," and "Jims" of the "Magic ...
— The Confessions of a Caricaturist, Vol 2 (of 2) • Harry Furniss
... as L. E. L., authoress, born in Chelsea; a charming woman, who wrote well both in verse and prose; was Mrs. Hemans's successor; having taken prussic acid by mistake had ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... we caught was not a very large one, being only about ten feet from tip to tip of the wings; whereas the larger birds measure from twelve to thirteen feet. The bird, when caught, was held firmly down, and despatched by the doctor with the aid of prussic acid. He was then cut up, and his skin, for the sake of the feathers and plumage, divided amongst us. The head and neck fell to my share, and, after cleaning and dressing it, I hung my treasure by a string out of my cabin-window; but, when I next ...
— A Boy's Voyage Round the World • The Son of Samuel Smiles
... organic complaint which could possibly have been the cause of sudden death. Moreover, he had assisted Mr. Andrew Thornton, the district medical officer, in making a postmortem examination, and together they had come to the conclusion that death was due to the action of prussic acid, which had caused instantaneous failure of the heart, but how the drug had been administered neither he nor his colleague were at present ...
— The Old Man in the Corner • Baroness Orczy
... but even dangerous. Thus, some fashionable ladies and actresses, to enhance the clearness and brilliancy of their eyes before appearing in public, are in the habit of exposing them to air slightly impregnated with the vapor of prussic acid. This is done by placing a single drop of the dilute acid at the bottom of an eyecup or eyeglass, and then holding the cup or glass against the eye for a few seconds, with the head in an inclined position. It has also been asserted, and I believe correctly, that certain ladies of the demimonde ...
— The Ladies Book of Useful Information - Compiled from many sources • Anonymous
... could one fight the Uranian when they met? Relegar's nervous system was so constructed that he was practically impossible to kill. You could boil him or freeze him without injuring him. Uranians had been boiled alive in prussic acid for forty hours without ill effects. You could cut off legs and even sever the head and they would still live. So what could ...
— The Wealth of Echindul • Noel Miller Loomis
... amygdalin and synaptase, which can be extracted, in a separate state, from the bitter almonds. The amygdalin thus obtained, if dissolved in water, undergoes no change; but if a little synaptase be added to the solution, the amygdalin splits up into bitter almond oil, prussic acid, and ...
— Critiques and Addresses • Thomas Henry Huxley
... attacks of Edgar Poe's pen. Before almost everything else The Dreamer was chivalrous. The "starry sisterhood of poetesses" and authoresses, therefore, escaped his criticisms. One of his contemporaries said of him that he sometimes mistook his vial of prussic acid for his ink-pot. In writing of authors of the gentle sex, his ink-pot became a pot ...
— The Dreamer - A Romantic Rendering of the Life-Story of Edgar Allan Poe • Mary Newton Stanard
... properties are generally due to the presence of some acid or alkali contained in the plant from which they are derived. Oil of bitter almonds and cherry laurel water are poisonous in consequence of containing prussic acid. Opium owes its activity to the alkaloid morphia. The Upas-tiente derives its energetic powers from the alkaloid strychnia; conia is the active principle of hemlock; veratria of hellebore; aconita of monk's hood; and although ...
— The Commercial Products of the Vegetable Kingdom • P. L. Simmonds
... would be in if it were visible. Turn smartly about bringing up the left foot on the word "Two." If you guessed right the first time you will now be facing North. Without taking your eye off it, drill your peas into the ground in columns of fours. Don't forget to soak them in prussic acid or any simple poison (this is done more easily before they are sown) to prevent them being eaten by mice. A less effective precaution is to sit up all night near the vegetable garden ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 156, April 9, 1919 • Various
... birch that in the dim light they gave no help. First driving the small blade of his pocket-knife deep into the rugged bark of the tree in question, he withdrew it, and then smelled and tasted, exclaiming, "Ah, I thought so; it is the wild cherry!" And, truly, the characteristic prussic-acid odor, the bitter taste, belonging to the peach and cherry families, were readily noted; and another Sherlock Holmes ...
— Getting Acquainted with the Trees • J. Horace McFarland
... and of which I have forgotten the name, had been landed somewhere or other in Scandinavia. "But do you know what it is, sir? It's the most appalling poison! It's the concoction that the South Sea Islanders smear their bows and arrows with—cyanide and prussic acid are soothing-syrup compared to it. Of course it's for those filthy Boches. Five hundred and eighty tons of it! There won't be a bullet or a zeppelin or a shell or a bayonet or a dart or a strand of barbed-wire that won't be reeking with the stuff." ...
— Experiences of a Dug-out, 1914-1918 • Charles Edward Callwell
... acidulous or chloroform character. Galopin remarks that, while some women's armpits smell of sheep in rut, others, when exposed to the air, have a fragrance of ambergris or violet. Dark persons (according to Gould and Pyle) are said sometimes to exhale a prussic acid odor, and blondes more frequently musk; Galopin associates the ambergris odor ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 4 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... the other, even if we do not know exactly how far it would be safe to separate two forces of a given size, in the presence of an enemy of a given power. It is well to know a fact in general terms, even if we do not know it in precise terms: it is well to know in general terms that we must not take prussic acid, even if we do not know exactly how much ...
— The Navy as a Fighting Machine • Bradley A. Fiske
... Maitland replied, "it is the most fatal of all poisons known to chemists. It is also called cyanhydric, and, more commonly, prussic acid. An insignificant amount, when inhaled or brought into contact with the skin, causes immediate death. If a drop be placed upon the end of a glass rod and brought toward the nose of a live rabbit he will be ...
— The Darrow Enigma • Melvin L. Severy
... it fashionable to take belladonna, aconite or prussic acid in "safe" doses, three, or six, or a dozen times a day in defiance of all the medical science in the world, the would-be man would never be content until he had overcome natural repugnance to the "bitters," and rate himself as so much higher in the scale of being by the length ...
— The Secret of a Happy Home (1896) • Marion Harland
... [poisonous substances, examples] Albany hemp^, arsenious oxide, arsenious acid; bichloride of mercury; carbonic acid, carbonic gas; choke damp, corrosive sublimate, fire damp; hydrocyanic acid, cyanide, Prussic acid, hydrogen cyanide; marsh gas, nux vomica [Lat.], ratsbane^. [poisonous plants] hemlock, hellebore, nightshade, belladonna, henbane, aconite; banewort^, bhang, ganja^, hashish; Upas tree. [list of poisonous substances] Toxline (online). rust, worm, helminth ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... very much. It makes me think of deep rivers, and high columns; of express trains and prussic acid. Well as we have known each other, you have never found out how unfortunately soft ...
— Is He Popenjoy? • Anthony Trollope
... states that one gram of the pure poison will kill 1,500,000 guinea pigs. Ricinus was lately isolated by Professor Robert, of Rostock, but is seldom found except in an impure state, though still very deadly. It surpasses strychnine, prussic acid, and other commonly known drugs. I congratulate you and yours on escaping and shall of course respect your wishes absolutely regarding keeping secret this attempt ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery In Four Volumes - Detective Stories • Various
... attracted by, the stone. In the case of a sensation produced in our organs, the laws of our organization, and even those of our minds, are as directly operative in determining the effect produced, as the laws of the outward object. Though we call prussic acid the agent of a person's death, the whole of the vital and organic properties of the patient are as actively instrumental as the poison, in the chain of effects which so rapidly terminates his sentient existence. ...
— A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive • John Stuart Mill
... to find cause and effect everywhere —succession and resemblance. He will say: It must be in all other sciences as in chemistry—there must be no chance. The elements have no caprice. Iron is always the same. Gold does not change. Prussic acid is always poison—it has no freaks. So he will reason as to all facts in nature. He will be a believer in the atomic integrity of all matter, in the persistence of gravitation. Being so trained, and so convinced, his tendency ...
— The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Volume VIII. - Interviews • Robert Green Ingersoll
... indispensable, but nothing can be achieved without a good stock of retrograde ideas. The prelate who should take the Emperor's letter to M. Edgar Ney seriously, would be, in vulgar parlance, done for; the only course open to him would be—to marry. At Paris, a man disappointed in ambition takes prussic acid; at Rome, ...
— The Roman Question • Edmond About
... other animals, and not the least to man, by raising blisters on his skin. It would seem that the hedgehog is also externally insensible to poison, for it fights with adders, and is bitten about the lips and nose without receiving any injury. An experiment has been made by administering prussic acid to ...
— Anecdotes of the Habits and Instinct of Animals • R. Lee
... sprinkle a little flour over the top—cover it with a thick crust, and bake the pie from fifty to sixty minutes. Pies made in this manner are much better than with the stones taken out, as the prussic acid of the stone gives the pie a fine flavor. If the peaches are not mellow, they will require stewing before being made into a pie. Dried peaches should be stewed soft, and sweetened, before they are made into a pie—they do not ...
— The American Housewife • Anonymous
... moved a resolution condemning the raising of large revenue in India from opium. Mr. WINGFIELD opposed the resolution, arguing that opium was less hurtful than alcohol. Mr. TITMOUSE, a young member, added that arsenic is less hurtful than strychnine; also, that this is less injurious than prussic acid. Mr. GLADSTONE did not see what that had to do with the ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 11, June 11, 1870 • Various
... Mrs. McLean's death, he was one of the inquest that examined into that melancholy event. His account confirms the general impression, that her death was unpremeditated, and caused by an accidental over-dose of prussic-acid, which she was in the habit of taking for spasms. She was found alone, and nearly dead, behind the door of her apartment. Alas, poor L.E.L.! It was certainly a strange and wild vicissitude of fate that made it the duty of this respectable African merchant, in company ...
— Journal of an African Cruiser • Horatio Bridge |
