Arsenic poisoning ancient times

The poisonous effect of arsenic has been known since ancient times and its application against insects was recommended as early as the seventeenth century in a book by John Worlidge (Munro, 1946). The use of various inorganic preparations for plant protection increased to several hundred million tons per year by the 1940s, but since then they have been replaced to a considerable extent by chlorinated hydrocarbon insecticides. 

It is debatable whether arsenic was widely used as secret poison in ancient times. Theophrastus spoke of a poison that could be moderated in such a manner as to have effects in two or three months or at the end of a year or two years and remarked that the more lingering the administration, the more miserable the... 

Mercury toxicity has been known since ancient times. Romans, for example, used criminals in the cinnabar mines in Spain as the life expectancy of a miner was just three years (/). Other examples of metals that were mined for a variety of uses include lead (Pb) and arsenic (As). Egyptians were known to use lead back to 5000 B.C., and mines in Spain date to about 2000 B.C. (2). It has been suggested that the use of lead in making wine and other products, and the use of lead in pipes could have contributed to widespread lead poisoning in Roman times (i). 

Arsenic is another metal known to the ancients with toxic as well as medicinal properties. The sulfides of arsenic, which were roasted, were described by Dioscorides in the first century A.D. as medicines as well as colors for artists. There is evidence that arsenic was used as a poison in Roman times (poisonous nature of arsenic compounds, which were used in various recipes. Paracelsus, the Swiss physician, used arsenic compounds as medicinal agents (9). Arsenic was widely used as a pesticide in the form of calcium arsenate following the turn of the 20 century. 

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