General discussion about poisons in drinking

There are two types of poisons: poisons that act according to their inherent quality, and poisons that act due to their nature and their entire substance. The former either corrode and cause decay, like the sea hare, or are hot and inflame, like furbiyun, or cool and cause numbness, like opium, or clog the airways in the body, like lead oxide. As for poisons that act with all their substance, this is, for example, aconite or hulhul, which they say is the gum of either aconite, or horns on ears of corn, or something else, like horns on ears of ears, or bile leopard and the like. These are the worst of poisons. Some poisons attack one organ, such as Spanish flies the bladder, sea hare the lungs, while others attack the entire body, such as opium.

When they say that a poison changes its nature or causes decay or attacks any organ, then its effect can always appear after some time, although, for example, a festering poison, the longer it remains in the body, the worse the effect of salvation from it is in dissolving the poison itself and what it generates, through perspiration and the like, or through treatment counteracting the poison.

Know that the harmfulness of poisons that cause numbness for people with a hot nature, on the one hand, is weaker, and on the other, stronger, and whichever side wins, the power belongs to that side. Since the hot nature of the heart resists them, their effect is weaker, but since their cold, heavy substance undergoes dissolution in the hot body and the beating of the arteries strongly carries and pulls them when compressed, they cause the hot body more suffering, especially since these poisons are the opposite of its in kind. It seems that when speaking about hot poisons, the same words should be repeated, for a hot nature resists them, driving them away from the heart and dissipating their power, but the arteries of a hot nature attract them and the same thing happens.

That is why Galen says that kuniyun - and this, I believe, is aconite or some other strong poison - kills a person, but does not kill starlings. In starlings, it reaches the heart only after such a period of time during which it is exposed in the body, after which it is influenced only by the force that turns it into a nutrient, and in humans the action of kuniyun is accelerated and occurs earlier due to the width of the ducts, significant heat and strong beating of arteries pulling poison. And I will say this is one way of explanation, but the relationship between the forces acting and being affected is also a circumstance that should be kept in mind. How is it known that kuniyun is a murderous poison in relation to the broad nature inherent in every animal in general, if it gains power over it, and, moreover, it is murderous, for example, for a person, since it takes possession of his nature, but not murderous, for example, for a starling, because he does not master his nature. After all, is it possible that kuniyun would not be poisonous to the nature of the starling and would not kill him even if it did not turn into a nutrient and reached his heart with the same ease with which it reaches the human heart?

Galen says: Some old women first take aconite in very small quantities and then continue to use it, so that the nature gets used to it and resists it, and it does not harm the nature at all. And Rufus says that slave women are sometimes fed poison in order to kill the masters who have intercourse with them, and that the poison takes possession of their nature with great force, so that their saliva kills the animals, and the chickens do not come close to the saliva they spit out.