There was a ranunculus which grew in Sardinia, which was credited with the power of promoting gaiety. It was called the Herba Sardonica. It occasioned spasmodic contraction of the muscles of the face and so simulated a laugh. Hence our expression "sardonic grin." The employment of haschish by the Saracen warriors to make themselves fierce and reckless in battle is not a mere legend. The sect who introduced it in the armies of Islam were called hashashin, the origin of our word "assassins." The reputation of the myrtle as an invigorator of the brain, and its consequent adoption by poets as a garland round their brows, is a sample of a more innocent tradition.
Several of the Greek and Roman medical authors, Galen among others, profess a cautious reticence in regard to poisons. But there is a treatise in existence in verse, by Nicandor, which gives such toxological knowledge as was familiar to the men of science of the second century before the Christian era. Among venomous animals were included salamanders, leeches, toads, cantharides, and the sea-hare (Lepus marinus). The blood of bulls (probably putrefied) was a poison in use by the Athenians. The honey of Heracleus had a certain fame, for it was alleged that the soldiers of Xenophon having regaled themselves with this luxury were all so intoxicated with it that the whole army lay on the field as if they were dead. Next day all recovered. It is supposed to have been a honey extracted from narcotic flowers.
The vegetable poisons known to the ancients have mostly been named. But cherry laurel, elaterium, certain fungi, and smilax, probably our mezereon, should be added. The mineral poisons in more or less use were arsenic, in the form of orpiment and realgar, cinnabar,
