"Prussic acid" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... again in exhaustion. The veterinary surgeon said he could do no more, and as the convulsions gradually became terribly acute, I was advised to shorten the poor animal's cruel agony and free him from his pain by a little prussic acid. We delayed our departure on his account until I at last convinced myself that a quick death would be charity to the poor suffering creature, who was quite past all hope. I hired a boat, and took an hour's row across the lake to visit a young doctor ...
— My Life, Volume II • Richard Wagner
... that his nervousness was to be noticed. And a plane tried to deliver a message to him. Your father thought the parcel contained the antidote to the poison that was driving him mad. Actually, it was very conventional prussic acid. Your father would have drunk it and dropped dead, a suicide, after a conspicuous period of ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science July 1930 • Various
... which not only attracts, but is itself 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. In the process of education, we may ...
— A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive • John Stuart Mill
... works fast," groaned the doctor as they approached closer to the giant maw. "I never tried giving an octopus a hypodermic injection of prussic acid before, but it ought to do the business. There's enough acid there to kill half New ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, December 1930 • Various
... glamour and a sensation about the thing which has its charm, and that there is nothing like it for causing a girl to realize the value of the heart that she has broken and which breathed forgiveness upon her at the very moment when it held in its hand the half-pint of prussic acid that was to terminate its ...
— Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town • Stephen Leacock
... find that their 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 there ...
— The Commercial Products of the Vegetable Kingdom • P. L. Simmonds
... too bad you won't be with us permanently, Davies," Nelda said. "Your recipe seems to be just what Geraldine needs. With a dash of prussic acid added, of course." ...
— Murder in the Gunroom • Henry Beam Piper
... known among chemists as a six-ounce bottle. It contained a colourless liquid. The label stated the dose to be "two table-spoonfuls," and bore, as usual, a number corresponding with a number placed on the prescription. She took up the prescription. It was a mixture of bi-carbonate of soda and prussic acid, intended for the relief of indigestion. She looked at the date, and was at once reminded of one of the very rare occasions on which she had required the services of a medical man. There had been a serious ...
— The Fallen Leaves • Wilkie Collins
... Unorna, I am very careful in guarding against accidents of all sorts, for I have attempted to resuscitate a great many dead people and I have never succeeded, and I know that a false step on a slippery staircase may be quite as fatal as a teaspoonful of prussic acid—or an unrequited passion. I avoid all these things and many others. If I did not, and if you had any object in getting me under your influence, you would succeed sooner or later. Perhaps the day is not far distant when I will voluntarily ...
— The Witch of Prague • F. Marion Crawford
... symptoms exhibited in the case of Miss Stennecke, occurs not infrequently from insidious disease of the kidneys, yet these organs were not taken out of the body. The stomach was examined chemically by Professor Aiken of the University of Maryland, who reported that he had found prussic acid, and who testified on the trial that Miss Stennecke had received a fatal dose of that poison. When, however, his evidence was sifted, it was discovered that he had only obtained traces of the poison by the distillation of the stomach with sulphuric acid. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - April, 1873, Vol. XI, No. 25. • Various
... vessels, Florence flasks, answer well: a bent tube being connected at one end to its month, the other passing into the second vessel; heat should be cautiously applied by means of an Argand lamp, a little vessel of sand being placed under the flask, which helps the acid to decompose the salt. Prussic acid is then generated and passes through the tube to the recipient vessel, which is to be charged with ...
— American Handbook of the Daguerrotype • Samuel D. Humphrey
... when a particular belief is fruitful in nobleness of character, we need trouble ourselves very little with scientific demonstrations that it is false. The most deadly poison may be chemically undistinguishable from substances which are perfectly innocent. Prussic acid, we are told, is formed of the same elements, combined in ...
— Froude's Essays in Literature and History - With Introduction by Hilaire Belloc • James Froude
... "If it were prussic acid I'd be glad to drink it." The voice was bitter, and again the eyes, pale yet burning, were raised to his, and in them was what seemed frightened but guarded recognition. Quickly she dropped them and glanced around the room, as though looking for escape, and again her hands made convulsive ...
— People Like That • Kate Langley Bosher
... impresses the olfactory nerve with the idea of the presence of hydrocyanic acid, which is probably a true impression. Burnett says that the plant Viola tricolor (heart's ease), when bruised, smells like peach kernels, and doubtless, therefore, contains prussic acid. ...
— The Art of Perfumery - And Methods of Obtaining the Odors of Plants • G. W. Septimus Piesse
... and applied to the skin has caused death in three hours. A tobacco enema has resulted fatally within a few minutes. The excessive smoking of tobacco has been known to produce violent and fatal effects. Nicotine is one of the most rapidly fatal poisons known. It rivals prussic acid in this respect. It takes about one minute for a single drop of nicotine to kill a fullgrown cat. A single drop has killed a rabbit in three minutes. The old tobacco-user is often cross, irritable and liable to outbursts of passion. ...
— The Gospel Day • Charles Ebert Orr
... and exhaustion, are strongly associated with the recollection of its exhilarating effects, and thus bring along with them the resistless desire for its repetition." More than fifty per cent. of common spirits are alcohol, this deadly substance, holding rank with henbane, hemlock, prussic acid, foxglove, poison sumach. Nausea, vertigo, vomiting, exhilaration of spirits for a time, and subsequent stupor, and even total insensibility and death, are their accompaniments. Broussais remarks, "A single portion of ardent spirit taken into the stomach produces ...
— Select Temperance Tracts • American Tract Society |
