Poison gas may be a war weapon invented by modern scientists, but the idea of exterminating enemies by such a method appears to have e: excised the minds of militarists as long ago as 1672, according to extracts I have just read of official prescriptions, published in that year.
These include details of a poison Smoke which would "infect the air and-kill those who draw it in." The first ingredient was required was a toad. "Smother it in salt-petre" runs the recipe, "and bury it under a dung-hit for a fortnight, then take it out, and proportion it with sulphur and coal."
Rather, more complicated to manufacture was the poison ball which was prepared from the venom of toads, the foam of mad dogs, the blood tats, the oil of scorpions, and the juices of anemone, hemlock, mandrake apples, poisonous nightshade, wolf-bane and various other products of the Vegetable kingdom.
'How this witches' concoction was Animals Are Natural Actors
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.