“Medieval Arabic Toxicology” is an English translation of the work “Book on Poisons” by Ibn Wahshiya. The author, Martin Levey provides us with a brief, 20-page introduction to the work letting the audience know what to expect. The rest of the book is the translation (94 pages) as well as a bibliography, glossary of Arabic terms used, and index.

The author’s intent for this book was to contribute to the study and understanding of ancient toxicology. Levey states that this text is one of the 3 most important texts on poisons in Arabic. In addition, ibn Wahshiya had Greek and Egyptian toxicological influences, so this text brings together the findings on poisons from several cultures. A reader interested in the history of poisons and with an appreciation for ancient Arabic text will appreciate “Medieval Arabic Toxicology”, but it hardly requires any real scientific understanding and most anyone would find ibn Wahshiya’s work to be interesting, even entertaining.

Ibn Wahshiya was a 9th century toxicologist hailing from Nabatene, an Arabic land which bordered modern-day Syria and Arabia. Despite the fact that Nabatene was supposedly an Arabic land, ibn Wahshiya spends a great deal of time in the introduction of his book expressing his superiority to Arabs, describing them as having “no science, no wisdom, and no understanding reason or solid thought”.

Ibn Wahshiya next spends some time defining a poison, distinguishing between a complex mixture of compounds and a single compound, and explaining that poisons affect bodily organs in some way. This is about as scientific as his writing gets, but coming from the 9th century, this seems like it would be pretty standard.

The rest of ibn Wahshiya’s book is written very much in an encyclopedia-like style, with a descriptive heading followed by one or several paragraphs describing one poison/remedy at a time. His “encyclopedia” is broken up into five distinct sections.

In the first section, ibn Wahshiya describes sight-poisons lethal when one looks at them. Examples he gives of such sight-poisons are a bird called a hoopoe, a certain kind of clay, and a certain kind of necklace. The concoctions to remedy the affect of these poisons were lengthy, but included snake blood, emeralds, bird bills, boiled bat urine, and other sundries.

In the second section, ibn Wahshiya describes sound-poisons lethal when one hears them, in particular, drums for which he describes both how to make and how to cure. Proper use of one such drum involves a certain orientation with the planet Saturn. 

In the third section, ibn Wahshiya describes poisons lethal when sniffed. At this point, his works becomes more of what we would consider scientific by today’s standards. One of the notable examples in this section is Hashish (Cannabis Sativa). He described the plant as seeming “to be in motion, even when there is not a breeze in the air”. Upon sniffing Hashish, he claims, “a violent tickle occurs in the nose of this man… he cannot say what he means”.

In the fourth section, ibn Wahshiya describes poisons lethal upon ingestion. He illustrates treatments for eating spoiled food as well as poisons from minerals, bugs, animals and plants. He also describes treatments for the ingestion of food that has been made bad due to magic “or other cunning”. Towards the end of his work, he describes treatments for such natural products as opium, hemlock, and mandrake. Many of the treatments for such poisonous plants involved rapidly eating various foods or drinking wine or beer until vomiting occurred.

His fifth section, “Simple Poisons”, describe poisons lethal by contact. These include poisons that come from an animal sting or bite. His section titled “On the Bite of the Mad Dog” may refer to rabies.

This book is an admittedly humorous read, requiring very little background on the science of natural products… because the author himself had very little as well, by today’s standards at least. It describes more folklore or legend rather than science. However, it does give a good historical context for the beginnings of natural medicines and poisons.