Arsenic: In Search of an Antidote to a Global Poison

Abstract

Arsenic. No other element has such a complex and variegated past. As early as 500 B.C. the ancients knew about arsenic, whose name comes from the Greek word for potent. Through the centuries, this “king of poisons” was a common means of homicide. And yet, arsenic’s image has not always been so morbid. People in the Middle Ages wore arsenic amulets around their necks to ward off the bubonic plague, and women in Victorian times applied arsenic compounds to their faces to whiten their complexions. Hippocrates, the father of western medicine, recorded arsenic’s usefulness as a topical remedy for skin ulcers.