The Declaration of Arsenic

So today is the 4th of July.....happy independance day!!! anyone familiar with a certain document which was written abouut 231 years ago??? I will give you a chunk of this document, not a very familiar chunk, to see if you can guess...


He has refused his assent to laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his governors to pass laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of representation in the legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved representative houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the legislative powers, incapable of annihilation, have returned to the people at large for their exercise; the state remaining in the meantime exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavored to prevent the population of these states; for that purpose obstructing the laws for naturalization of foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migration hither, and raising the conditions of new appropriations of lands.

He has obstructed the administration of justice, by refusing his assent to laws for establishing judiciary powers.
He has made judges dependent on his will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of new offices, and sent hither swarms of officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, standing armies without the consent of our legislature.
He has affected to render the military independent of and superior to civil power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his assent to their acts of pretended legislation:

For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by mock trial, from punishment for any murders which they should commit on the inhabitants of these states:

For cutting off our trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing taxes on us without our consent:
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of trial by jury:
For transporting us beyond seas to be tried for pretended offenses:
For abolishing the free system of English laws in a neighboring province, establishing therein an arbitrary government, and enlarging its boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule in these colonies:

For taking away our charters, abolishing our most valuable laws, and altering fundamentally the forms of our governments:

For suspending our own legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated government here, by declaring us out of his protection and waging war against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burned our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large armies of foreign mercenaries to complete the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of cruelty and perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow citizens taken captive on the high seas to bear arms against their country, to become the executioners of their friends and brethren, or to fall themselves by their hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavored to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian savages, whose known rule of warfare, is undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

...no, no, no!!! this isn't from an editorial page in The Nation talking about our current leader, this is about another King George, the king George of old England from around.....say 1776, perhaps??? Its the friggin Declaration of Independance fer chrissakes!!!! jeezus!!!! Though it does have a familiar ring to it does it not???

well this is interesting....

Later in his reign George III suffered from recurrent and, eventually, permanent mental illness. This baffled medical science at the time, although it is now generally thought that he suffered from the blood disease porphyria. Recently, owing to studies showing high levels of the poison arsenic in King George's hair, arsenic is also thought to be a possible cause of King George's insanity and health problems.

Arsenic.....in his hair??? why arsenic in hair???

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arsenic#History

Due to its use by the ruling class to murder one another and its potency and discreetness, arsenic has been called the Poison of Kings and the King of Poisons.

Johann Schröder (1600-1664) was a German physician and pharmacologist who was the first person to recognise that arsenic was an element. In 1649, he produced the elemental form of arsenic by heating its oxide, and published two methods for its preparation.

In the Victorian era, 'arsenic' (colourless, crystalline, soluble 'white arsenic') was mixed with vinegar and chalk and eaten by women to improve the complexion of their faces, making their skin paler to show they did not work in the fields. Arsenic was also rubbed into the faces and arms of women to 'improve their complexion'. The accidental use of arsenic in the adulteration of foodstuffs led to the Bradford sweet poisoning in 1858, which resulted in approximately 20 deaths and 200 people taken ill with arsenic poisoning.

But wait, theres more.....

A 2005 article in the medical journal The Lancet suggested the source of the arsenic could be the antimony used as a consistent element of the King's medical treatment. The two minerals are often found in the same ground, and mineral extraction at the time was not precise enough to eliminate arsenic from compounds containing antimony.

Napolean Boneaparte his contemporary,possibly got his arsenic poisoning on the island where he stayed in exile, due to the wallpaper; the pigment of which contained arsenic.... and later, impressionist and post impressionist painters Monet(blindness) Cezanne(diabetes) Van gogh(neurological disorders)....all possibly caused by Vermillion green which at the time was based in aresenic!!!Poisoning by other commonly used substances, including liquor and absinthe, lead pigments, mercury-based Vermilion, and solvents such as turpentine could also be a factor in these cases!!! See art was very dangerous back then!!!

and that is how freedom is like arsenic poisoning! Happy 4th of July!!!