Word: squill
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Arsenic, strychnine, phosphorus and thallium salts are effective rat poisons, but far too dangerous where there are children or pets. Probably the oldest of rat poisons is about the most effective and also the safest: red squill, from the ground root of a European plant. Mixed with freshly ground meat or fish baits, it is harmless to children, cats, dogs and even squirrels...
...that cold in Russia? Are their snowdrops really blue? Ours, Galanthus nivalis, are definitely white. The flowers shown by Cover Artist Boris Chaliapin are known to us as Scilla sibirica, or Siberian squill...
...leading Greek war correspondents, was particularly interested in the problem of food. In one of his reports, discussed by Dr. Pan S. Codellas of the University of California Medical School in the Bulletin of the History, of Medicine, Philo describes the preparation of the Greek Ks: "Take squill [a bulb root, shaped like an onion], which, after having been boiled down, is ... cut into the thinnest possible pieces. Afterwards it is mixed with one-fifth of sesame and one-fifteenth of opium poppy. When all of these have been pounded together in a mortar to a fine mass, knead...
Even today, Dr. Codellas points out, the pellets would "merit respect" on a "nutritional and utilitarian" basis. The honey gives carbohydrates, and, with the sesame oil, takes care of caloric values. Protein from the sesame supplies the nitrogen need of the body, the squill serves as a mild heart stimulant, and the opium deadens the stomach's hunger pains...
These were staples of prewar Mediterranean imports. Red squill, a plant that resembles the onion, is dried and processed into rat poison. Argols, scales that form on the lining of old wine vats, are a crude form of potassium bitartrate. Bergamot oils are used in perfumes and soaps...