For millennia, people used yew alkaloids as both a method of suicide and a chemical weapon during hunting and warfare.

Wild and domesticated Allium species have been used for culinary and ethnomedicinal purposes since the beginning of recorded history.

Last summer, an epizootic of paraquat poisoning caused the deaths of at least seven dogs in Portland, Ore. This epizootic is evidence that this type of poisoning remains a current problem in companion-animal practice in North America.