A History of Inventions, Discoveries, and Origins. Johann Beckmann
the casket of Sainte Croix were found corrosive sublimate, opium, regulus of antimony, vitriol, and a large quantity of poison ready prepared, the principal ingredients of which the physicians were not able to distinguish. Many have affirmed that sugar of lead was the chief ingredient134; but the consequences of the poison did not seem to indicate the use of that metal. For some years past a harmless plant, which is only somewhat bitter and astringent, the ivy-leaved Toadflax (Linaria Cymbalaria), that grows on old walls, has been loaded with the opprobrium of producing this slow poison, while at the same time it has been celebrated by others on account of its medicinal properties; but it is perhaps not powerful enough to do either mischief or good; and it is probable that it has been added to poisons either through ignorance, or to conceal other ingredients; for the emperor Charles VI., who was king of the Two Sicilies at the time when Tophania was arrested, told his physician Garelli, who communicated the same in a letter135 to the celebrated Hoffmann, in 1718 or 1719, that the poison of that Italian Circe was composed of an arsenical oxide, dissolved in aqua cymbalariæ, and which I suppose was rendered stronger and more difficult to be detected by a salt that may be readily guessed. It is dreadful to think that this secret poison is administered as a febrifuge by ignorant or unprincipled physicians, quacks, and old women. It drives off obstinate fevers, it is true; but it is equally certain that it hastens death: it is therefore a cure, which is far worse than the disease, and against which governments and physicians cannot exclaim too severely. It was remarked at Rome, by accident, that lemon juice and the acid of lemons are, in some measure, counter-poisons; and a physician named Paul Branchaletti, respecting whom I can find no information, wrote a book expressly on this antidote to these drops, according to the account of Keysler, who however adds, “Everything hitherto found out, supposes that one has taken the drops only for a short time, or that one has had an opportunity to be upon one’s guard when suspicious circumstances occurred, and to discover the threatened danger.”
It seems to be almost certain that the poisons prepared by Tophania and Brinvillier were arsenical mixtures, or, as Dr. Hahneman136 rightly conjectures, neutral salts of arsenic. Loss of appetite, faintness, gnawing pains in the stomach, loss of strength without any visible cause, a continual indisposition, followed by a wasting of the viscera, a slow fever, &c., are all symptoms which seem to announce that dangerous metallic oxide. The opinion, however, that it was composed of opium and cantharides has, in latter times, received so many confirmations, that one is almost induced to believe that there are more kinds than one of this Stygian water. The information given by the abbé Gagliani, seems to carry too much weight with it to be denied137. It is confirmed also by M. Archenholz138; but what he says of the use made of Spanish flies, by the Chinese, to invigorate the sixth sense, gives reason to suspect that his voucher is L’Espion Dévalisé, to whom the abbé Gagliani ascribes the same words. It appears to me, however, if I may be allowed to judge from probabilities, that the poison known in the East Indies under the name of powst is also water which has stood a night over the juice of poppies. It is given in the morning fasting to those persons, and particularly princes, whom people wish to despatch privately, and without much violence. It consumes them slowly, so that they at length lose all their strength and understanding, and in the end die torpid and insensible139.
[Chemical science has made such rapid progress of late years, that there are but few, if any, poisonous substances which cannot be detected with certainty. The improved state of our medical knowledge, and the institution of coroners’ inquests in all cases where any suspicion of the cause of death occurs, fortunately renders secret poisoning almost, if not quite impossible, at least in this country.]
FOOTNOTES
103 Heberden in the Neue Hamburg. Mag. xvii. p. 219. I am convinced that many of the accounts we have of the extraordinary effects of poison are fabricated, like those mentioned in Frid. Hoffmanni Dissert. de Læsionibus externis, abortivis Venenis ac Philtris. Francof. 1729, et recusa Lips. 1755. That author, however, denies some which are true. It is, for example, certain that camphor and rue do not produce the effects ascribed to them by Dioscorides, Paulus Ægineta, and others; but there are without doubt other substances which will produce these effects.
104 Sennerti Instit. Med. ii. 2, 12.
105 He gave to Aratus a poison, not speedy and violent, but of that kind which at first occasions a slow heat in the body, with a slight cough, and then gradually brings on a consumption. One time, when Aratus spat up blood, he said, “This is the effect of royal friendship.” See Plutarch, Vit. Arati.
106 Quint. Declamat. xvii. 11.
107 With the poison of the Indians, however, the ancients could not be acquainted, as it is prepared from a plant unknown in Europe before the discovery of America. Kalm, in his Travels, does not name it, and in that he has done right; for, as the plant is now to be found everywhere, no government could guard against a misapplication of it, were it publicly known.
108 They say a poison can be prepared from aconite so as to occasion death within a certain period, such as two, three, or six months, a year, and even sometimes two years. Those, we are told, whose constitutions are able to hold out longest, die in the greatest misery; for the body is gradually consumed, and must perish by continual wasting. Those die easiest who die speedily. No remedy has been found out for this poison.—Theophr. Hist. Plant. ix. c. 16.
109 Livius, lib. viii. c. 18.
110 Taciti Annal. lib. iv. c. 8.
111 The account given by Tacitus deserves to be read; see lib. xii. c. 66.
112 The history of this horrid affair may be found both in Tacitus, Annal. xiii. c. 15 and 16, and in Suetonius, vi. cap. 33. Respecting Locusta, see also Juvenal, sat. i. 71.
113 This account is given by Aulus Gellius from the now lost works of Tuditanus.—Noct. At. lib. vi. cap. 4. Cicero often speaks of the magnanimity of Regulus; as, for example, in his Oration against Piso, and in his Offices, book iii. chap. 27; but he makes no mention of his having been poisoned. Valerius Maximus also, book i. chap. i. 14, says nothing of poison.
114 Apollonii Vit. lib. vi. c. 14.
115 Histor. Animal. lib. ii. c. 45.
116 Lib. ix. c. 48, and lib. xxxii. c. 1.
117 In Linnæi Systema Nat., through an error of the press, stands Laplysia, which word has since become common. Ἀπλυσία signifies an uncleanness which cannot be washed off; and in Aristotle’s History of Animals,