[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, b. v. ch. 15, and Pliny, b. ix. ch. 45, it is the name of a
zoophyte. In the like manner other errors in the System of Linnæus have
been copied into the works of others, such as _Dytiscus_ instead of
_Dyticus_, &c.
[118] J. B. Bohadsch De quibusdam animalibus marinis. Dresdæ, 1761,
4to, p. 1-53. In this work there is a full description, with a figure
of this animal, under the name of _Lernæa_, which was used in the first
editions of Linnæus.
[119] The accounts given by the ancients of the sea-hare have been
collected in Grevini Lib. de Venenis, Antverpiæ 1571, p. 209. In the
Annals of Glycas, iii. (_Script. Byz._), it is said that Titus was
despatched by this poison; and in the first book, b. 27, he says the
sea-hare occasions speedy and inevitable destruction to man.
[120] See Stenzelii Diss. de venenis terminatis et temporaneis,
quæ Galli _les poudres de succession_ vocant; resp. J. G. Arnold.
Vitebergæ, 1730. This tract contains several historical relations; but
the reader is often referred to authors who either do not say that
for which they were quoted, or who must relate the same thing in a
different manner in some other place. As for example, Galen in b. ii.
c. 7, De Antidotis, speaks of poisons without mentioning secret poison
in particular. Avicenna is made to say, in his book De Viribus Cordis,
that the Egyptian kings often employed this poison; but if by that
quotation we are to understand Fen. undecima de dispositionibus cordis,
I have sought for this information in vain. In lib. iv. fen. 6. tract.
2. c. 14, it is said “Fel canis aquatici interficit post hebdomadam.”
Rhodiginus also does not relate that for which he is quoted by Stenzel.
p. 7.
[121] Vol. iv. p. 33.
[122] J. F. le Bret, Magazin zum Gebrauche der Staaten
und-Kirchen-Geschichte, part iv. Francf. and Leips. 1774, 8vo, p.
131-141.
[123] The following account is collected from Causes celèbres, par
M. Guyot de Pitaval, tome i.--Lettres de Mad. de Sevigné, tome
iv.--Histoire du Règne de Louis XIV., par M. de Reboulet. Avignon,
1746, v. p. 159.--Histoire de Louis XIV., par M. B. de la Martinière,
1740, iv. p. 229.--Le Siècle de Louis XIV., par Voltaire, etc.
[124] Voltaire says that the father did not get Sainte Croix thrown
into the Bastille, but sent to his regiment. This however is not the
case, for this reprobate was at that time not in the army.
[125] This circumstance is denied by Voltaire, but only, as appears, to
contradict Pitaval, whom he calls _un avocat sans cause_.
[126] This request was as follows:--“I humbly beg that those into whose
hands this box may fall, will do me the favour to deliver it into the
hands only of the Marchioness de Brinvillier, who resides in the Rue
Neuve Saint Paul, as everything it contains concerns her, and belongs
to her alone; and as, besides, there is nothing in it that can be of
use to any persons except her; and in case she shall be dead before me,
to burn it, and everything it contains, without opening or altering
anything; and in order that no one may plead ignorance, I swear by
the God whom I adore, and by all that is most sacred, that I advance
nothing but what is true. And if my intentions, just and reasonable as
they are, be thwarted in this point, I charge their consciences with
it, both in this world and the next, in order that I may unload mine,
protesting that this is my last will. Done at Paris this 25th of May in
the afternoon, 1672.
“DE SAINTE CROIX.”
[127] Martinière says that she was burnt alive, together with all the
papers respecting her trial. The latter is improbable, and the former
certainly false, notwithstanding the account given in the Encyclopédie.
[128] The following description of Brinvillier may perhaps be of use
to our physiognomists:--“In order to satisfy the curiosity of those
who may be desirous of knowing if such a celebrated criminal partook
of the beauties of her sex, I shall observe that nature had not been
sparing of them to the marchioness; her features were exceedingly
regular, and the form of her face, which was round, was very graceful.
This beautiful outside concealed a heart extremely black. Nothing
proves more that _metoposcopy_, or the science of physiognomy, is
false; for this lady had that serene and tranquil air which announces
virtue.”--Pitaval, p. 269.
[129] Some information respecting La Voisin may be found in Lettres
Historiques et Galantes par Madame de C----. A Cologne, 1709-1711, 4
vols. 12mo, ii. p. 101, and iv. p. 376. The authoress of these letters
was Mad. du Noyer.
[130] Leben des Grafen von Ulfeld, von H. P. aus dem Dänischen
übersetzt. Copenhagen und Leipzig, 1775, 8vo, p. 200.
[131] This anecdote was told to me by the celebrated Linnæus. An
account of what appeared on opening the body of this prince may be seen
in Baldinger’s Neues Magazin für Aerzte, vol. i. p. 91.
[132] “The lieutenant-civil continued still to grow worse. After having
languished a long time, being seized with a loathing of every kind of
food presented to him, his vomitings still continuing, and nature being
at length exhausted, he expired without any fever. The three last days
he had wasted very much; he was become extremely shrunk, and he felt
a great heat in his stomach. When opened, that part and the duodenum
were found to be black, and sloughing off in pieces; the liver was
mortified, and as it were burnt. The counsellor was ill three months,
had the like symptoms as the lieutenant-civil, and died in the same
manner. When opened, his stomach and liver were found in a similar
state.”--pp. 274, 275.
[133] In one year a ton of sand, at least, which is baked with the
flour, is rubbed off from a pair of mill-stones. If a mill grinds only
4385 bushels annually, and one allows no more than twelve bushels to
one man, a person swallows in a year above six pounds, and in a month
half a pound of pulverized sandstone, which, in the course of a long
life, will amount to upwards of three hundred weight. Is not this
sufficient to make governments more attentive to this circumstance?
[Although not very agreeable to the reader to learn that he swallows
above six pounds of mill-stone powder in the course of the year, it
may perhaps ease his mind to know that the learned author is entirely
mistaken in regarding it as a poison. The inhabitants of the northern
countries of Europe frequently mix quartz powder with their heavy food
to assist in its digestion; and we are informed by Professor Ehrenberg,
that in times of scarcity, the inhabitants of Lapland mix the siliceous
shells of some species of fossil Infusoria with the ground bark
of trees for food. It is probably from this circumstance that the
infusorial deposit derives its name of _Berg-mehl_, or _Mountain-meal_.]
[134] For the following important information I am indebted to
Professor Baldinger:--“There is no doubt that the slow poison of the
French and Italians, commonly called succession powder (_poudre de
la succession_), owes its origin to sugar of lead. I know a chemist
who superintends the laboratory of a certain prince on the confines
of Bohemia, and who by the orders (perhaps not very laudable) of his
patron, has spent much time and labour in strengthening and moderating
poisons. He has often declared, that of sugar of lead, with the
addition of some more volatile corrosive, a very slow poison could
be prepared; which, if swallowed by a dog or other animal, would
insensibly destroy it, without any violent symptoms, in the course of
some weeks or months.”
[135] Garelli, the emperor’s principal physician, lately wrote to
me something remarkable in the following words:--“Your elegant
dissertation on the errors respecting poisons brought to my
recollection a certain slow poison, which that infamous poisoner,
still alive in prison at Naples, employed to the destruction of
upwards of six hundred persons. It was nothing else than crystallised
arsenic, dissolved in a large quantity of water by decoction, with the
addition, but for what purpose I know not, of the herb cymbalaria. This
was communicated to me by his imperial majesty himself, to whom the
judicial procedure, confirmed by the confession of the criminal, was
transmitted. This water, in the Neapolitan dialect, is called _aqua del
Toffnina_. It is certain death, and many have fallen a sacrifice to
it.”--Hoffmanni Med. Rationalis System., p. ii. c. 2. § 19.
[136] Ueber die Arsenikvergiftung. Leips. 1786, 8vo, p. 35.
[137] On the 20th of December, 1765, died the dauphin, father of Louis
XVI., and in 1767 died the dauphiness. It was a public report that
they were both despatched by secret poison: and the gradual decline of
their health, the other circumstances which accompanied their illness,
and the cabals which then existed at court, make this at least not
improbable. Many private anecdotes respecting these events may be found
in a book entitled L’Espion Dévalisé. Feliciter audax. London, 1782. In
page 61 it is said, that on account of the suspicions then entertained,
it was wished that information might be procured respecting secret
poison, and the methods of preparing it; and that the abbé Gagliani,
well known as a writer, has given the following:--“It is certain that
in Europe the preparation of these drugs renders them pernicious and
mortal. For example, at Naples the mixture of opium and cantharides,
in known doses, is a slow poison; the surest of all, and the more
infallible as one cannot mistrust it. At first it is given in small
doses, that its effects may be insensible. In Italy we call it _aqua
di Tufania_, Tufania water. No one can avoid its attacks, because the
liquor obtained from that composition is as limpid as rock water, and
without taste. Its effects are slow and almost imperceptible: a few
drops of it only are poured into tea, chocolate, or soup, &c. There is
not a lady at Naples who has not some of it lying carelessly on her
toilette with her smelling-bottles. She alone knows the phial, and can
distinguish it. Even the waiting-woman, who is her confidant, is not in
the secret, and takes this phial for distilled water, or water obtained
by precipitation, which is the purest, and which is used to moderate
perfumes when they are too strong.
“The effects of this poison are very simple. A general indisposition
is at first felt in the whole frame. The physician examines you,
and perceiving no symptoms of disease, either external or internal,
no obstructions, no collection of humours, no inflammations,
orders detergents, regimen, and evacuation. The dose of poison is
then doubled, and the same indisposition continues without being
more characterized. The physician, who can see in this nothing
extraordinary, ascribes the state of the patient to viscous and peccant
humours, which have not been sufficiently carried off by the first
evacuation. He orders a second--a third dose--a third evacuation--a
fourth dose. The physician then sees that the disease has escaped him;
that he has mistaken it, and that the cause of it cannot be discovered
but by changing the regimen. He orders the waters, &c. In a word, the
noble parts lose their tone, become relaxed and affected, and the
lungs particularly, as the most delicate of all, and one of those most
employed in the functions of the animal œconomy. The first illness
then carries you off; because the critical accumulation settles always
on the weak part, and consequently on the lobes of the lungs; the pus
there fixes itself, and the disease becomes incurable. By this method
they follow one as long as they choose for months, and for years.
Robust constitutions resist a long time. In short, it is not the liquor
alone that kills, it is rather the different remedies, which alter
and then destroy the temperament, exhaust the strength, extenuate and
render one incapable of supporting the first indisposition that comes.”
[138] England und Italien, ii. p. 354.
[139] Universal History, xxiii. p. 299-323.--The information contained
there is taken from Fraser’s History of Nadir Shah. Aurengzebe also
caused one of his sons to be put to death by this poison.