nickname was acquired in consequence of a claret mark on one side of
his face. Pope refers to him in the lines:
Of late, without the least pretence to skill,
Ward’s grown a famed physician by a pill.
Ward bequeathed his book of secret formulas to his faithful friend and
helper in his earlier troubles, John Page, M.P. Mr. Page was a wealthy
man, and he decided to publish the recipes of those remedies which were
most esteemed for “the noblest of all purposes, the common good of
mankind.” So he states in introducing the pamphlet. But a difficulty
occurred in respect of these formulas. They did not in all cases
represent the medicines which the public had become accustomed to. They
had been made for Ward by a Mr. John White, a manufacturing chemist of
Twickenham, and a Mr. F. J. D’Osterman, who was probably an apothecary,
and those two manufacturers alone knew the exact modifications which
had been made in the preparations. In these circumstances the King
(George II) consented in his “most benevolent disposition and extensive
bounty” to make ample provision for these chemists. Whereupon the “Book
of Secrets” was published. A depot for selling them was established,
and a moderate tariff fixed at which those compounded by the chemists
already named could be obtained, though, of course, anybody was at
liberty to make similar preparations. Mr. Page provided that profits
after paying expenses should be divided between an Orphan Asylum and a
Magdalen Institution.
The following are the recipes for the fistula or pile paste and for the
headache essence, both of which, being adopted in the Pharmacopœia,
have some historic interest:--
Paste for the Fistula: Elecampane root, 1 lb.; fennel seeds, 3 lb.;
black pepper, 1 lb. All in fine powder, mixed and sifted. Melt together
2 lb. each of honey and white sugar, and when this mixture is cool
knead into it the prescribed powders. The dose was a piece the size of
a nutmeg, to be taken morning, noon, and night, followed by a glass of
water or white wine.
Essence for the Headache, etc.: French spirit of wine, 2 lb.; Roch alum
in fine powder, 2 oz.; camphor, cut small, 4 oz.; essence of lemon, ½
oz.; strongest volatile spirit of sal ammoniac, 4 oz. A little of this
essence was to be rubbed on the hand, and the hand was to be held hard
to the part affected until it was dry. Ward told Mr. Page that it was
this application which had cured George II’s thumb.
In a lecture on Hæmorrhoids delivered by Sir Benjamin Brodie at St.
Georges Hospital, and reported in the _London Medical Gazette_,
February 3, 1835, that eminent practitioner stated that he had often
found the Confectio Piperis Co. (“similar to what was once very
celebrated as Ward’s Paste”) successful when other simple expedients
failed. He said it was rather disagreeable to take, tasted like a
coarse gingerbread, and must be persevered in for a considerable time.
He stated that one of the worst cases he ever knew was that of a lady
who had consulted him, and he did not think it possible to cure her
without an operation. She, however, was obliged to go into the country
at the time, and as the operation must be delayed for a month at least,
he recommended her to try Ward’s Paste meanwhile. She came back to him
six or eight weeks later quite cured. He thought the remedy acted by
passing into the colon and, becoming blended with the faeces, served as
a local application.
THE WHITWORTH DOCTORS
are almost forgotten now, but a century ago they were famous all over
England. The Whitworth red bottle and the Whitworth drops are still
more or less popular reminiscences of their pharmacy. The former was an
embrocation, and the second an antispasmodic tincture. Both contained
oil of thyme. Formulas are given in “Pharmaceutical Formulas,”
published at 42, Cannon Street.
The founder of the family of the Whitworth Doctors was John Taylor,
originally a farrier, of Whitworth, then a village about three miles
from Rochdale. He died in 1802 at the age of sixty-two. John Taylor had
a younger brother and two sons, and the younger brother also had sons,
all of whom practised surgery. A third and even a fourth generation
of surgeons, some of whom were fully qualified, likewise practised at
Whitworth, and the last of the race died in 1876.
The original brothers Taylor were both farriers, but they became famous
for their treatment of human patients. Their methods were of the most
vigorous character. They were in the habit of buying a ton of Glauber’s
salts from their wholesale druggists, Ewbank and Wallis, of York, and
they dispensed it to those who sought their medical advice with no
niggard hands, and without any formality of weighing. The two brothers
provided free bleeding for poor patients every Sunday morning, and
something like a hundred victims attended for this operation.
John Taylor (the original “Doctor”) never discontinued his treatment
of horse complaints, and was believed to have taken more pride and
pleasure in his veterinary work than in his dealings with humans. But
the latter flocked to him from all parts of the country. Cancers,
improperly set fractures, and deformities were his specialities, but
his practice gradually extended to all kinds of ills. A crowd of rich
and poor patients had to find lodgings somehow in the village, for
they sometimes had to stay for weeks there. Fifty at a time could be
seated in the long room where John treated them. They came in at one
end of the room and went out at the other, and no one, no matter what
his rank, was allowed to have the slightest preference. Eighteen-pence
a week for medicine and treatment was the charge to all, and those who
could not afford that fee were never asked for it. A lord drove up in
his carriage one day, and the powdered footman was sent to ask John
Taylor to “wait upon his lordship.” “Tell the man he must come in here
and take his turn like the rest, if he wants me to wait on him,” said
John; and “the man” had to do so. It is recorded that he left Whitworth
cured.
The other doctors used to tell of Taylor’s failures; but as his cases
were mostly those which they had pronounced incurable, it is not
astonishing if he did not always succeed. But he effected many notable
cures. A lady with a cancer in the breast who had been given up by her
own doctors came from a hundred miles away to Whitworth. John examined
the breast, and then said, “What art thou come here for, woman?” “To
be cured, of course,” she answered. “Not all the doctors in England
can cure thee,” he said sternly; “thou must go home and die.” “I shall
not go home,” said the lady, “till you have tried your hand on me. I
can bear any pain you inflict, and I can only die at last.” “Thou art
a brave lass,” said John; “I will try, and God prosper us.” The lady
stayed at Whitworth six months, and went home cured. She lived thirty
years longer.
This lady was well known to William Howitt, a Quaker and popular
writer in the first half of the nineteenth century. In an article he
wrote in Tait’s _Edinburgh Magazine_, 1839, Mr. Howitt relates
recollections of a visit he had paid to Whitworth some twenty years
previously, and from that visit, and from the conversations he had had
with the lady just referred to, he had gathered the particulars which
he gave in his article.
While under the care of Doctor John at Whitworth the lady told Mr.
Howitt how she occupied herself in assisting “Mrs. George,” old
John’s daughter-in-law, to prepare the medicines. Glauber’s salts
were principally relied upon for internal administration. A caustic
known as “keen” was used for eradicating cancers; a black salve made
up into sticks; a snuff made from asarabacca leaves which he grew
in his garden; blisters; and the Red Bottle, made up the medicinal
armoury. The last is made still in Lancashire, thus: Camphor, 6; oil of
origanum, 6; Anchusa root, 1; methylated spirit, 80.
The lady’s account of the preparation of the salve was that they used
to boil a kettleful of ingredients, and then they would mop the kitchen
floor. While it was wet they would pour the salve on it, and then
scraping it up they would roll it into sticks with their fingers, and
cut it into little pieces.
Howitt also describes seeing James Taylor, the head of the family, when
he visited Whitworth, making his pills. In an old hat slung in front of
him by a cord round his neck was his pill mass. Thus armed, he would
walk up and down in front of his house nipping off bits of the mass and
rolling them into pills with his fingers as he walked.
In his later years John Taylor sometimes visited patients in distant
places. Once he went to attend a duchess at Cheltenham. She had an
abscess which he opened and so relieved her at once. George III was
staying at Cheltenham at the time, and heard of this skilful man. Later
he sent for him to come to London to treat the Princess Elizabeth, who
had pains in her head with fits of stupor. John is said to have cured
her with his snuff. Having prescribed this and provided the patient
with some, John Taylor turned to Queen Charlotte, who with her other
daughters was in the room, and patting her on the back, said: “Well,
thou art a farrantly (good-looking) woman to be the mother of all these
straight-backed lasses.” “Ah, Mr. Taylor,” said the Queen, “I was
once as straight-backed as any of them.” John’s son James was fond of
telling this story.
Thurlow, Bishop of Durham, brother of Lord Chancellor Thurlow, was one
of his patients, and John was once sent for to London to attend him.
More than one eminent physician was in the room when Taylor arrived.
“I won’t say a word till Jack Hunter is here,” said Dr. John; “he is
the only man among you who knows anything.” Jack Hunter was the famous
anatomist. When he was present, Taylor proceeded to examine the Bishop,
and was applying some ointment from a box he had with him. “What’s that
made of?” asked Hunter. “No, Jack, that’s not a fair question,” was
Taylor’s reply. “I’ll send you as much of it as you like, but I won’t
tell you what it’s made of.”
XXII
POISONS IN HISTORY
“To give an exact and particular account of the Nature and
Manner of acting of Poisons is no easy matter; but to Discourse
more intelligibly of them than authors have hitherto done, not
very difficult.”
(From Dr. Richard Mead’s Preface to his “Essays on Poisons,”
1702.)
It has been shown elsewhere (Vol. I., page 52) how intimate was the
connection between ancient pharmacy and poisoning. In Greek the
terms came to be almost synonymous, and there is an echo of the same
association of ideas in the words Poison and Potion, which a few
centuries ago were used in English without much distinction.
The priests of Egypt, the Æsculapians of Greece, and perhaps still
more the herbalists of that country and of Italy, necessarily learnt
many things from their studies of medicinal plants. They found herbs
which would cause sleep, furnish dreams, and confuse the brain. They
professed and perhaps believed in their ability to accomplish far more
with their philtres than the vegetable world was capable of, but the
common people had no means of checking their claims, and such science
as there was tended to support them. In the palaces of kings, in
the tents of generals, and in all the high places where intrigues,
jealousies, and enmities found their fullest scope, pharmaceutical
skill was much sought after; in some cases to dispose of rivals, but
more usually to counteract the murderous schemes which in those times
constituted so large a portion of statecraft. There was nothing the
brave men of old dreaded so much as secret poisoning. It is impossible
to say how far this crime was practised. Suspicion and terror may have
exaggerated its records, but on the other hand it is equally possible
that thousands of deaths may have occurred from poisons which were not
attributed to that cause.
Hecate and her daughters Medea and Circe figured prominently in Greek
legends as inventors and discoverers of poisons. The magic arts for
which they were all famous were closely associated with deadly drugs.
They were supposed to live in the island of Colchis, the name of
which still recalls a vegetable which for many centuries retained the
reputation of possessing the most venomous properties. Colchicum was
discovered by Medea, but to Hecate is attributed the earliest use of
aconite.
Kings studied pharmacy and invented antidotes. Orpheus, the physician
and poet, who preceded Æsculapius, wrote a poem on precious stones,
in which he relates that Theodomas, son of Priam, King of Troy, had
learned how to administer these as antidotes to poisons. The marvellous
properties of the antidote invented by Mithridates, King of Pontus, is
one of the commonplaces of medical history. Down to the seventeenth
century theriaca, emeralds, and bezoar stones were the antidotes to all
poisons recognised by the faculty.
BIBLICAL POISONS.
No case of poisoning either suicidal, murderous, or accidental, is
alluded to in the Bible, unless we regard the story of the wild gourds
(2 Kings, ch. iv, v. 39) as coming within the last description. The
suicide by poison of Ptolemeus Macron is mentioned in 2 Maccabees,
ch. x, v. 13, but though this was a frequent practice among the
Greeks and Romans when the New Testament was written, no allusion to
it is found in the sacred writings. It may be that the apostles who
include “pharmakeia” among the crimes of the heathen had in mind the
degradation of the art to homicidal purposes, but it is more likely
that they only intended to denounce its application to the service of
lust or its consequences.
The word Rosh occurs eleven times in the Old Testament, and is usually
rendered gall, often in association with wormwood. In two instances,
however (Hosea, ch. x, v. 4, and Amos, ch. vi. v. 12), it is translated
hemlock in the authorised version, and this is retained in the revised
version for the passage in Hosea. Apparently the word was a generic
one for pernicious or nauseous weeds; but as Rosh also means head some
commentators have thought that the poppy was intended.
The word translated poison in Deut. ch. xxxii, v. 24, Job, ch. vi, v.
4, Psalms, lviii, v. 4, and cxl, v. 3, is Chemah, and always means
something burning. It is often used to indicate fierce anger. The verse
mentioned in Job is obviously a reference to the very ancient practice
of dipping arrows into some poison, an application of pharmacy from
which we derive our term toxicology.
POISONING IN ROME.
Livy tells the story of the earliest of the poison leagues. He is
dependent on older historians for his facts, as the alleged events
happened some three centuries before he wrote; about the year 330
B.C. in fact. A number of patricians died one after the other, their
illnesses presenting similar symptoms, but the causes of these could
not be traced. At last, however, a female slave gave information to the
Ediles of a group of twenty Roman ladies of the highest position who,
she said, occupied themselves in concocting poisons, and administering
them to their husbands or others who had become inconvenient to them.
The confederacy was directed by two women named Cornelia and Sergia,
and although Livy says 20, some accounts give the number of the
conspiratresses as 170, while others total it at 366. Cornelia and
Sergia were brought before the magistrates, and indignantly denied that
they had done more than prepare wholesome beverages and medicines. On
this the slave, whose own life was in jeopardy, demanded that they
should themselves be required to take some of these compounds. They
were granted permission to consult with their associates before doing
this, and in the interval they all poisoned themselves. Livy states
that this story is not told by all the contemporary narrators.
Later Roman history leaves little doubt that poisoning became a
profession, or rather was frequently associated with the pharmacy of
the period, as it had been in Greece. Theophrastus, who wrote about
300 B.C., alludes to a poison prepared from aconite which
could be so administered as to take effect at a defined future time,
three months, six months, a year, or longer after it was taken, the
victim gradually growing weaker. It was perhaps in consequence of this
belief that the possession or cultivation of aconite was made a capital
offence. Pliny states that Calpurnia Bastia, one of the Catiline
conspirators, was poisoned by aconite.
Locusta was one of the noted poison compounders of the Roman empire.
She had been condemned to death in the reign of Claudius, but probably
by the influence of the Empress Agrippina, she was pardoned and was
employed by that infamous woman. Claudius was getting on in years, and
was showing more affection for his own son Britannicus than for his
stepson Nero, whom at the solicitation of Agrippina he had adopted and
made his heir. The empress therefore resolved to get rid of Claudius,
but she was afraid to use a suddenly acting agent, and Locusta was
ordered to compound something which should produce a fatal effect, but
not immediately. It was to be so compounded that it would destroy the
emperor’s reason lest in the course of his proposed illness he should
take measures to supplant Nero by Britannicus. Locusta had to pretend
to be able to fulfil this commission, and the poison she prepared was
mixed in a dish of mushrooms. Claudius having eaten some of these was
soon taken ill and had to be carried from the table, but as this was
what usually occurred at his dinner not much notice was taken of the
event. His physician gave him an emetic, and he was in a fair way to
recover, but Agrippina, frightened at the possible exposure, employed
another minion to apply more of Locusta’s poison on a feather to his
throat, under the pretence of making him vomit more. He soon died.
Tacitus and Suetonius relate how Nero used Locusta later to help him
rid himself of Britannicus, and also of his old tutor Burrhus, who had
wearied him with his remonstrances. Locusta was executed in the reign
of Galba A.D. 68.
Among other famous Romans believed to have perished by poison were
Germanicus and Drusus. Caligula ordered a deadly ointment to be given
to an impolitic gladiator named Columbus, who had unwisely worsted the
emperor with the fencing foils, to be applied to his wounds. The poor
wretch died in consequence. These are only samples of Roman poisonings.
POISONS IN ANCIENT TIMES.
The poisons known to the ancients cannot be with certainty identified.
The one to which the power of philtres was principally attributed
was mandragora, which was said to produce various hallucinations
and temporary madness. It is most likely, however, that in many of
the cases where this drug is named the poison actually used was
belladonna root. Hannibal, fighting against a large army of African
rebels, simulated retreat, but left on the field of battle a quantity
of vases of wine in which “mandragora” had been infused. The savages
drank the wine, which reduced them to a condition of stupor. Then the
Carthaginian hero returned and gained an easy victory over his helpless
foes. Henbane seeds infused in wine made the head light, and gave the
impression of having travelled through the air. Stramonium, dulcamara,
hellebore, opium, Indian hemp, vervain, mezereon, and many other drugs,
were in the stock-in-trade of the philtre mongers and conjurers, and
the legends related by Pliny and others about the properties possessed
by these herbs are sometimes nonsense, but are too often based on their
real powers.
There was a ranunculus which grew in Sardinia, which was credited
with the power of promoting gaiety. It was called the _Herba
Sardonica_. It occasioned spasmodic contraction of the muscles of
the face and so simulated a laugh. Hence our expression “sardonic
grin.” The employment of haschish by the Saracen warriors to make
themselves fierce and reckless in battle is not a mere legend. The
sect who introduced it in the armies of Islam were called hashashin,
the origin of our word “assassins.” The reputation of the myrtle as an
invigorator of the brain, and its consequent adoption by poets as a
garland round their brows, is a sample of a more innocent tradition.
Several of the Greek and Roman medical authors, Galen among others,
profess a cautious reticence in regard to poisons. But there is
a treatise in existence in verse, by Nicandor, which gives such
toxological knowledge as was familiar to the men of science of the
second century before the Christian era. Among venomous animals were
included salamanders, leeches, toads, cantharides, and the sea-hare
(_Lepus marinus_). The blood of bulls (probably putrefied) was a
poison in use by the Athenians. The honey of Heracleus had a certain
fame, for it was alleged that the soldiers of Xenophon having regaled
themselves with this luxury were all so intoxicated with it that
the whole army lay on the field as if they were dead. Next day all
recovered. It is supposed to have been a honey extracted from narcotic
flowers.
The vegetable poisons known to the ancients have mostly been named.
But cherry laurel, elaterium, certain fungi, and smilax, probably our
mezereon, should be added. The mineral poisons in more or less use were
arsenic, in the form of orpiment and realgar, cinnabar, and metallic
mercury, which was reputed to be poisonous. Nicandor alludes to
litharge, ceruse, and gypsum. By the last he may have meant quicklime.
Berthelot translated from Olympiodorus (sixth century) the description
of a process for making white arsenic from the sulphide. The product
was called “alum, white and compact.” The animal kingdom furnished the
Romans with at least one famous poison which they extracted from the
_Lepidus marinus_ (in the Linnean system, _Aplysia depilans_)
which they knew as the sea-horse. According to Philostratus it was by
this poison that Domitian removed Titus.
POISONINGS IN THE MIDDLE AGES.
The belief in the skill of the compounders of philtres and mysterious
charms grew rather than diminished in the Middle Ages and as alchemy
developed. In Sir Walter Scott’s “Talisman,” the tale of the Crusades,
the western physician says, “The oily Saracens are curious in the
art of poisons, and can so temper them that they shall be weeks in
acting upon the party, during which time the perpetrator has leisure
to escape. They can impregnate cloth and leather, nay, even paper and
parchment, with the most vile and subtle venoms.”
Official records of the trial of a minstrel named Wondreton in Paris,
in 1384, give a copy of instructions alleged to have been given to
the accused by Charles the Bad, King of Navarre, who had employed
this Wondreton to poison the then King of France, Charles VI, his
brother, two uncles, and several dukes. The scheme was extraordinarily
crude, although Charles the Bad was reputed to be an adept in alchemy.
The minstrel was to buy “arsenic sublimat” from the hotels of the
apothecaries in Pampeluna, Bordeaux, Bayonne, and other towns through
which he would pass. He was to powder this, and get into the kitchens
of the eminent persons who were to be his victims, and then, when he
could do it with safety, he was to sprinkle some of the powder in the
soups and meats served to the masters. Wondreton was arrested before he
had done any mischief, and was executed.
King John of England is alleged to have caused Maud Fitzwalter to be
killed in the Tower by a poisoned egg because she would not yield to
his illicit passion.