It was for a long time supposed that there actually did exist in Italy a secret poison, the effects of which were slow, and even unheeded, until a lingering malady had consumed the sufferer. No suspicions were excited; or, had they led to any post mortem examination, no trace of the terrific preparation’s effects could have been detected.

It was towards the year 1659, during the pontificate of Alexander VII., that the existence of this baneful preparation was suspected. Many young women had been left widows; and many younger husbands, who might have ceased to please their wives, had died away. A certain society of young ladies had been observed to meet under the auspices of an elderly matron of rather a questionable character, who had been known in her horoscopic predictions to announce deaths that had but too truly taken place about the period she prophesied. One of the society, it appears, peached against her companions, who were all apprehended and put to the torture; and the lady patroness, whose name was Spara, was executed with four of her pupils. This Spara was a Sicilian, who had obtained the fatal secret from Tofania at Naples. Hence the composition was named aqua Tofania, aqua della Toffana, and acquetta di Napoli. These deadly drops had been charitably distributed by Tofania to various uncomfortable ladies who wished to get rid of their lords, and were contained in small phials, bearing the inscription of “Manna de San Nicolas de Bari.” This hag had lived to an old age, but was at length dragged from a monastery, in which she had sought a sanctuary, tortured, and duly strangled, after a confession of her crimes.

Garelli, physician to Charles VI., thus wrote to Hoffmann on the subject: “Your elegant dissertation on the popular 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 crystallized arsenic dissolved in a large quantity of water by decoction, with the addition, but for what purpose I know not, of the herb cymbalaria (antirrhinum). This was communicated to me by his Imperial Majesty himself, and confirmed by the confession of the criminal in the judicial procedure.”AbbÉ Gagliani, however, gives a different account of the secret Neapolitan drug. “At Naples,” he says, “the mixture of opium and cantharides is known to be a slow poison; the surest of all, and the most infallible, as one cannot mistrust it. At first, it is given in small doses, that its effects may be insensible. In Italy it is called aqua di Tufinia: no one can avoid its attacks, since the liquid is as limpid as water, and cannot be suspected. Most of the ladies of Naples have some of it lying carelessly on their toilet-tables with smelling-bottles; but they always can know the fatal phial when they need its contents.” A curious observer has remarked on these two preparations, that the mixture of Garelli was, perhaps, intended for husbands, while that of Gagliani was for the use of lovers.

This remark appears judicious, since the potion described by the AbbÉ was evidently intended as an amorous philter. Under that head I have related many curious circumstances. There is no doubt but that these preparations often contained deadly drugs, the perilous qualities of which were most probably unknown to those who made them up without any sinister motives. Plutarch and Cornelius Nepos inform us that Lucullus, the Roman General, lost his reason, and subsequently his life, from having taken one of these mixtures; and Caius Caligula was driven into a fit of insanity by a philter given to him by his wife CÆsonia, as described by Lucretius:

Tamen hoc tolerabile, si non
Et furere incipias, ut avunculus ille Neronis
Cui totam tremuli frontem CÆsonia pulli
Infudit.

Virgil also alludes to the powerful and baneful nature of the plants employed in magical incantations:

Has herbas, atque hÆc Ponto mihi lecta venena
Ipse dedit Moeris; nascuntur plurima Ponto.
His ego sÆpe lupum fieri, et se condere silvis
Moerin, sÆpe animas imis excire sepulchris,
Atque satas alio vidi traducere messes.

Female poisoners of a somewhat similar description were known amongst the ancients. Nero, when he resolved to destroy Britannicus, sent for one of those murderers, named Locusta, who, convicted of several assassinations, was pardoned, but kept by the emperor to execute his secret purposes. He wished that on this occasion the poison should produce immediate death. Locusta prepared a drug that destroyed a goat in a few minutes. This was not sufficiently active. The next preparation killed a hog in a few seconds. It was approved of. The ill-fated youth was seated at the imperial festive board—the potion poured into his goblet—and he died in epileptic convulsions. Nero, undisturbed, requested his guests to remain quiet—the youth he said was subject to similar attacks, which in general were but of short duration; but soon the black, the livid hue of the face betrayed the poison, which the imperial assassin sought to conceal, by ordering this tell-tale sign to be concealed with paint. Sir Henry Halford seems to think that Juvenal alludes to this circumstance in his first Satire.

Instituit rudes melior Locusta propinquas
Per famam et populum nigros effere maritos.

The poisons used by the ancients appear to have been of various kinds; some more slow in their action than others, to suit, most probably, the views of their employers. Socrates, it is supposed, drank the cicuta, the action of which must have been very slow and weak, since his gaoler informed him that if he could exert himself in a warm debate, the effects might be arrested. The philosopher, however, remained tranquil. He shortly after experienced a numbness in the legs, gradually became insensible, and expired in convulsions.

These secret poisons were conveyed in the most stealthy manner. Hence it is related, that the poison prepared by Antipater, to destroy Alexander, had been conveyed in a mule’s hoof, being of so corroding a nature, that no metallic vessel could contain it. This absurd story was credited by Plutarch and Quintus Curtius, whereas it appears more probable that poison was carried in an onyx, of which trinkets to contain precious ointments were frequently made, or under a human nail, also called Unguis, or ????. The latter case was the opinion of Dr. Heberden.

Sir Henry Halford, in his learned and interesting essay on the deaths of illustrious persons of antiquity, has clearly proved that Alexander was not poisoned, but died of a lingering fever of a remittent type; a disease that was most probably endemic in the marshes surrounding the city of Babylon.

Many absurd ideas regarding venenose substances prevailed in ancient days as well as in modern times. Hannibal and Themistocles were said to have been poisoned with bullocks’ blood.

Eastern nations fancy that a fascinating power is the gift of virtue. In the Hitapadesa of Vishnusannan we find the following aphorism: “As a charmer draweth a serpent from his hole, so a good wife, taking her husband from a place of torture, enjoyeth happiness with him.” Possibly some receipt of this description may be found in the archives of Doctors’ Commons.