POISONS IN FICTION From a very early period poisoning mysteries have been woven into romance and story, and in later times have been a favourite theme for both novelist and dramatist. But unfortunately, the scientific knowledge of writers of fiction, as a rule, is of a very limited description, and the effects attributed by them to certain drugs are usually as fabulous as the romances of the olden times. They tell us of mysterious poisons of untold power, an infinitesimal quantity of which will cause instantaneous death without leaving a trace behind. They describe anÆsthetics so powerful, that a whiff from a bottle is sufficient to produce immediate insensibility for any period desired. In fact, the novelist has a pharmacopoeia of his own. After all, why should we question or cavil, and wish to analyse it in the prosaic test tube of modern science; for take away the marvels and mysteries and you kill the romance. The novel performs its mission if it succeeds in interesting and amusing us, and the story-teller has accomplished the object of his art when he is successful in weaving the possible with the impossible, so that we can scarce perceive it. That master of fiction, Dumas, gives us an instance of this, in his wonderfully fascinating adventures of the Count Monte Christo. Nothing seems impossible to this extraordinary individual, and incident after incident of the most romantic and exciting nature crowd one upon another throughout the story; yet so beautifully blended by the wonderful imagination of the author, that it enthrals us to the end. The Count, who is supposed to have studied the art of medicine in the East, has always a remedy at hand for every emergency, from hashish, in which he is a profound believer, to his mysterious stimulating elixir, described as "of the colour of blood, preserved in a phial of Bohemian glass." A single drop of this marvellous fluid, if allowed to fall on the lips, will, almost before it reaches them, restore the marble and The recital of the ingenious experiments of the AbbÉ Adelmonte is a piece of clever construction, as the quotation will show. "The AbbÉ," said Monte Christo, "had a remarkably fine garden full of vegetables, flowers, and fruit. From amongst these vegetables he selected the most simple—a cabbage, for instance. For three days he watered this cabbage with a distillation of arsenic; on the third, the cabbage began to droop and turn yellow. At that moment he cut it. In the eyes of everybody it seemed fit for table, and preserved its wholesome appearance. It was only poisoned to the AbbÉ Adelmonte. He then took the cabbage to the room where he had rabbits, for the AbbÉ Adelmonte had a collection of rabbits, cats, and guinea-pigs, equally fine as his collection of vegetables, flowers, and fruit. Well, the AbbÉ Adelmonte took a rabbit and made it eat a leaf of the cabbage. The rabbit died. What magistrate would find or even venture to insinuate anything against this? What procureur du roi has ever ventured to draw up an accusation against M. Magendie or M. Flourens, in consequence of the rabbits, cats, and guinea-pigs they have killed? Not one. So, then, the rabbit dies, and justice takes no notice. This rabbit dead, the AbbÉ Adelmonte has its entrails taken out by his cook and thrown on the dunghill; on this dunghill was a hen, After attempting to kill half the household with brucine, Madame de Villefort changes her particular poison for a simple narcotic, recognized by Monte Christo (who in this instance frustrates the murderer) as being dissolved in alcohol. The name of the latter poison is not told us by the novelist, but on the doctor's examination of the suspected liquid we read, "He took from its silver case a small bottle of nitric acid, dropped a little of it into the liquor, which immediately changed to a blood-red colour." Perhaps the most curious method of poisoning ever used in fiction is that introduced by the late Mr. James Payn in his novel, "Halves." The poisoner uses finely chopped horse-hair as a medium for getting rid of her niece. In this way she brings on a disease which puzzles the doctor, until one day he comes across the would-be murderess pulling the horse-hair out of the drawing-room sofa, which causes him to suspect her at once. This ingenious lady introduced the chopped horse-hair into the pepper-pot used by her victim. The inimitable Count Fosco, whom Wilkie Collins introduces into "The Woman in White," was supposed to possess a remarkable knowledge of chemistry, although he says, "Only twice did I call science to my In "Armadale," the same novelist introduces us to a poisoner of the deepest dye in the person of Miss Gwilt. This fair damsel, whose auburn locks seemed to have possessed an irresistible attraction for the opposite sex, was addicted to taking laudanum to soothe her troubled nerves, and first tried to mix a dose with some lemonade she had prepared for her husband's namesake and friend, whom she wished out of the way. This attempt failing, and a second one, to scuttle a yacht in which he was sailing, proving The heroine of Mr. Benson's novel, "The Rubicon," poisons herself with prussic acid of unheard of strength, which she discovers among some photographic chemicals. On the stage, "poisoning" has gone somewhat out of fashion with modern dramatists, although it was a common thing in years gone by for the villain of the play to swallow a cup of cold poison in the last act, and after several dying speeches to fall suddenly flat on his back and die to slow music. The death of Cleopatra, described by Shakespeare as resulting from the bite of a venomous snake, is like no clinical description of the final effects of death from the bite of any known snake. Beverley, in "The Gamester," takes a dose of strong poison in the fifth act, and afterwards makes several fairly long speeches before he apparently feels the effects, and finally succumbs. The description of the death of Juliet, which Shakespeare, in all probability, conceived from reading the effects that followed the drinking of morion or mandragora wine, is an accurate description of death from that drug. The use of this anodyne preparation to deaden pain dates from ancient times, and it is stated it was a common practice for women to administer it to those about to suffer the penalty of the law by being crucified. We have another instance of the fabulous effects ascribed to poisons by the early playwrights, in Massinger's play, "The Duke of Milan." Francisco dusts over a plant some poisonous powder and hands it to Eugenia. Ludovico approaches, and kisses the lady's hand but twice, and then dies from the effects of the poison. Miss Helen Mathers, in one of But Miss Mathers has still another poison, whose properties will doubtless be a revelation to scientists, and it is with this marvellous body the "double-dyed villainess" of the story puts an end to her woes. For convenience she carries it about with her concealed in a ring, and when at last she decides on committing suicide, we are told "she simply placed the ring to her lips, a strange odour spread through the room, and she instantly lay dead." Sufficient eccentricities of this kind in fiction might be enumerated to fill a volume, but we must forbear. It is perhaps hardly necessary to state that the lady novelist is the greatest sinner in this respect, and stranger poisons are evolved from her fertile brain than were ever known to man. |