SOME CURIOUS METHODS EMPLOYED BY SECRET POISONERS

The strange and curious methods employed by poisoners to accomplish their deadly purpose, form an interesting study to students of human nature. The poisoner generally sets to work on a preconceived and carefully thought-out plan, which he proceeds to carry out with all the cunning he possesses. The methods that can be employed to introduce a poisonous substance into the human body are necessarily limited; and although they are varied at times according to the ingenuity in which the deed is planned, we find the poisoner with all his craft shows but little originality, and the modes used in ancient times are repeated down through the centuries to the present day.

There seems little doubt that the earliest method employed by man was the poisoned weapon.

The use of the poisoned arrow-head by primitive man goes back to a period of remote antiquity. Among the cave remains of the palÆolithic period, arrow-and spear-heads of bone have been found marked with depressions for containing poison, and this method of introducing poison seems to have been practised by most of the aboriginal races.

Arrow poisons were well known to the Greeks and their word "toxicon" signified a poisonous substance into which the arrow-"toxon" was dipped. Homer alludes to the use of poisoned arrows in the "Odyssey," and Ovid mentions the bile and blood of vipers as being employed to poison weapons. The Scythians and the tribes of the Caucasus were reputed to use Viper poison mixed with the serum of human blood that had decomposed. The Celts and the Gauls, according to Pliny, dipped their arrow-heads in hellebore juice; and down to the seventh century we find poisoned weapons were commonly used in Europe.

During the Middle Ages until the sixteenth century, the poisoned dagger or sword formed the favourite weapon of the assassin, and the preparation of the blade for this purpose was brought almost to a fine art in Spain. It is recorded that Lorenzo de Medici was stabbed with a poisoned dagger; and the Duke de Biscaglia, the second husband of the famous Lucrezia Borgia, nearly fell a victim to the assassin's knife on the steps of St. Peter's.

Of all other methods employed by poisoners, the administration of the lethal dose through the medium of food or drink seems ever to have been the favourite. The poisoned wine or cake recurs with a somewhat monotonous frequency in the history of the poisoner, from the earliest times down to the present day. Women especially seem to have been attracted by this mode of poisoning, a fact probably due to their control and direction of domestic matters, which rendered the introduction of a poisonous substance into food or drink an easy matter. Occasionally they have fallen victims to their own evil designs, as instanced in the case of Rosamond the wife of Helmichis, King of Lombardy, in the year 575. Wishing to rid herself of her husband, she gave him a cup of poisoned wine on coming from his bath. The king drank part of it, and suspecting its nature from the strange effect it produced, he insisted she should drink the remainder, with the result that both died shortly afterwards.

The Hindoos have an ingenious method of using powdered glass as a lethal agent, either by mixing it with sherbet or some kind of food. In such cases the substance acts by its irritant action on the stomach or intestines, while at the same time, if successful, no trace of poison can be discovered in the bodily organs.

A celebrated case in which this agent was used occurred in India in 1874, when the Gaekwar, or reigning prince of Baroda was tried for attempting to kill his political resident, Colonel Phayre, by administering powdered glass to him in sherbet.

The Gaekwar was tried before a court consisting of three Indian princes and three English judges, and was defended by the late Mr. Serjeant Ballantine. The princes returned a verdict of "Not proven," while the judges decided that he was guilty, with the result that the Gaekwar was deposed.

The sweetmeat was a favourite form employed to administer poison during the Middle Ages. Such confections were usually handed round to the guests after a meal in Italy. Princes and nobles frequently used this method of ridding themselves of an enemy; and if the plot failed in the first instance, they were always ready to try it again, for, as CÆsar Borgia is stated to have once exclaimed, "what has failed at dinner-time will succeed at supper-time." Catherine de Medici introduced this method into France, and her Florentine perfumers were said to be adepts in mixing arsenic with sweetmeats.

The poisoned flowers of mediÆval romance, and poisoned gloves and boots, which figure so often in legend and story as lethal media, we must dismiss as mere fables of an age when the historian drew largely on his imagination.

The "poison ring," with its carefully concealed tiny spike, which was intended to penetrate the flesh of the victim, might perhaps have set up blood-poisoning, as would a similar wound if inflicted by a rusty nail.

The use of rings with secret receptacles to contain poisons we have already mentioned. Among the gems in the British Museum there is an onyx which has been hollowed out to form a receptacle for poison. The face of the stone is engraved with the head of a horned faun. To take the poison, it was only necessary to bite through the thin shell of the onyx and swallow the contents.

When the gold deposited by Camillus in the Capitol was taken away, it is recorded that the custodian responsible for it "broke the stone of his ring in his mouth," and died shortly afterwards.

The poisoners of the seventeenth century not content with introducing poison into wine and other drinks, sought to improve on this method, by preparing the goblet or cup in such a way, that it would impregnate any liquid that was placed in it.

There is record of one FranÇois Belot who made a speciality of this art, and, it is said, received a comfortable income therefrom; but he fitly ended his days by being broken on the wheel on June 10, 1679.

According to a contemporary writer, his secret method consisted in cramming a toad with arsenic, placing it in a silver goblet, and, after pricking its head, crushing it in the vessel. While this operation was being performed, certain charms were uttered.

"I know a secret," stated Belot, "such, that in doctoring a cup with a toad, and what I put into it, if fifty persons chanced to drink from it afterwards, even if it were washed and rinsed, they would all be done for, and the cup could only be purified by throwing it into a hot fire. After having thus poisoned the cup, I should not try it upon a human being, but upon a dog, and I should entrust the cup to nobody." And yet Belot's powers were believed in, and he enjoyed a substantial reputation in his day.

His boasting is on a par with that of the magician Blessis, who flourished about the same period. He declared to the world that he had discovered a method of manipulating mirrors in such a way that any one who looked in them received his death-blow!

The stories of the "poisoned shirt," which was a favourite medium with the poisoners of the seventeenth century, are not, however, without a substratum of fact.

The tail of the shirt was prepared by soaking it in a strong solution of arsenic or corrosive sublimate. The object was to produce a violent dermatitis, with ulceration about the perineum and neighbouring parts, which should compel the victim to keep his bed. Medical men would then be summoned in due course, and would probably judge the patient to be suffering from syphilis, and administer mercury in large quantities. The fatal dose could then be introduced at leisure.

The notorious La Bosse left on record her method of preparing the "poisoned shirt." The garment was first to be washed, and the tail then soaked in a strong solution of arsenic, so that it only looked "a little rusty," as if it had been ill-washed and was stiffer than usual. "The effect," she concludes, "it should produce on the wearer is a violent inflammation and intense pain, and that when one came to examine him, one would not detect anything."

The Duke of Savoy is said to have succumbed to the effects of a poisoned shirt of this kind.

Some time ago Dr. Nass, a French medical man, made some interesting experiments, with a view to testing the truth of these stories. He carefully shaved a portion of the left lumbar region of a guinea-pig, and gently rubbed the skin with a paste containing arsenic, in the proportion of one in ten. He repeated this operation several times during the day. Shortly afterwards the animal became prostrate, the eyes became dull, it assumed a cholera-like aspect, and in forty-eight hours died. The skin on which the paste had been applied remained unchanged and unbroken, and showed no sign of ulceration. On examining the internal organs after death, fatty degeneration of the viscera was found, as is usual after arsenical poisoning.

This experiment does not, of course, actually prove the effect of a shirt impregnated with arsenic being worn in direct contact with the skin, but it shows that arsenic may be introduced into the body by simple, gentle friction on an unbroken skin, and that the poisoned shirt theory was possible.

The administration of poison in the form of medicine is another method which has often been criminally employed. In France, the enema was at one time frequently made use of for introducing arsenic, corrosive sublimate, and opium into the system. The poisoner's aim, in such cases, was to attribute the fatal effects which followed to disease. Within recent years a curious case was tried at the Paris Court of Assizes, in which a lady was charged with attempting to poison her husband. It was known that the couple had lived unhappily together, and arrangements had been made for a divorce. One morning the husband complained of a severe headache, and his wife suggested a dose of antipyrine, which she gave him in some mineral water. He remarked to her at the time that the draught had a peculiar taste. Later in the day she administered sundry cups of coffee to him; but he grew rapidly worse and at night a doctor was summoned. He failed to diagnose the complaint, and called in other medical men, who were equally puzzled. One thing which they all noticed, was a peculiar dilation of the pupils of the patient's eyes.

A consultation was held the next day, and shortly afterwards one of the medical men received a note from the lady, in which she stated, that her husband "was black. He was dead, more dead than any man I ever saw."

The doctor at once went to see the patient, and found him in a state of collapse. He bled him twice and injected caffeine, but he still remained motionless. After a time it occurred to the doctor that the patient's symptoms resembled those of atropine poisoning, and, resorting to other measures, he eventually brought him round. Then he remembered, that the lady had previously asked him for some morphine for herself, and when he had refused it, she requested some atropine for her dog's eyes. He wrote her a prescription for a solution of atropine, containing ten per cent. of the drug, and took it to the chemist himself. On further inquiries it was proved that the lady had procured atropine upon various other occasions by copying the doctor's prescription and forging his signature.

At the trial, the medical evidence was very conflicting; but the concensus of opinion was in favour of the theory that atropine had been administered in small, repeated doses. The accused woman declared in her defence, that atropine had been put into the medicine for her husband in mistake by the chemist who had dispensed it. There was no evidence to support this theory, and she was found guilty and sentenced to five years' penal servitude.

A strange method, which said to have been employed by the Borgias, and was afterwards used in France, was a combination of arsenic with the secretions or products of decomposition of an animal to which it had been administered. The poison was prepared by cutting open a pig, and well sprinkling the carcase with arsenic or other poison. Then it was left to putrefy, after which the liquids that ran from the decaying mass were collected, and these formed the finished poison.

As science advances, opening up fresh fields for research and poisons of a still more deadly nature are revealed, so the chemist sets to work to discover methods for their certain detection, and thus renders the poisoners' fiendish work more difficult.

It is well to remember that even the most deadly poisons have their proper use, and in skilled hands prove valuable instruments in combating many diseases that afflict suffering humanity.

THE END

Butler & Tanner, The Selwood Printing Works, Frome, and London.

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