Morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven [Conn.]) 1848-1894, 1890-04-16

close OF the seventeenth and the commence
ment Of the eighteenth century, it was i'm.
possible to prevent some evil persons COM
mitting crime by poison. A woman from
Palermo, Toffs by name. is said to have COM
mitted number of murders with poison
which she called aqua Toffana. In
100 she was tortured and con-
of Emperor Charles vi was strangled to
death. The kind of poison she used has
never been discovered. Superstition said 1t
was poison obtained from the froth of hu-
man beings driven mad by desperation. Some
said it was opium and cantharides, and others
claimed it was the juice of poisoned insects.
Undoubtedly it was solution of arsenic.
So we'll known and dreaded was this
kind of poison that for long time
three different kinds of it we're Sc
crstly prepared and sold. The first,
aqua cantarells, is said to have con-
sisted of alcohol and water distilled with
cantharides; the second, u distillation of
Spanish-ay, ashes of white arsenikoxyd, kali
and alcohol; the third, dry solution of lead
poison was yellow, odorless tincture, which
was preserved in a dark and hermetically
sealed vessel. The second, clear and trans
parent, is said to have yielded four grains of
arsenic to fifty drops. The third, also clear
and transparent, with sweetish taste, caused
. bkOH ucdbuS llh0 COusuupG
Little is known of the Ingredients that were
contained in the solution which Hieronyma
Spera, pupil of Toffa, used at the time of
the ponti6cate of Alexander VII. She, like
her mistress, was tortured and put to death.
It was generally supposed that what she used
was simply aqua fortis. Pope Alexander VII
took all the papers and documents and pre-
served them in the archives so that no one
should ever find out this terrible secret. Lit
Ia {o trpn Of S1n in~r foa}o ,S xLa
brated equa del Pelesina nor of the eau
Mirable de Madame la Marquise de Brinvil-
fers." This high-born dame and two others
of her class, Mesdames Vigourieux and La.
voisin, carried on their detestable practice on
large scale during the reign of Louis XIV.
Nine la Marqnise de Brinillier was convicted
and tortured, and the French Parliament
condemned her, on account of her high birth,
to be beheaded, while her two associates were
burned alive. "Poudre de succession" q
powder which it was claimed would do its
work slowly, and without being noticed, OBJ
tanned quite a reputation. The ingredients
were, probably, lead and bismuth.
Till the middle Of the eighteenth century,
the opinion prevailed among the uneducsted
classes, that there existed a certain drug,
which, being taken once, mo poison could take
any effect. Step by step as medical science
advanced, murder through poison became
less. About the year 1850, Bernardo Ramaz-
zini's splendid work concerning the diseases
of artists and mechanics made its appearance.
BE showed how the vapors of arsenic, zinc.
and mercury destroyed the health of those
that were subject to their influences. He
further explainded the terrible consequences
that lead produced in time on the human
system. If arsenic was used principally to
commit murder, during the centuries past,
the vegetable poisons have completely super
seded it. The opinion that prevailed during
the middle ages, that certain kind of poison
existed which killed and destroyed without
leaving the slightest trace behind, has been
entirely disproved by modern science. Nay,
science has gone still farther, for it aiscov-
ers and brings to light the least part of
any poisonous substance, after months of
interment, as has been demonstrated time af-
ter time.