St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1892-09-18
FAMOUS PRISONERS,
Tophania and La Spara, Who
Ended Hundreds Of Lives
With Arsenic.
The Improved Science of
Chemistry Is the Poison
er'S Foe.
1t Now Proves His Guilt
Where Formerly No Clue
Was Found.
How an Italian Woman Poi
SOned Her Lover With a
Kiss.

The most famous compound OF arsenic
is arseniOuS oxide, or white arsenic"
known to the general public simply as
arsenic. 1t is used exclusively in the
arts. 1t is very poisonous, and in the
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries
was commonly used in removing per-
sons who were conceived by their enc
mics to.have outlived their usefulness.
Nearly all of the great prisoners in
those times were women. In 1859 Sc
cret society OF young wives was discov-
cred In Rome, some of whom belonged
to the first families of the city, the sole
or chief object of which was to make
away with the husbands of the men,
bers. They met at the house
of Hieronyma Spara, woman
who was reputed to be
witch, and who provided them with the
poison, and instructed them in the use
of it. When the existence of the soci-
ETY. was discovered the hardened old
bag, La Spaa, passed the ordeal of
the rack without confession;" but an.
other woman yielded up the secrets of
the sisterhood, and La Spara and twelve
other women were hanged, and many
others. guilty i'll lesser degree, were
publicly whipped through the streets of
the City. Equally notorious, and far
more destructive in her operations, was
another woman named Tophania, ma
tive of Palermo, who. in that city ana
subsequently in Naples, sold mysteri-
Gus poison of her own concoction to
wives plagued with obnoxious hus-
bands.
Four drops of this preparation were
Snfiicien! to give spouse his QuietuS,
and SO extensively was it sold that it
was known throughout the country as
aqua TOphania, or aQuetta di Napoli.
1t is now known TO have been a solution
of white arsenic" We are asked to
believe that this creature Of wickednesS
carried on her nefariouS trade from
girlhood until nearly seventy years of
age without ever having fallen into the
mesheS of the law, and that upward of
800 persons were poisoned through her
fundamentally.
Tophania was more artful than La
Spara. She dealt only with individuals,
after due safeguards had been built up,
and she changed her abode so fire.
quently and adopted so many DISCUSSES
that her detection was rendered very
difficult. She also called in the aids of
religion and superstition. Her aquetta
she sent forth in small walls labeled
Mamma of st. Nicholas of Barn." and
those who were uninitiated in the his
tory of the potent elixir imagined it to
be certain miraculous oil, which was
supposed to ooze from the saint in ques-
ton. When the manufacture and
sale of poison had at last been
traced TO Tophania, she took refuge
in convent, from which the abbess and
archbishop refused to give her up. After
<boa 80
by a body of soldiers, Tophania was
and strangled. Her body was thrown
into the garden of the convent from
which she had been taken,
Detection almost certainly awaits the
poisoner of today who uses arsenic.
MarSh'S test for it, described In all
books on chemistry, will prove the pres
ence of incredibly small amounts of it.
In case of death from poisoning the
greater amount of the arsenic is found
in the liver and intestines. The promi-
nent symptoms of acute arSenical poison
ing come on half an hour or so after the
substance is swallowed. Faintness aud
feeling of depression are followed by
an intense burning pain in the stomach.
Nausea and vomiting usually follow,
but no relief comes from the election of
the contents of the stomach. Purging
follows next, blood being frequently
distinguishable in the executions. The
victim is thirsty, his pulse is feeble and
irregular. and his skin is clammy and
damp. Death usually results in from
eighteen to Seventy-twO hours. The
treatment consists In the use of the
stomach pump, the administration of
emetics, large amounts of magnesia
emulsion and either freshly precipitated
ferric hydrate or the solution known as
dialized iron.
In conversation lately with an emil
nent New York specialist in medical
Jurisprudence he spoke in glowing
terms of the wonderful role that science
is playing as detector of crime and
consequently discourager of criminal
actions. Said he: Take for instance
the Carlyle-Harris murder case. Here
: a young man, by reason of his scientific
attainments. is enabled to commit
murder which twenty-five years ago
would have defed detection. but now,
thanks TO the progress which we have
made in chemical sciences, it was
the simplest thing in the world to show
that this END of the century Aram de-
libe1ately poisoned his girl wife, of
whom he had grown tired even before
he had acknowledged her before the
world. 1t was terrible. This beautiful
girl in the very bud of her womanhood,
while playful romping schoolgirl, was
doomed to destruction by this young
fiend in human shape"