The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1898-12-18
AN ART WELL LOST.
Modern Poisoning COntrasted with
the Skill of the Ancients.
London Church Gazette.


The art of poisoning, if we are to believe
an eminent authority, must be reckoned
among the lost arts. 1t is not because we
are less coarse than our ancestors and car
ry our refinement even into our crimes; we
are less INSCRIPTIONS cruel than our
forefathers were. Though the toxicology OF
the ancients was necessarily incomplete,
there is every reason to belleVe that an
tiquity was acquainted with the use OF
arsenic, opium, henbane and prussic acid.
The oldest poison i'll use was PROBABLY an
importation of serpent venom. TheophraS-
tus speaks of a poison made from aconlte
with rapid or slow effects in accordance
pire the removal of inconvenient people by
means of poison had become so common
that the emperors had a number of men in
their service whose duty it was to taste all
dishes put upon the imperial table, and no
dinner was partaken of without one or the
court physicians being present. one or the
most notorious PRISONERS OF the gay was
Locusta, the murdereSS OF Claudlus ana
Britannicus. About the year 33l Il. G.. large
numbers of women belonging to the higher
classes of Roman society were indicted for
poisoning their husbands Ga modern instance
of the epidemic occurred of late years IN
HungaryD One hundred and seventy were
convicted and condemned.
The sixteenth and seventeenth centuries
were the halcyon days of poisoning. There
is no doubt that La Spara and the, # pos
sible, still more wretched bag La TOffana
were as bad as you make them. The latter
is said to have caused the death of over
six hundred persons. She used prepara-
name Of aqua Toffana." 1t was slow
poison, the victim growing daily weaker
and gradually dying from physical eXhaus-
ton. In France the most notorious female
prisoners were Nine. De BrinvillieFs, who
was taught the secret of the succession
powder by Ste. Croix, which she success
fully administered to her father and broth
erS, ard the still more notorious Iavolsin
and Lavigoreux, who, being ostensibly mid
wives. carried their poisons to high and
low-narried couples anxious to hasten the
dissolution of the irksome tie ortneedy heirs
wishful to accelerate the departure Of rich
relatives. A veritable mania for poisoning
appears to have set in toward the middle
of the seventeenth century.
In England poisoning was declared. by an
act passed in the reign of Henry VIII, TO be
high treason, and those guilty of it were to
be boiled alive. The most notorious case
(the poisoning of James 1, by Buckingham,
is only surmise) of poisoning was that of
Sir Thomas Overbury, in the year 1913 He
had incurred the dspleasure Of Lord Roch-
ester and his wife, and they had both vowed
to be revenged on him. So after they had
got him committed to the tower. they set
themselves to poison his food by mixing ar
senic and cantharides with 1t. For many
months, though suffering intensely, he APP
pears to have fingered on. At last a strong
eF dose than usual put an end 10 his exist
ence. The guilty couple, 10 the king 5 ever
lasting Disgrace were released after five
years imprisonment.
One of the most curious points connected
with poison is the fact that nations and
individuals have been known to thrive on it,.
Mithridates. King of Pontus, had poison for
his daily food. In the ''Gesra Roman
Drum we read that The Queen of the
North, having heard Of the great profci-
ency which Alexander the Great made in
learning under the tuition of Aristotle.
nourished her daughter from her cradle,
on q certain kind OF deadly poison, and
when she grew up she was considered SO
beautiful that the sight of her alone affected
many with Madness The young lady was
gent to Alexander who, of course, fell mad
ii In love with her. Aristotle. who knew
Of the plot warned the King, who there
upon commanded a criminal whom he had
condemned TO death 70 kiss the girl Scarce
~ faf3 the man touched her ruby lips before
ssbls whole frame was impregnated with
uoiIson and he expired IN the greatest