Evening star., 1922-11-26

pearls in mortar and administered
their dust to q Pope to save him from
disease. and. when one may read in a
thousand old volumes of the filthy and
disgusting medicaments then applied by
doctors. who were no more than leeches
and magicians It IS not hard to be-
lieve that the treatment Of men suffer-
ing from small doses of poisons often
did more TO hasten their deaths than
the drugs of the poisons
|. One other deadly possibility presents
itself At the close of the Borgian
reign a good many adventurers were
already returning from voyages to the
newly discovered West Indies. With
them they brought. according to Bloch
and other authorities. that dread
scourge of humanity which the French
long called the Italian sickness. This
blood disease was then far more deadly
than at present. for it attacked a popu-
lation which had not been made even
partly immune. eve know what raw
ages such mild ailments as measles
caused among the innocent Eskimos and
South Sea islanders) Whether the
poisoners of that period understood
the contagious nature of this fearful
disease and managed to convey it to
selected victims by means of slight
abrasians caused by rings and other
jewelry is certainly a matter for
grave doubt, yet the possibility re-
mains.
HN the other hand, it seems highly
~ probable that the students of
those days knew something of the
results Of infections, even if they had
no inkling of their nature and de-
velopment. They may quite possibly
have understood how to cause such
disturbances, and the absence of any
knowledge of their treatment would
assuredly have rendered them useful
to the poisoner.
Still the idea persists of mysterious
and lost poisons which were in COM
mon use among the expert poisoners
of Italy three and four hundred years
ago. The famous case Of Marie d'Au-
bray, Marquise de Brinvilliers, offers
evidence of circumstantial char
acter. This handsome and noble
French woman, put to death in 1876.
nearly two centuries after the acces-
sion Of Alexander Borgia. had caused
the death of both her brother and
her father in an attempt to get the
family property into her hands. She
had also tried to dispatch her sister
and her husband
Her guilt was proved by establish
ing her connection with one st.
Croix. a gentleman adventurer and
poisoner, who had probably furnish
ed lethal potions to a whole eroup
OF politicians and woman favorites
at the court of Louis XIV This St
Croix had died and 'bequeathed to the
Brlnvilliers a secret chest, but the
mans heirs refused to deliver it and
1t was opened and found to contain
many poisons. The history of her
crime and trial is too familiar to be
related here, but the nature and
origins of st. Croix' poisons, which
were undoubtedly those used by the
marquise and many others, are mat.
ters in point.
st. Croix had been confined to the
bastille some years earlier, as the
result of a lettre de cachet obtained
against him by M d'Aubray. the
father of La Brinvilliers, who had
taken umbrage at the scandalous re.
lations between st. Croix and his
daughter. In prison St., Croix was
confined with one Exili, an Italian
alchemist and druggist, who had
made many subtle discoveries in the
course Of his experimentation" st.
Crotx learned the Itaiian's secrets in
prison and later. when he was freed.
procured the release of Exili through
powerful personages who were later
of having likewise made
use of the alchemist's evil knowledge.
The laboratory, Of this man and of
st. Croix was discovered subsequent
ly in the house of a highly placed
person who had fallen under sus-
picion. but was not convicted be-
cause, as the Count de Grammont |
said, '"he was too rich"
The strongbox Of ST. Croixt. when |