1712.

Cantharides, or Spanish fly, was very commonly used as a poison in mediæval times, the usual method of administering being to chop it up and mix it with pepper. It is said to have been the first poison tried on the unfortunate Sir Thomas Overbury, although his murderers finally finished him off with corrosive sublimate. Poisoned rings are said to have been the invention of the Italians, who fashioned rings in which the poison was inserted in a receptacle where the jewel is usually set. Attached to the inner part of the ring was a sharp point which, when the hand of the wearer was grasped, scratched the flesh and injected the poison. Rings were also used for carrying strong poisons secretly—such as arsenic, or corrosive sublimate—and in this manner many were enabled to commit suicide after being imprisoned.

Hyoscyamus, commonly called henbane, is a herb which has been employed from remote times. Benedictus Crispus, Archbishop of Milan, in a work written shortly before A.D. 681, alludes to it under the name of hyoscyamus and symphoniaca, and in the tenth century its virtues are particularly recorded by Macer Floridus. In the early Anglo-Saxon works it is called henbell and sometimes belene. In a French herbal of the fifteenth century it is called hanibane or hanebane. From a very early period it has been employed as a sedative and anodyne, for producing sleep, although simple hallucinations sometimes accompany its use.

An old tradition states, that once in the refectory of an ancient monastery the monks were served with henbane, instead of some harmless root, in error by the cook. After partaking of the dish, they were seized with the most extraordinary hallucinations. At midnight one monk sounded the bell for matins, while others walked in the chapel and opened their books, but could not read. Others sang roystering drinking songs and performed mountebank antics, which convulsed the others with uncontrollable laughter, and the pious monastery for the nonce was turned into an asylum. Certain stones which were sold for large sums of money were supposed to change colour when brought near a poisonous substance, and they were consequently much sought after by high personages. The horn of the unicorn was said to become moist when placed near poisoned food. Bickman records his belief that several slow poisons were known to the ancients which cannot now be identified. The Carthaginians also seem to have been acquainted with similar poisons, and, according to tradition, administered some to Regulus, the Roman general. But we cannot endorse Bickman's belief.

An incident which happened to the army led by Mark Antony against the Parthians, and described by Plutarch, is said to have been caused by aconite. At one time during the expedition, "the soldiers being very short of provisions, sought for roots and pot-herbs ... and met one that brought on madness and death. The eater immediately lost all memory and knowledge, busying himself at the same time in turning and moving every stone he met with, as if he were on some important pursuit. The camp was full of unhappy men stooping to the ground, and digging up and removing stones, till at last they were carried off by bilious vomiting.... Whole numbers perished, and the Parthians still continued to harass them. Antony is said to have frequently exclaimed: 'Oh! the ten thousand!' alluding to the army which Xenophon led in retreat; both a longer way and through more numerous conflicts, and yet led in safety."

Nine active or virulent poisons are mentioned by most ancient writers on Indian medicine, many of which are at present not identified. Most of them are apparently varieties of aconite. Besides these, they employed opium, gunja, datura, roots of Nerium odorum and Gloriosa superba, the milky juices of Calotropis gigantea and Euphorbia neriifolia, white arsenic, orpiment, and the poison extracted from the fangs of serpents.

Most of the older Sanscrit MSS. are written on paper prepared with orpiment to preserve them from the ravages of insects. Three varieties of Datura yield atropine, a powerful poison. These plants were frequently employed in India for putting a sudden end to domestic quarrels, and to this practice may be traced the origin of the custom of "Suttee," or widow burning, as the Brahmins found from experience that, by making a wife's life conterminous with the husband's the average husband lived considerably longer.

It is worthy of note that the diamond was celebrated as a medicinal agent by the Hindoos, who prepared it by roasting seven times and then reducing it to powder. It was given in doses of one grain as a powerful tonic.

CHAPTER II

POISONS AND SUPERSTITION

Among the ignorant, poisons have ever been closely associated with superstition, and thus we find in the dark ages, even among the more civilized nations of the West, a belief in the occult concerning those things the action of which they did not understand. To most of the poisonous herbs used by the ancients certain curious superstitions were attached. The mandrake, in particular, excited the greatest veneration on this account. It is supposed this plant is the same which the ancient Hebrews called Dudaïm. That these people held it in the highest esteem in the days of Jacob is evident from the notice of its having been found by Reuben, who carried it to his mother; and the inducement which tempted Leah to part with it proves the value then set upon this remarkable plant. It was believed to possess the property of making childless wives become mothers. Mandrake was among the more important drugs employed by the ancients for producing anæsthesia. Doses of the wine made from the root were administered before amputating a limb or the application of the hot iron cautery. Pliny says: "Mandrake is taken against serpents, and before cutting and puncture, lest they be felt. Sometimes the smell is sufficient." According to Apuleius, half an ounce of the wine would make a person insensible even to the pain of amputation. Lyman states it was this wine, "mingled with myrrh," that was offered to the Saviour on the Cross, it being commonly given to those who suffered death by crucifixion to allay in some degree their terrible agonies. In Shakespeare's time mandrake still kept its place in public estimation as a narcotic. Thus we have Cleopatra asking for the drug, that she may "sleep out this great gap of time" while her Antony is away; and Iago, when his poison begins to work in the mind of the Moor, exclaims—

Some of the old names applied to the plant, such as semihomo and anthropomorphon, refer to the appearance of the root, while the term "love-apples" applied to the fruit relates to their imaginary aphrodisiacal properties. It is mentioned in the Scriptures in connexion with such episodes. Josephus states "baaras" (supposed to be mandrake) was capable of expelling demons from those possessed. Demosthenes, the Athenian orator, is said to have compared his lethargic hearers to those who had eaten mandrake. Dioscorides states that "a drachm of mandragora