The Pharmaceutical Journal
Vol 269 No 7229 pxxx
21/28 December 2002

This article
Reprint
Photocopy

Poisoners and politics

The deliberate recourse by people to poisonous materials in self defence or to advance policies, either within the family circle or in the wider society, is generally regarded as an unacceptable activity by any moral standards. Such activity is secretive to a degree that it often cannot be determined whether poisoning has actually taken place.

It is practically impossible to decide when first in his advance from savagery man exploited the poisons provided by nature. It is likely that the poisoning of arrow heads used either for hunting food animals or for disabling attacking enemies was practised early in prehistory. For the ancient Greeks pharmakon was the term applied to a drug or a poison, and from it we derive "pharmacy" and "pharmacology". Then the Greek word for a bow, toxon, and its corresponding adjective toxikon, give rise to our term "toxicology". Thus we cannot disentangle arrow-heads from poisoning. The Romans in their turn used the word virus to describe the venom of snakes, and applied it to the pestilential exhalation of swamps, widening the concept of poisoning still further.

Ulysses

In the 'Odyssey', Homer tells us that during the siege of Troy, which took place some 3,250 years ago, Odysseus made a special voyage from Troy to Ephyra, at the mouth of the Acheron river in Thesprotia, in an attempt to obtain from Ilos, son of Mermeros, supplies of "a deadly drug that he might have wherewithal to smear his bronze-shod arrows". There seems to have been an ethical difference of opinion involved, since Ilos refused to comply, whereupon Ulysses approached Anchialos, king of the neighbouring Taphians, a race of detestable robbers and pirates. They obliged with a supply of the deadly material. The episode has a curiously modern ring in it for us today.

Other than this instance, there is little evidence that the use of poisoned arrows in warfare was widely practised by the Greeks and Romans. It was different in dealings with the East, where a wide range of toxic resources was available and employed. Nearer home, in the area south of the Black Sea, the region of Pontus became celebrated for its poisonous plants, many being used to further family or wider political intrigues. Prominent people employed official tasters to meet the fear of poisoning from which princes, governors and commanders shrank.

Ovid, in 'Metamorphoses', composed just before his enforced exile in 8AD, recounts how mankind fell from the peace and prosperity of the fabled Golden Age into anarchy, until "men lived on plunder. Guest was not safe from host, nor father-in-law from son-in-law; even among brothers it was rare to find affection. The husband longed for the death of his wife, she of her husband; and murderous stepmothers brewed deadly poisons, and sons inquired into their fathers' years before the time." This state of affairs was true of classical antiquity, in Greece and Rome, Egypt and Persia.

The methods adopted to convey the poison to the victim were sometimes bizarre. Sir Thomas Browne (1672) tells us that the oriental idea of treating one side of a knife with poison before cutting meat for a guest was sometimes used. "The poyson of Parysatis reported from Ctesias by Plutarch in the life of Artaxerxes whereby anointing a knife on the one side, and therewith dividing a bird, with the one half she poisoned Statira, and safely fed herself with the other, was certainly a very subtile one, and such as our ignorance is well content it knows not." What poison Paryeatis administered is unknown, but since the account by Plutarch dates from the end of the first century AD, it was evidently an established technique.

Medea

Medea, who flourished at the same time as the Argonauts, in the generation just preceding the onset of the Trojan War, was an acknowledged expert when it came to vegetable poisons and their manipulation. She was the granddaughter of Helios the sun god, daughter of Aëtes, king of Colchis, and her aunt was Circe, the famous enchantress who seduced Odysseus on his voyage back to Ithaca from Troy, and turned his crew into animals by means of her herbal potions. Circe was married against her will to the king of the Scythians, whom she poisoned, and when she inherited his throne proceeded to poison any others who opposed her wishes. Having raised an irresistible opposition, Circe then retreated to the island where Odysseus overcame her machinations. Meanwhile, Medea had been taught by her other aunt Hecate, wife of the immensely cruel Perses, to become "ingenious in the mixing of deadly poisons; she discovered the drug called aconite, and tried out the strength of each poison by mixing it in the food given to strangers" — at least, so we learn from Diodorus Siculus in his 'Histories', written in the first century BC. Aconite is believed to have been the favourite homicide weapon in Greece, and curiously enough we find it repeating its reputation in the 19th and 20th centuries. Traditionally, Medea attempted to kill Theseus with it, and is supposed to have obtained supplies from Bithynia, where it had in folklore sprung from the saliva of Cerberus when he was dragged out of Hades. Herakleia in Pontus was another famous source of aconite.

Medea was also famous for her experiments with colchicum. Although this came to be recognised as a useful therapy against gout, it had nevertheless an evil reputation. The noted source for this plant was Tyrrenia, whose inhabitants were dubbed "the nation which makes drugs" by Aeschylus. They are said to have made a distinction between short-term and long-term effects of colchicum, and to have exploited this property.

Locusta

A great expansion of poisoning for domestic and political reasons was seen among the relatives of the Roman emperors during the last century BC and the first century AD. The prime practitioner was Locusta, a woman of Gallic origin, who worked her mischief at the behest of the empress Agrippina the Younger and emperor Nero in particular. She had earned a sinister reputation in Rome and was imprisoned for her sins, but was liberated by Nero when he wished her to help in poisoning Britannicus, son of Claudius and Messalina in 55AD. Locusta was initially employed by Agrippina to poison Claudius in 54AD to make way for her son Nero, and then by Nero to poison Agrippina, unsuccessfully. The poisoned soup prepared by Locusta for Britannicus came near to poisoning Titus also. Domitian poisoned his wife Julia in an attempt to abort an incestuous child. Hadrian is suspected of poisoning his wife Sabina simply because he thought she might outlive him. Marcus Aurelius was accused of poisoning Verus at a feast, but it is thought that in fact Faustina may have killed him by poisoning his oysters. Commodus was poisoned in wine presented to him by his wife Marcia; since the result was violent vomiting the conspirators feared he might survive. Accordingly he was finished off by smothering. Heliogabalus had a golden box containing a poison prepared by Locusta, which he carried with him in case he was threatened by killers. In the end, Locusta met her true deserts, being killed by Galba. Thus, the tale of Locusta and the Caesars, as sordid a story as could be imagined, came to a fitting end.

With the passing of the classical era and the onset of the middle ages, patterns of poisoning for political or personal ends took on a wider aspect. The dependence on herbal poisons administered in the victim's food or drink gave way to new techniques involving mineral substances and novel modes of administration. It was said by Ambroise Paré in the 16th century that "a poison carried into the body by smell is the most effectual". He thought that the sudden and fatal illness of Pope Clement VII, of the Medici family, in 1534 was brought about by arsenical fumes wafted into the Pope's nostrils by a torch-bearer who accompanied him in a procession. And in 1599, the 27-year-old Gabrielle d'Estrées, mistress of Henri IV of France, came to a strange end at the moment when Henri was on the point of divorcing his wife Margaret de Valois and marrying Gabrielle. Henri sent Gabrielle to the palace of an Italian Jew called Zametti, who had been in the service of Catherine de Medici. There she was presented with a magnificent flask of perfume. She inhaled this during mass, but an hour later collapsed with a livid and distorted face and died in convulsions. The perfume is believed to have contained hydrogen cyanide. When Gabrielle died without warning, on the eve of Easter 1599, rumours ran about that she had been poisoned. To discount these, an autopsy was performed, and the report claimed that no trace of any poison had been discovered.However, it is perhaps relevant that in 1589 a treatise by Giovanni Battista Porta described a method of poisoning sleeping persons by opening under their nostrils a leaden box in which a mixture of bruised stramonium, belladonna and opium with juice of hemlock had been allowed to ferment for several days.

The Borgias

With the arrival of the Borgia family from Valencia to Rome, a new era opened for the role of poisons in politics. Rodrigo Lanzol y Borgia, when a cardinal, became notorious for his profligate life, but this did not prevent his being elected Pope Alexander VI in 1492. He took up residence with his illegitimate son Cesare and daughter Lucrecia, whereupon Cesare became known for his callous attitude towards others he suspected of trying to take power from the family. He was commander of the papal armies, and preferred cold steel to poison, but had no hesitation when the opportunity to poison arose. Lucrezia, a famous beauty, shared the lawless attitude of her time, and took three consecutive husbands. Despite a reputation for the same evil habits as the rest of the Borgias, there is no evidence that she carried out any of the poisonings attributed to her family, and she has been unjustly depicted in this respect.

At an alfresco banquet in his vineyard outside Rome, Cardinal Adriano Castelli da Cornuta entertained Alexander and Cesare in August 1503. The following day the two Borgias and some other guests were taken seriously ill. The trouble may have been malaria, but it was rumoured that the wine had been poisoned. Alexander, aged 72, died in a blackened and swollen condition, but Cesare, aged 28, though critically ill for weeks, survived. The rumour went about that the dishes had been switched, and the wrong persons fell victim. It became proverbial that anyone of political influence who dined with a Borgia was in deadly peril. And anyone in Rome who showed too much interest in Borgia politics was likely to suffer a violent death.

The Borgias brought with them from Spain a body of knowledge regarding the preparation of special poisons, together with special techniques whereby they might be administered without raising suspicion. They learnt a great deal regarding mineral poisons based on arsenic and mercury in particular, often combining these with plant and animal products which they thought added to their potency. From the Arabian alchemists they encountered in Spain they learned how to prepare products from phosphorus, derived from urine, and how to feed animals on increasing doses of arsenic so that their tissues and excretions would prove deadly when fed to humans.

It was said of Alexander VI that he kept a cabinet in his Vatican apartments which he would request any troublesome critic to unlock for him. The lock was stiff and there was a sharp point in the handle of the key which produced a small puncture in the palm of the handler, who by next day was dead or dying. Likewise, his evil son Cesare sometimes wore a ring composed of twin lion heads with sharp teeth. Whoever was greeted by Cesare Borgia with a warm handshake learnt that he was not long for this world. What potent substances were incorporated into these instruments of destruction to have so rapid a lethal effect is unknown, but there must have been an element of truth in these accounts.

The most notorious of the Borgia products was la cantarella, a sugar-like but almost tasteless white powder which could be slipped without detection into food or wine. There may have been variants of this, since some of the victims died in their sleep after partaking of supper chez Borgia, while others developed lingering illnesses weeks later, losing their hair and teeth along the way. The family kept a staff of Italian astrologer-chemists who worked with mercury, arsenic, phosphorus, hemlock, monkshood, henbane, yew and poppy. It is of interest that Leonardo da Vinci was once in the service of Cesare, and records in his notebooks something called fumo mortale intended for enemy ships, and made by combustion of a mixture of sulphur, realgar, arsenic, toad and tarantula venom, and mad dog saliva made into a paste with juice of dogwood berries.

Madame de Brinvilliers and Catherine Deshayes

France, like Italy, suffered from a plague of political poisoners during the 15th to 17th centuries, and the title of "the age of arsenic" used of this period was not inaccurate, although arsenic was only one of the many agents used. A craze worthy of medieval times found its focal point in the activities of Madame de Brinvilliers and Catherine Deshayes.

Marie Madeleine d'Aubray married the Marquis de Brinvilliers in 1651 when she was 21 years old. She was ambitious and would tolerate no rivals, and her weapon was poison. In the event she killed her father, two brothers and a sister. Her deplorable lack of morals led her to make frequent visits to the Hotel Dieu in Paris, ostensibly to offer comfort to the sick, but in reality to test her experimental poisons on them. She watched their effects and was able to make adjustments to suit her purposes. Her husband the Marquis preserved his own life by regularly taking the famous theriac of Andromachus, supplemented with special antidotes prepared by Gaudin de Sainte-Croix, a keen student of Borgia lore who was Marie's lover into the bargain. During a spell in the Bastille, where he had been consigned by Marie's father, Sainte-Croix met Exili, an Italian alchemist who had been in the service of Queen Christina of Sweden. He also studied the preparation of poisons with Christophle Glaser, who not only wrote a treatise on chemistry but gave his name to the "Glaser recipe", a liquid made by distilling arsenic, corrosive sublimate and water, which Glaser sold in his pharmacy in the Faubourg St Germain and claimed to be a more potent emetic than antimony. Glaser worked in his laboratory on a volatile poison of unknown composition, and was discovered dead as the result of inhaling it. In his laboratory were found letters and packets of various poisons, which were clearly intended for Madame de Brinvilliers, who was eventually traced to Holland and beheaded and burned on the Place de Grave in 1676.

In response to the adverse publicity concerning political poisonings in France, Louis XIV appointed a commission, the Chambre Ardente, to look into the practice. Apothecaries were forbidden by decree from providing arsenic, corrosive sublimate and other dangerous substances, except to customers who provided a signature and stated their reason for the purchase. The convenient formula mort aux rats was adopted to cover such transactions, so the effect of the decree was negligible.

The other prominent figure, Catherine Deshayes or La Voisin, kept a laboratory in the Rue de Beauregard, where she supplied poisons to the nobility, including, according to rumour, the Duke of Buckingham. She kept a staff of priests, apothecaries and midwives, and is said to have owed her success to the mixture of toxicology, magic and perverted religion she dispensed. One of her protégés, Brother Gérard, a minor friar and an alchemist to boot, claimed to have devised an arsenical soap which, when used to cleanse wounds, would kill. Her chief chemist, named Lesage, prepared arsenical cosmetics which also aimed to kill the user, and enjoyed popularity among many young women who wanted to rid themselves of unwanted children and inconvenient husbands. The so-called poudre de succession exploited by the Deshayes establishment contained arsenic, aconite, belladonna and opium.

La Toffana

Meanwhile, in Italy, the Borgia tradition was continued by La Toffana, a woman who sold an arsenical solution reputedly so powerful that four to six drops was lethal. It was called Aqua Toffana, Aquetta du Napoli or Manna of St Nicholas, and supplied in phials bearing the figure of St Nicholas of Bari. It was apparently colourless, tasteless and miscible with wine. For her sins, Toffana was executed in 1709, but her elixir continued to be distributed for several years. A kindred spirit was Hieronyma Spara, who developed a similar preparation in Rome in 1659. She called it Aquetta di Perugia and it was widely distributed. Eventually Spara and 12 of her associate were hanged for their deeds, and others associated with her were publicly whipped.

In England, the poisoning of nobility for reasons of jealousy or fear never developed to the same degree as in France and Italy, although in more recent years access to some toxic substances brought from the Far East and the New World has brought a new pattern. In the 16th century a statute drafted under Henry VIII made the penalty for brutal poisoning boiling alive. Three people underwent this penalty before it was erased from the statute book in 1547, and hanging substituted, except where a woman poisoned her husband or child, when she might be burned. It is an indication of the reaction of horror which followed any attempt to administer poison to a fellow citizen with murderous intent. That horror persists, and is intensified by the awareness of what an underhand and surreptitious act such as seeking to remove another person for one's own social or political advancement constitutes.