Poison mysteries in history, romance and crime

SIR WILLIAM H. WILLCOX, K.C.I.E., C.B., C.M.G., M.D., F.R.C.P. Lond. As a slight appreciation of the eminent services he has rendered to Toxicology and Medicine.

POISONS IN HISTORY AND ROMANCE CHAP. PAGE I POISONS USED BY ANCIENT AND PRIMITIVE RACES 15 Poisoned Weapons—Poisons employed by Primitive Peoples—Malay, African and Indian nativ...

Poisons, those silent weapons capable of destroying life mysteriously, secretly and without violence, have ever had a peculiar fascination for mankind. They have played so large...

The earliest deity associated with poisons is Gula, whose name was revered by the Sumerians about 4500 B.C. She was known as “The Mistress of Charms and Spells,” the “Terrible G...

The first recorded instance of a judicial trial for poisoning at Rome is stated by Livy to have been in the year 329 B.C. In the time of Justinian (A.D. 483–565) the aid of the...

Among the famous medicaments of antiquity reputed to be effective in counteracting poisons was “terra sigillata” or “sealed earth,” a peculiar clay which originally came from th...

Many strange superstitions are associated with certain poisonous plants which have been handed down to us from past ages. The mysterious properties, especially of those which ca...

From early times the toad has had an unenviable reputation and has been suspected of poisonous properties. Some of the early historians attribute the death of King John of Engla...

Arsenic appears to have had an extraordinary fascination for the poisoner for centuries past and has, perhaps, been more frequently used than any other substance for criminal pu...

Poison appears to have been employed as a political agent from an early period of history, and many stories, probably more legendary than correct, have been handed down of royal...

From an early period science has been gradually built up by experimental methods and even the ancients were cognizant of the fact that the remedial properties of a substance cou...

The belief that certain slow and secret poisons could be so prepared that their administration could be controlled with such a degree of precision as to cause death at any given...

The study of the criminal methods of using poisons developed into a cult in Italy during the Middle Ages, and the Italian school of poisoners became known throughout Europe. The...

Considerable mystery has ever enveloped the history of the Borgia family, whose name historians have linked with some of the most morbid stories of crime and secret poisoning du...

In the year 1332 Thomas Randolph, Earl of Moray, who on the death of Robert Bruce was appointed Regent during the minority of the young King David the Second, is said to have be...

In the latter part of the sixteenth century the mania for criminal poisoning spread from Italy to France. The practice increased with great rapidity, and poisons appear to have...

The mystery attending the death of Amy Robsart, the wife of Robert Dudley, who eventually became Earl of Leicester, is one which, owing to the lack of detailed documentary evide...

A long-forgotten mystery which comes down to us tinged with the romance of past centuries is that surrounding the death of Sir Euseby Andrew. This worthy baronet, whose family s...

In the spring of the year 1670, Leopold I, Emperor of Austria, was seized with a mysterious illness which greatly puzzled his physicians. A staunch and fervent Roman Catholic he...

During the Middle Ages a strange dread of wholesale poisoning spread throughout Europe and caused numerous panics. Some of these rumours may probably have been circulated by uns...

Of the various methods employed by criminal poisoners, administration through the medium of food or drink has been more common than any other. The poisoned cake or wine recurs w...

The employment of certain substances in the form of charms or potions to incite the amatory passion has been practised from a time of great antiquity. The idea involved in the u...

In the latter part of the year 1900 a fairly widespread epidemic of peripheral neuritis of the extremities and its attendant symptoms was noted by medical men in certain distric...

The use of poison as a weapon in warfare is not by any means a modern practice. It may be traced back to the use of poisoned arrows and spears, and from the time of the discover...

The exploitation of pathogenic bacteria for criminal purposes has not been neglected by the poisoner, but owing to ignorance on the one hand, and the difficulty of obtaining the...

There is a very peculiar property attached to certain poisons, especially those possessing narcotic properties—that is, they are capable of forming the most enslaving habits kno...

This plant, cultivated largely in India, is now considered to be the same, botanically, as the _Cannabis sativa_ of European cultivation; but there is great difference in their...

Poison mysteries have ever been a favourite theme with writers of fiction; but unfortunately the scientific knowledge of novelists is as a rule of a very limited description, an...

In the spring of the year 1780, the quiet hamlet of Little Lawford in Warwickshire, situated about three miles from Rugby, was the scene of a tragedy which aroused great interes...

Marie Fortunée Cappelle was the daughter of a captain in the Imperial Artillery. Her parents died during her childhood, and she was placed in the care of an aunt, who, at the ea...

The case of Madeline Smith, who was charged with causing the death of L’Angerlier by the administration of arsenic at Glasgow in 1857, excited universal interest at the time. Ow...

Antimony has been a frequent medium with criminal poisoners, including Dove, Smethurst, Pritchard and others, but there is probably no trial in which antimony has figured that c...

Strychnine is one of the active principles extracted from nux vomica, the singular disk-like seed of the _Strychnos Nux vomica_, a tree indigenous to most parts of India, Burma,...

The remarkable case of Dr. E. W. Pritchard, of Glasgow, who was arrested and charged with murdering his wife and mother-in-law in that city in the year 1865, excited great inter...

The only case on record in which the active principle of aconite has been used for the purpose of criminal poisoning is that of Dr. Lamson, who suffered the extreme penalty of t...

Chloroform belongs to the class of neurotic poisons which act on the brain, and produce loss of sensation. It is a colourless, heavy and volatile liquid, having a peculiar ether...

On July 31, 1889, one the most remarkable poisoning cases on record was tried before Mr. Justice Stephen, at the Liverpool Assizes. The trial, which lasted eight days, excited t...

Towards the close of the year 1891 and the early part of 1892, public interest was excited by the mysterious deaths of several young women of the “unfortunate class” residing in...

For centuries past poison has played a prominent part in love intrigues which form so common a feature in French life. Such crimes are generally incited by jealousy or the desir...

Towards the close of the year 1897, a widow, called Mrs. Holmes, was living with her three children at Stonely, near Kimbolton. She had a cousin named Walter Horsford, a well-to...

One of the most carefully planned murders by means of poison in modern times was investigated at the trial of Roland B. Molineux, who was charged with causing the death of Mrs....

In the last week of July, 1902, a girl named Maude Marsh, about twenty years of age, was admitted as a patient into Guy’s Hospital suffering from internal inflammation and vomit...

A curious case with many unusual features was investigated at Armagh in June, 1905, when two women named Pearson and Black were charged with murdering Alice Pearson, aged sevent...

In 1905 a poisoning case of an unusual character was disclosed at the Central Criminal Court. On April 13 of that year the attention of the police was called to a large tin trun...

In 1883 an American named Hawley Harvey Crippen came to England to attend various hospitals for the purpose of seeing operations. He was born at Coldwater, Michigan, U.S.A., in...

There have been few cases in the history of poisoning where a man and his wife have been charged on the capital charge, therefore the trial of Frederick Henry Seddon and Mary An...

In the early part of February, 1911, a Mr. Charles Barrett Hutchison and his wife, in celebration of their silver wedding day, gave a whist and supper party to some friends at t...

One of the most remarkable cases of criminal poisoning in the annals of Indian justice was brought to light in December, 1912. There was living in Agra at that time, a Lieutenan...

Towards the close of the year 1921 a man named Edward Black was living with his wife and stepdaughter, Marian, a girl of seventeen, at the village of Tregonissey, near St. Auste...

In 1921 the little town of Hay in Breconshire became the centre of one of the strangest poison dramas of modern times. There were practising in the town two firms of solicitors,...

The mystery surrounding the murder of Percy Thompson at Ilford caused considerable interest in this country towards the end of 1922. On the night of October 3rd, Percy Thompson,...