Читать книгу A History of Inventions, Discoveries, and Origins, Volume I (of 2) - Johann Beckmann - Страница 14

Under this name are generally understood all poisons which can be administered imperceptibly, and which gradually shorten the life of man, like a lingering disease. They were not first discovered in the 17th century in France and Italy as many believe, but were known to the ancient Greeks and Romans, by whom they were used. I must however allow, that they were never prepared with more art at any period, or in any country, or employed oftener and with more success, than they were in these countries, and at that time. If it be true that they can be prepared in such a manner as to occasion death at a certain period previously determined, or that the person to whom they are given will die within a certain time limited, it must be confessed that the ancient poisoners have been far exceeded by the modern. But this advantage will be considered as scarcely possible, when one reflects upon the many variable circumstances which have an influence on the operation of medicines and poisons; and it has often happened that a company have swallowed the same poison, at the same time, and in the same quantity, some of whom have died sooner and some later, while some have survived. Thus died Pope Alexander VI. in the year 1503, and Cæsar Borgia recovered without any loss of health, though, by the bottles being changed through mistake, he drank of the poison that had been prepared for the other guests alone. At any rate, I am of opinion that the celebrated Tophania, when she engaged to free wives from disagreeable husbands within stated weeks and days, must have had certain and very accurate information respecting their constitution and manner of living, or, as the physicians say, their idiosyncrasy.

Some physicians have doubted respecting secret poison103; and others have only denied that its effects can with certainty be regulated to a fixed time104. I agree in opinion with the latter; but the former can be confuted by many examples both of ancient and modern times; for that the ancients were acquainted with this kind of poison, can be proved by the testimony of Plutarch, Quintilian, and other respectable authors. We are told by Plutarch, that a slow poison, which occasioned heat, a cough, spitting of blood, consumption, and a weakness of intellect, was administered to Aratus of Sicyon105; and Quintilian in his Declamations, speaks of this poison in such a manner as proves that it must then have been well known106. It cannot be said that such an invention was too great for that period, or that it required more knowledge of chemistry than any one possessed; for the Indians in America are acquainted with a most perfect poison of this kind, and can employ it with so much skill, that the person to whom it is given cannot guard against the treachery, even with the utmost precaution, but infallibly dies, though in a lingering manner, often after the expiration of some years107.

Theophrastus speaks of a poison which could be moderated in such a manner as to have effect in two or three months, or at the end of a year, or two years; and he remarks that the death, the more lingering it was, became the more miserable. This poison was prepared from aconitum, a plant which, on that account, people were forbidden to have in their possession, under pain of capital punishment108. He relates also, that Thrasyas had discovered a method of preparing from other plants a poison which, given in small doses of a drachm, occasioned an easy but certain death, without any pain, and which could be kept back for a long time without causing weakness or corruption. This Thrasyas, whose scholar Alexias carried the art still further, was a native of Mantinea, a city in Arcadia, and is celebrated by Theophrastus on account of his abilities, and particularly his knowledge of botany; but those are mistaken who ascribe to him the discovery of secret poison.

This poison was much used at Rome about two hundred years before the Christian æra. As several persons of distinction died the same year at that period, and of the like distemper, an inquiry being made into the cause, a maid-servant gave evidence against some ladies of the first families, who, she said, prepared and distributed poison; and above a hundred and fifty of them were convicted and punished109. As so many had learnt this destructive art, it could not be suppressed; and we find sufficient proofs in the Roman history that it was continually preserved. Sejanus caused such a secret poison to be administered by an eunuch to Drusus, who gradually declined afterwards, as by a consumptive disorder, and at length died110. Agrippina, being desirous of getting rid of Claudius, but not daring to despatch him suddenly, and yet wishing not to leave him sufficient time to make new regulations respecting the succession to the throne, made choice of a poison which should deprive him of his reason, and gradually consume him. This she caused to be prepared by an expert poisoner, named Locusta, who had been condemned to death for her infamous actions, but saved that she might be employed as a state engine. The poison was given to the emperor in a dish of mushrooms; but as, on account of his irregular manner of living, it did not produce the desired effect, it was assisted by some of a stronger nature111. This Locusta prepared also the poison with which Nero despatched Britannicus, the son of Agrippina, whom his father Claudius wished to succeed him on the throne. As this poison occasioned only a dysentery, and was too slow in its operation, the emperor compelled Locusta by blows, and by threatening her with death, to prepare in his presence one more powerful. It was first tried on a kid; but as the animal did not die till the end of five hours, she boiled it a little longer, until it instantaneously killed a pig to which it had been given, and this poison despatched Britannicus as soon as he had tasted it112. For this service the emperor pardoned Locusta, rewarded her liberally, and gave her pupils whom she was to instruct in her art, in order that it might not be lost.

The art of preparing this poison must have been well understood also at Carthage. When M. Attilius Regulus, the Roman general, who had been taken by the Carthaginians, was sent to Rome to propose to the senate that the Carthaginian prisoners might be restored in exchange for him, he prevented this negotiation, because he knew that a poison had been administered to him, by which the state would soon be deprived of his services. He returned, therefore, to Carthage, in compliance with the promise he had made to the enemy, who put him to death with the most exquisite torture113.

All these poisons were prepared from plants, particularly aconite, hemlock and poppy, or extracted from animal substances. Among those made from the latter, none is more remarkable than that supplied by the sea-hare, lepus marinus, with which, as Philostratus says114, Titus was despatched by Domitian. Without here attempting to define the substances employed by the ancients to compose their poisons, I shall only observe, that the lepus marinus, the terrible effects of which are expressly mentioned by Dioscorides, Galen, Nicander, Aëtius, Ælian115, Pliny116, and others, is that animal called at present in the Linnæan system Aplysia depilans117, as Rondelet conjectured, and has been since fully proved by Bohadsch118. This animal poison however seems to have been seldom used, as it easily betrays itself by some peculiar symptoms. It appears that it was not known to Aristotle, at least he makes no mention of it119. With the far stronger, and now common mineral poisons the ancients were not acquainted; for their arsenic was what we call orpiment, and not that pernicious metallic oxide which formed the principal ingredient of those secret poisons which in latter times were in France and Italy brought to a diabolical perfection120.

No one was ever more infamous by this art than Tophania, or Toffana, a woman who resided first at Palermo, and afterwards at Naples. She sold those drops, which from her acquired the name of aqua Tophania, aqua della Toffana, and which were called also acquetta di Napoli, or only acquetta; but she distributed her preparation by way of charity to such wives as wished to have other husbands. From four to six drops were sufficient to destroy a man; and it was asserted that the dose could be so proportioned as to operate in a certain time. As she was watched by the government, she fled to an ecclesiastical asylum; and when Keysler was at Naples in 1730, she was then still living, because no one could, or was willing to take away her life, while under that protection. At that time she was visited by many strangers out of curiosity.

In Labat’s Travels through Italy121 we also find some information which may serve still further to illustrate the history of Tophania. She distributed her poison in small glass phials, with this inscription, Manna of St. Nicholas of Bari, and ornamented with the image of the saint. A miraculous oil, employed by folly in the cure of many diseases, drops from the tomb of that saint which is shown at Bari in the kingdom of Naples; and on this account it is dispersed in great abundance under the like name. It was therefore the best appellation which Tophania could give to her poison, because the reputed sanctity of it prevented the custom-house officers from examining it too closely. When the viceroy was informed of this, which I think was in 1709, Tophania fled from one convent to another, but was at length seized and thrown into prison. The clergy raised a loud outcry on account of this violation of ecclesiastical freedom, and endeavoured to excite the people to insurrection. But they were soon appeased on a report being spread that Tophania had confessed she had poisoned all the springs in the city. Being put to the rack, she acknowledged her wickedness, and confessed to having caused the death of not less than 600 persons; named those who had protected her, who were immediately dragged from churches and monasteries; and declared that the day before she had absconded, she had sent two boxes of her manna to Rome, where it was found in the custom-house, but she did not accuse any one of having ordered it. She was afterwards strangled, and to mitigate the archbishop, her body was thrown at night into the area of the convent from which she had been taken. Tophania however was not the only person at Naples who understood the making of this poison; for Keysler says that at the time he was there it was still secretly prepared and much employed.

In the year 1659, under the government of Pope Alexander VII., it was observed at Rome that many young married women were left widows, and that many husbands died when they became disagreeable to their wives. Several of the clergy declared also, that for some time past various persons had acknowledged at confession that they had been guilty of poisoning. As the government employed the utmost vigilance to discover these poisoners, suspicion fell upon a society of young married women, whose president appeared to be an old woman who pretended to foretell future events, and who had often predicted very exactly many deaths to persons who had cause to wish for them. To ascertain the truth, a crafty female, given out to be a person of considerable distinction, was sent to this old woman, pretending that she wished to obtain her confidence, and to procure some of her drops for a cruel and tyrannical husband. The whole society were by this stratagem arrested; and all of them, except the fortune-teller, whose name was Hieronyma Spara, confessed before they were put to the torture. – “Where now,” cried she, “are the Roman princes, knights and barons, who on so many occasions promised me their protection! Where are the ladies who assured me of their friendship! Where are my children whom I have placed in so distinguished situations!” In order to deter others from committing the like crime, one Gratiosa, Spara’s assistant, three other women, and the obstinate Spara herself, who still entertained hopes of assistance till the last moment, were hanged in the presence of innumerable spectators. Some months after, several more women were executed in the same manner; some were whipt, and others were banished from the country. Notwithstanding these punishments, the effects of this inveterate wickedness have been from time to time remarked. Le Bret, to whom we are indebted for the above account, says122 that Spara was a Sicilian, and acquired her knowledge from Tophania at Palermo. If that be true, the latter must have been early initiated in villany, and must have become when very young a teacher of her infamous art. Keysler calls her a little old woman.

The art of poisoning never excited more attention than it did in France about the year 1670123. Mary Margaret d’Aubray, daughter of the lieutenant-civil Dreux d’Aubray, was in the year 1651 married to the Marquis de Brinvillier, son of Gobelin president of the Chamber of Accounts, who had a yearly income of thirty thousand livres, and to whom she brought a portion of two hundred thousand. He was mestre-de-camp of the regiment of Normandy, and during the course of his campaigns became acquainted with one Godin de Sainte Croix, a young man of a distinguished family, who served as a captain of cavalry in the regiment of Trassy. This young officer, who was then a needy adventurer, became a constant visitor of the marquis, and in a short time paid his addresses to the marchioness, who lost her husband after she had helped to dissipate his large fortune, and was thus enabled to enjoy her amours in greater freedom. Her indecent conduct, however, gave so much uneasiness to her father, that he procured a lettre de cachet, had Sainte Croix arrested while in a carriage by her side, and thrown into the Bastille124. Sainte Croix there got acquainted with an Italian named Exili, who understood the art of preparing poison, and from whom he learnt it. As they were both set at liberty after a year’s imprisonment, Sainte Croix kept Exili with him until he became perfectly master of the art, in which he afterwards instructed the marchioness, in order that she might employ it in bettering the circumstances of both. When she had acquired the principles of the art, she assumed the appearance of a nun, distributed food to the poor, nursed the sick in the Hôtel-Dieu, and gave them medicines, but only for the purpose of trying the strength of her poison undetected on these helpless wretches125. It was said in Paris, by way of satire, that no young physician, in introducing himself to practice, had ever so speedily filled a churchyard as Brinvillier. By the force of money, she prevailed on Sainte Croix’s servant, called La Chaussée, to administer poison to her father, into whose service she got him introduced, and also to her brother, who was a counsellor of the parliament, and resided at his father’s house. To the former the poison was given ten times before he died; the son died sooner; but the daughter, Mademoiselle d’Aubray, the marchioness could not poison, because perhaps she was too much on her guard; for a suspicion soon arose that the father and son had been poisoned, and the bodies were opened. She would however have escaped, had not Providence brought to light the villany.

Sainte Croix, when preparing poison, was accustomed to wear a glass mask; but as this once happened to drop off by accident, he was suffocated, and found dead in his laboratory. Government caused the effects of this man, who had no family, to be examined, and a list of them to be made out. On searching them, there was found a small box, to which Sainte Croix had affixed a written request, that after his death it might be delivered to the Marchioness de Brinvillier, or in case she should not be living, that it might be burnt126. Nothing could be a greater inducement to have it opened than this singular petition; and that being done, there was found in it a great abundance of poisons of every kind, with labels on which their effects, proved by experiments made on animals, were marked. When the marchioness heard of the death of her lover and instructor, she was desirous to have the casket, and endeavoured to get possession of it, by bribing the officers of justice; but as she failed in this, she quitted the kingdom. La Chaussée, however, continued at Paris, laid claim to the property of Sainte Croix, was seized and imprisoned, confessed more acts of villany than were suspected, and was in consequence broke alive on the wheel in 1673.

A very active officer of justice, named Desgrais, was despatched in search of the Marchioness de Brinvillier, who was found in a convent at Liège, to which she had fled from England. To entice her from this privileged place, which folly had consecrated for the protection of vice, Desgrais assumed the dress of an abbé, found means to get acquainted with her, acted the part of a lover, and, having engaged her to go out on an excursion of pleasure, arrested her. Among her effects at the convent, there was found a confession, written by her own hand, which contained a complete catalogue of her crimes. She there acknowledged that she had set fire to houses, and that she had occasioned the death of more persons than any one ever suspected. She remarked also, that she had continued a virgin only till the seventh year of her age. Notwithstanding all the craft which she employed to escape, she was conveyed to Paris, where she at first denied everything; and, when in prison, she played picquet to pass away the time. She was however convicted, brought to a confession of her enormities, became a convert, as her confessor termed it, and went with much firmness to the place of execution, on the 16th of July, 1676; where, when she beheld the multitude of the spectators, she exclaimed in a contemptuous manner, “You have come to see a fine spectacle!” She was beheaded and afterwards burnt; a punishment too mild for such an offender127. As she had been amused with some hopes of a pardon, on account of her relations, when she mounted the scaffold, she cried out, “C’est donc tout de bon!128”

Among a number of persons suspected of being concerned in this affair, was a German apothecary, named Glaser, who on account of his knowledge in chemistry, was intimate with Exili and Sainte Croix. From him they had both procured the materials which they used, and he was some years confined in the Bastille; but the charge against him being more minutely investigated, he was declared innocent, and set at liberty. He was the author of a Treatise on Chemistry, printed at Paris in 1667, and reprinted afterwards at Brussels in 1676, and at Lyons in 1679.

By the execution of this French Medea, the practice of poisoning was not suppressed; many persons died from time to time under very suspicious circumstances; and the archbishop was informed from different parishes that this crime was still confessed, and that traces of it were remarked both in high and in low families. For watching, searching after, and punishing poisoners, a particular court, called the Chambre de Poison or Chambre ardente, was at length established in 1679. This court, besides other persons, detected two women named La Vigoreux and La Voisin129, who carried on a great traffic in poisons. The latter was a midwife. Both of them pretended to foretell future events, to call up ghosts, and to teach the art of finding hidden treasures, and of recovering lost or stolen goods. They also distributed philtres, and sold secret poison to such persons as they knew they could depend upon, and who wished to employ them either to get rid of bad husbands, or recover lost lovers. Female curiosity induced several ladies of the first rank, and even some belonging to the court, to visit these women, particularly La Voisin; and who, without thinking of poison, only wished to know how soon a husband, a lover, the king or his mistress, would die. In the possession of La Voisin was found a list of all those who had become dupes to her imposture. They were arrested and carried before the above-mentioned court, which, without following the usual course of justice, detected secret crimes by means of spies, instituted private trials, and began to imitate the proceedings of the holy inquisition. In this list were found the distinguished names of the Countess de Soissons, her sister the Duchess de Bouillon, and Marshal de Luxembourg. The first fled to Flanders to avoid the severity and disgrace of imprisonment; the second saved herself by the help of her friends; and the last, after he had been some months in the Bastille, and had undergone a strict examination, by which he almost lost his reputation, was set at liberty as innocent. Thus did the cruel Louvois the war minister, and the Marchioness de Montespan, ruin those who opposed their measures. La Vigoreux and La Voisin were burnt alive on the 22nd of February 1680, after their hands had been bored through with a red-hot iron and cut off. Several persons of ordinary rank were punished by the common hangman; those of higher rank, after they had been declared by this tribunal not guilty, were set at liberty; and in 1680 an end was put to the Chambre ardente, which in reality was a political inquisition.

It is certain that notwithstanding such punishments, like crimes have given occasion to unjust succession both in Italy and in France, and that attempts have been made for the same purpose even in the northern kingdoms. It is known that in Denmark Count Corfitz de Ulfeld was guilty, though it was not proved, of having intended to give the king a poison, which should gradually destroy him like a lethargy130. Charles XI. also, king of Sweden, died by the effects of such a poison. Having ruined several noble families by seizing on their property, and having after that made a journey to Torneo, he fell into a consumptive disorder which no medicine could cure. One day he asked his physician in a very earnest manner, what was the cause of his illness? The physician replied, “Your majesty has been loaded with too many maledictions.” “Yes,” returned the king, “I wish to God that the reduction of the nobility’s estates had not taken place, and that I had never undertaken a journey to Torneo!” After his death his intestines were found to be full of small ulcers131.

The oftener poisoning in this manner happens, the more it is to be wished that preventives and antidotes were found out, and that the symptoms were ascertained; but this is hardly possible as long as it is not known of what the poison properly consists. Governments, however, have wisely endeavoured to conceal the recipes, by suppressing the criminal procedures. Pope Alexander VII. caused them to be shut up in the castle of St. Angelo; in France, it is said, they were burnt together with the criminals; in Naples only the same precaution was not taken. I do not know that observations on the bodies of persons destroyed by slow poison have been ever published; for what Pitaval says on that subject is not sufficient132. People talk of powders and pills, but the greater part of this kind of poison appears to be a clear insipid water, and that prepared by Tophania never once betrayed itself by any particular effects on the body. The sale of aqua-fortis was a long time forbidden at Rome, because it was considered as the principal ingredient; but this is very improbable. At Paris it was once believed that succession powder consisted of diamond dust pounded exceedingly fine. Without assenting to this idea, one may contradict Voltaire, who conceives that diamond dust is not more prejudicial than powder of coral. It may be rather compared to that fine sand which is rubbed off from our mill-stones, and which we should consider and guard against as a secret poison, were we not highly negligent and careless of our health in the use of food133. In the casket of Sainte Croix were found corrosive sublimate, opium, regulus of antimony, vitriol, and a large quantity of poison ready prepared, the principal ingredients of which the physicians were not able to distinguish. Many have affirmed that sugar of lead was the chief ingredient134; but the consequences of the poison did not seem to indicate the use of that metal. For some years past a harmless plant, which is only somewhat bitter and astringent, the ivy-leaved Toadflax (Linaria Cymbalaria), that grows on old walls, has been loaded with the opprobrium of producing this slow poison, while at the same time it has been celebrated by others on account of its medicinal properties; but it is perhaps not powerful enough to do either mischief or good; and it is probable that it has been added to poisons either through ignorance, or to conceal other ingredients; for the emperor Charles VI., who was king of the Two Sicilies at the time when Tophania was arrested, told his physician Garelli, who communicated the same in a letter135 to the celebrated Hoffmann, in 1718 or 1719, that the poison of that Italian Circe was composed of an arsenical oxide, dissolved in aqua cymbalariæ, and which I suppose was rendered stronger and more difficult to be detected by a salt that may be readily guessed. It is dreadful to think that this secret poison is administered as a febrifuge by ignorant or unprincipled physicians, quacks, and old women. It drives off obstinate fevers, it is true; but it is equally certain that it hastens death: it is therefore a cure, which is far worse than the disease, and against which governments and physicians cannot exclaim too severely. It was remarked at Rome, by accident, that lemon juice and the acid of lemons are, in some measure, counter-poisons; and a physician named Paul Branchaletti, respecting whom I can find no information, wrote a book expressly on this antidote to these drops, according to the account of Keysler, who however adds, “Everything hitherto found out, supposes that one has taken the drops only for a short time, or that one has had an opportunity to be upon one’s guard when suspicious circumstances occurred, and to discover the threatened danger.”

It seems to be almost certain that the poisons prepared by Tophania and Brinvillier were arsenical mixtures, or, as Dr. Hahneman136 rightly conjectures, neutral salts of arsenic. Loss of appetite, faintness, gnawing pains in the stomach, loss of strength without any visible cause, a continual indisposition, followed by a wasting of the viscera, a slow fever, &c., are all symptoms which seem to announce that dangerous metallic oxide. The opinion, however, that it was composed of opium and cantharides has, in latter times, received so many confirmations, that one is almost induced to believe that there are more kinds than one of this Stygian water. The information given by the abbé Gagliani, seems to carry too much weight with it to be denied137. It is confirmed also by M. Archenholz138; but what he says of the use made of Spanish flies, by the Chinese, to invigorate the sixth sense, gives reason to suspect that his voucher is L’Espion Dévalisé, to whom the abbé Gagliani ascribes the same words. It appears to me, however, if I may be allowed to judge from probabilities, that the poison known in the East Indies under the name of powst is also water which has stood a night over the juice of poppies. It is given in the morning fasting to those persons, and particularly princes, whom people wish to despatch privately, and without much violence. It consumes them slowly, so that they at length lose all their strength and understanding, and in the end die torpid and insensible139.

[Chemical science has made such rapid progress of late years, that there are but few, if any, poisonous substances which cannot be detected with certainty. The improved state of our medical knowledge, and the institution of coroners’ inquests in all cases where any suspicion of the cause of death occurs, fortunately renders secret poisoning almost, if not quite impossible, at least in this country.]