The Poison that Cures

It started with King Mithridates IV of Pontus (132 - 63 BCE), who was afraid of being poisoned. He wanted to know all about poisons, so he not only tested them on criminals so he would understand their symptoms (and antidotes), but also he ingested the poisons himself in order to build tolerance. His personal physician developed for him a universal antidote which he named mithridatum, composed of 40 ingredients, including opium, myrrh, saffron, ginger, and cinnamon.

Mithridates' method of self-inoculation worked so well that, when he was captured by Pompey, he tried to poison himself, but the poison had no effect. His writings about developing the cure-all was found by Pompey's people and translated into Latin. Nero's physician added more ingredients, most notably mashed and roasted viper's flesh.

The search for a panacea, a universal cure, has a long history. Mithridatum is one example. The Greek physician Galen (mentioned many times in this blog) wrote an entire book on the making of his cure-all; he called it Galene after himself, but it also became known as theriac (from the Greek word for a wild beast); it contained viper's flesh, opium, honey, wine, cinnamon, and more than 70 other ingredients. It needed to ferment for six years and then be applied orally or topically; it kept its potency for 40 years.

In the 7th century a theriac made by the inhabitants of Anatolia was given to the emperor of the Tang Dynasty. The Tang apothecary declared its usefulness against a hundred illnesses. The Middle East called it Tiryaq. Medieval English apothecaries called it "Venice Treacle" because it came from the Mediterranean, and was distributed by the Worshipful Company of Grocers. "Treacle"? Yes. Produced from cane sugar, the thick and sweet syrup was considered "good for what ails you"; the word is actually linked to theriac. In modern medicine, the word "treacle" is defined as

A medicinal compound once in wide use as an antidote to poisons. Treacle was a kind of salve. It was reputed to be a remedy against venomous bites in particular and against poisons in general. It also came to be considered a "cure" for cancer. [source]

In Henry Grosmont's 1354 treatise,  Le Livre de Seyntz Medicines or "The Book of Holy Medicines," he mentions theriac: "the treacle is made of poison so that it can destroy other poisons."

You may ask: if they believed it was so effective, wouldn't they try to make vast amounts to keep on hand? Would they try it as a cure for the Bubonic Plague? Well, one man thought that was a good idea, but ... well, we can talk about him next time.

The King of Poisons...

...and the Poison of Kings are two nicknames given to arsenic.

As early as the Bronze Age, the mineral arsenic was added to bronze to make it harder, although isolating it chemically and understanding it as an element was not recorded until 815CE by Jābir ibn Hayyān. Albertus Magnus (pictured) isolated the element arsenic from arsenic trisulfide by heating it with soap in 1250.

Non-pure forms of arsenic were known much earlier. Dioscorides during Nero's reign described arsenic as a poison in the 1st century, noting its odorless and tasteless and colorless properties, making it ideal to mix with food or drink. Arsenic poisoning's side effects were similar to food poisoning, so immediate detection was unlikely. A sufficiently large dose, however, produced violent cramping, diarrhea, vomiting, and death.

You could also use smaller doses on a victim over time, leading to headaches, mental and physical fatigue, confusion, hair loss, and paralysis. The preferred form of arsenic was white arsenic, arsenic trioxide, whose fatal dose was the size of a pea.

Arsenic compounds exist everywhere: in groundwater and (as a result) in trace amounts in plants. Organic arsenic compounds can be found in low levels in seafood. Lettuce, kale, mustard, and turnip greens store arsenic in their leaves. Beets, turnips, carrots radishes, and potatoes store arsenic mostly in their skins. There is also arsenic in the plants of tomatoes, peppers, squash, cucumbers, peas, beans, corn, melons, and strawberries, but not the parts that we eat. (Apple seeds contain. cyanide, but that's another story.)

The Borgias of Italy—including Rodrigo Lanzol Borgia, who became Pope Alexander VI in 1492, and his son Cesare and daughter Lucrezia—were known for their use of arsenic for political and financial advancement. They would take advantage of legal loopholes to appropriate the estates of certain men after killing them with arsenic-laced wine.

In fact, poisoning became so common that Italian court documents show plenty of cases in which we find the details of the poisoning:

The poisoner made appointments and had set prices, the client named the victim and a contract was made, and the poisoner was paid when the job was done. [link]

There was also a woman named Giulia Toffana around this time who made arsenic-laced cosmetics, so the victims could be induced to poison themselves.

If you suspected you had been poisoned, what would you do? Probably go to an apothecary to buy a cure. We'll talk about medieval apothecaries next time.

So Many Poisons

We talked a little about the history of poison here, but now it's time to look at what Medieval Europe had at hand for killing enemies. Fortunately, there were many toxic substances available for dispatching an unwanted person: aconite, arsenic, datura, hemlock, henbane, and mandrake were a few.

Hemlock, made famous by the execution of Socrates, was no relation to the conifer. It comes from a plant in the carrot family found in Europe and North Africa. Every part—leaves, seeds, roots—is toxic when ingested. The toxicity remains up to three years after the plant is dead and dried, making it easy to import from its native land. It was less popular in the Middle Ages than in Classical Greece.

Aconite (monkshood, wolf's-bane, blue rocket, et alia) is common all over the Northern Hemisphere. It contains an alkaloid toxin called aconitine, which can "lead to diarrhea, convulsions, ventricular arrhythmia and death." A sufficient dose causes death within two to six hours.

Datura (jimsonweed, thornapples, devil's trumpets, moonflower) is extremely poisonous but was used by many North American tribes for its psychoactive properties. It is found all over the world (the illustration is the Western Hemisphere's datura inoxia), and Indian Thuggee practitioners used it routinely on victims in their sacrifices to the Hindu goddess Kali.

Henbane was used as an anesthetic, especially when combined with mandrake, deadly nightshade, and datura. Pliny said its use was similar to taking wine and therefore "offensive to the understanding."

Mandrake has long been used for magical rituals because of the branching root that vaguely resembles a human body, and because of the hallucinogenic alkaloids. Many in the 21st century likely heard of it for the first time because of the Harry Potter books and films.

Of course, these substances were available from any apothecary, or were cultivated and prepared by an individual without raising suspicion, because in small doses they were medicinal. Hemlock was used as a sedative and for swollen joints. Aconite in very small doses was thought to improve circulation. Dioscorides recommended henbane as a sedative.

I have deliberately skipped over arsenic, because it has such a long and glorious history that I felt it deserved its own entry, so please join me tomorrow for that.

Pre-Medieval Poison

The use of poison—a toxic substance deliberately introduced to a living creature for the sake of incapacitating or killing it—is found as early as 4500 BCE. How do we know? Grooves in ancient weapons, such as arrows, have been found to contain evidence of toxic substances like tubocurarine, an alkaloid found in the bark of a South American climbing vine. It paralyzed the muscles of a mammal, but did not prohibit eating the flesh safely. Pliny claimed there were over 7000 different poisons.

King Mithridates of Anatolia (114 - 63 BCE) was so paranoid about being poisoned that he worked hard to discover cures. He would test cures (after applying poisons) to criminals. He also attempted to immunize himself by taking minuscule amounts of poison himself daily. He eventually created a "cure-all," a mixture of dozens of substances, which he named Mithridatium. His notes on plants and cures were taken to Rome after Mithridates' kingdom was defeated by Pompey the Great. 

The Roman Empire brought poisoning "into the mainstream," using it to eliminate enemies and political rivals, even right at the dinner table. Several emperors were eliminated by poison, if we believe Roman historians. A praegustator or "pre-eater" (food taster) was a slave used to try out one's food for safety. If you could bribe a food taster, however, you could get rid of your victim easily. Of course the food taster in many cases ate the food when it was ready for eating, immediately prior to the diner tucking in, so there was no warning. If the diner and the food taster died with the same symptoms, however, the survivors knew it was poison, and could react accordingly (either seeking revenge or enjoying their nefarious plan).

The European Middle Ages likewise embraced poison to solve political problems:

Henri of Flanders (d. 1216), the second Latin emperor of Constantinople, and Blanche II of Navarre (d. 1464) were both supposedly poisoned by members of their own families. This was also the case for Robert IV of Artois, count of Eu, and his wife Joanna of Durazzo, who paid a visit to Joanna’s sister Margherita, Queen of Naples, in 1387. Neither of them would leave the royal residence of Castel dell’Ovo alive, ...

Dmitriy Yurievich Shemyaka, twice Grand Prince of Moscow, however, irritated the Muscovites ... In 1453, the city’s inhabitants bribed the prince’s cook to poison his roast chicken dinner. Other poisonings of high-ranking individuals remain unsolved: the Irish peer James Butler, earl of Ormond and a cousin of Anne Boleyn, died in London in 1546 as the apparent victim of poisoning along with seventeen other members of his household. [link]

Medieval apothecaries provided many different substances and the knowledge of their uses. What did they supply? Tomorrow we will look at several of the known poisons available at the time.

Tennis, Anyone?

The earliest version of the game now called "real tennis" (or court tennis or royal tennis) was jeu de paulme, literally "palm game," because a ball was hit back and forth with the hand. Paddles and racquets were introduced in the 16th century, and were standard by the late 17th century, but the original name stuck. "Tennis" derives from tenez, "hold," which a player would call to pause the game. The tennis that we normally think of is distinguished as "lawn tennis."

Believed to have been started by monks and villagers in the 12th century in northern France, it became the "sport of kings" when the French royalty took up the game. Louis X was an avid player, and died after a particularly vigorous game; he reportedly drank a large quantity of cooled wine and died of pneumonia or pleurisy (or poison, as is always suspected when a healthy king with potential claimants to the throne dies at 27).

Louis did not like playing outdoors, and constructed indoor courts, starting a trend for royal palaces across Europe. He is history's first tennis player known by name. King Charles V of France (1338 - 1380) had a tennis court created at the Louvre Palace. Henry VIII of England was also a fan.

The original court was very different from the modern one in use today. It had several different areas marked out. Let me give you a sense of the complexity of the game and the court:

The game is begun by a service which is always from the same end of the court (the service side). The opposite end of the court where the receiver stands is called the hazard side. The service does not alternate with each game as in lawn tennis. The server changes ends and ceases to serve only when a chase has been laid. The meaning of a chase will be explained below. To be a valid service the ball has to touch the penthouse roof at least once on the hazard side of the net and drop in the service court. If it does not touch the penthouse roof or if it hits a window or the roof it will be a fault. A second serve is available, as in lawn tennis. [Click this link if you want to be overwhelmed.]

The ball used would have been far less uniform than modern balls, and would have been prone (like Miss Climpson's eraser), to an eccentric bounce. Today's real tennis balls have cork centers, surrounded first by fabric and then string and then a hand-sewn layer of heavy woolen cloth. Traditionally white, the color has changed to the "optic yellow" of lawn tennis balls.

"Real tennis" is still played today; the century-old governing body is in France.

Poison has been mentioned in this and the previous post, as a rumor concerning the death of a king. Was poison that prevalent, or was it an "urban myth" of the time? How would someone in the Middle Ages go about poisoning someone? Let's take a look at that tomorrow.