THE POISONER’S TRAIL

Evening Star, Issue 20989, 31 December 1931, Page 6

THE POISONER’S TRAIL

HE CANNOT DELUDE THE SCIENTIST TO-DAY

A series of unsolved poisoning mysteries has recently caused some alarm, especially among those who erroneously assume that the most crafty, subtle, and callous means of taking the life of a human being is necesarily the most secret, writes Douglas West, in the ‘ Daily Mail.’ Poisoners may, like other murderers, escape detection, but they do so not because they have used a weapon which baffles the pathologist, but simply because there is no evidence to connect them with the crime. Fortunately for the law-abiding community, scientific analysis has more than kept pace with the discovery of new poisonous substances. Accurate diagnosis is rendered easier by the fact that the great majority of poisoners are plagiarists. This is made very clear in an exhaustive book, ‘ Poisons and Poisoners,’ by Mr C. J. I. Thompson, who, as curator of the historical section, has ready access to the library of the Royal College of Surgeons. As in duty bound, ho devotes numerous pages to the stories of secret deadly poisons that have come down to us from ancient times and the Middle Ages. But the scientist regards such stories with some suspicion. ARSENIC IN WINE. Rivals may have been removed in bygone days by causing them to wear poisoned gloves or to smell a poisoned rose. But there is no real evidence to suggest that even the Borgias were aware of any poisonous agent unknown to modern science. Those many men who, boasting to their friends of a dinner engagement with Alexander or Cosare, never lived to say casually: “ 1 dined with the Borgias last night,” were almost certainly poisoned by arsenic in their their food or wine. Careful investigation reveals that the substance employed by nine out of ten medieval poisoners was arsenic. La Spora’s mysterious compound that caused numerous deaths in Rome in the seventeenth century was a preparation of arsenic, and so was the notorious aqua Toft’ana, which is said to have killed more than COO persons. Most of the stories of slow and secret poisoning can be explained by the manner in which the poison was given. A common phrase used by historians of this period in closing the account of some personage of note was: “ He died not without suspicion of venom.” THE BORGIA RING. The secret receptacle in Cesare Borgia’s signet ring, might very well have contained arsenic. However, the tradition of a baleful poison known only to the family, has survived, and Mr Thompson, for what it is worth, repeats the legend that the secret of its preparation perished with the Due Riaro-Sforza, who died in Paris eighty years ago. Before his death, one evening at the opera, the Duke is said to have confided to a distinguished critc, who' occupied the neighbouring stall, that he still possessed the secret of the famous poison, though for centuries it had lain idle in the family archives. Its composition, he added, was simpler than generally supposed, and not long afterwards he told his friends that, feeling ago advancing and having no direct heirs, ho had thought it best to burn the recipe, lest it might fall into bad hands. But there is nothing surprising about tbo extensive use of arsenic by the poisoners of the past. Arsenic is tasteless, and colourless, and a very minute quantity causes death. Moreover, oven 100 years ago it was impossible to distinguish arsenic with any certainty in the bodies of those who met their deaths from it. Even now, when arsenic is more easily detected than almost any other poison, it is favoured, as every poison trial reveals, by tho vast majority of men and women who resort to poison for homicidal purposes. Mr Thompson brings his history of poison mysteries down to recent trials and shows that in at least half of those cases the agency employed has been arsenic. Nor have doctors when they have taken to poisoning, revealed much resource. Palmer used strychnine, Pritchard antimony, Lawson aconite—probably tho first of the mineral poisons to ho discovered in ancient times, but nowadays detected with case.

Since arsenic is tho most easily procurable of all poisons—everyone knows how often a tin of weed-killer has figured in a poison trial —women poisoners Lave favoured it in nearly all countries. The astonishing revelations in Hungary two or three years ago concerning a village in which more than thirty husbands were poisoned by their wives can be matched by several stories of seventeenth-century Rome. Those poisoned cakes and wine which have played so large a part in history probably all contained arsenic. THE DEADLIEST POISON. Rings were undoubtedly used to conceal poison, and a scratch from a hidden spike treated even with some comparatively harmless substance might very easily cause death in days when asepsis was unknown. In an age when a wound which to-day would he considered comparatively trivial often proved fatal, it was inevitable that accusations of poisoning should be freely bandied about. But it is in the last degree unlikely that our forefathers possessed poisons of such virulence ns those science knows to-day. Mr Thompson gives one as an example: Probably the most deadly poison known to science to-day exists in the form of an innocent-looking white powder, which is highly dangerous even to handle. It emits a slight vapour, oven when exposed to the air, which if inhaled would cause instant death. It has been estimated that if three grains were diffused in a roomful of people it would kill everyone px-esent. Happily such poisons are not accessible except to tho scientific expert; and tho homicidal scientist is a monster so far realised only in the pages of fiction. The way even of tho skilful poisoner who chooses his weapon with cunning becomes increasingly hard as science devises ever new methods of analysis. Tim wonder is that, considering the certainty of modern diagnosis, so many homicidal poisoners are prepared to run the fearful risk of detection.