July 27, 2024 • 38 mins
For centuries people from all walks of life sought to eliminate friends, strangers and enemies using the devious, subtle poison known as arsenic. Arsenic poisoning became such a well-known method of murder that people in Britain began calling it "inheritance powder". But what made it so popular? How did this particular substance become the stuff of history? Join Ben and Noel as they delve into the fascinating, morbid story of arsenic.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
You forgetting a situation and you're thinking, like, what would
be my dream way to kill this person?
Speaker 2 (00:07):
All the time?
Speaker 3 (00:08):
No, okay, maybe maybe sometimes I don't know.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Just to think about the rhyme, to think about it.
Speaker 3 (00:15):
Well, for centuries, people have asked themselves this question, uh,
historically speaking, what what what what would it take to
just get rid of this inconvenient person in my life?
Speaker 1 (00:28):
Right without getting in trouble?
Speaker 2 (00:30):
Yeah, without getting caught.
Speaker 3 (00:31):
It turns out there is a perfect answer to this question, uh.
And then you'll find it in all kinds of cool
detective novels, you know, Agatha Christie, Our snick and old
Lace comes to mind, right, because our snick was an odorless, tasteless,
clear substance that could very easily be snuck into somebody's
(00:54):
cup o tea, you know, or perhaps administered in various
and sundry other ways without the ever knowing. And again,
because of the lack of forensic technology that existed in
the days of yr, was unlikely to ever be traced
back to the perpetrator of said the heinous crime.
Speaker 1 (01:13):
So tune in to learn how what our brit friends
call the old inheritance powder became the assassin's dream weapon.
Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio. Are you a
(01:52):
jilted lover a turn bit of from every Tom, Dick
and Harry that comes calling? Are you a child of
well desperate to make progress through a little bit of
italianation or inheritance spouder? If so, tune in quickly to
this episode of Ridiculous History.
Speaker 2 (02:05):
My name is Ben. Ben. Your fast talking's got my
head spinning. You made me forget my name once again.
Give me one second. Okay, it's nol and it's true.
This is Ridiculous History, And I'm just gonna say right
out of the front of the show, I'm a little
horse today as opposed to a giant, luxurious steed.
Speaker 1 (02:20):
Huh worth it well, you don't know. I think it
gives a bit of gravitas to your statements.
Speaker 2 (02:27):
And hopefully our super producer, Casey Pegram can fix it
in post.
Speaker 1 (02:31):
The man is a wizard, I am telling you he
is also. In addition to being quite talented, Casey Pegram
is also a very i would say, principled man.
Speaker 2 (02:46):
That's true. If he was ever to slip you a mickey,
he would have damn good reason. Let me tell you
what it would be, a justified mickey.
Speaker 1 (02:52):
Yeah, we had talked about this off the air. If
either of us ever walked by and saw a super producer,
Casey Pegrim dragging a body sized garbage bag down the street,
we would just pick up the other end and help
him move it, because even if it were a body,
he would have good reason for his actions.
Speaker 2 (03:14):
And you know that antiquated term slipped him a mickey
or her a mickey I just use typically referred more
to lacing a drink with a psychoactive drug or something
that would incapacitate someone, not necessarily kill them, like the
mickeys that we're talking about today would.
Speaker 1 (03:30):
Yes, ladies and gentlemen, Today we are talking about the
dark art of poison. Not just any poison. However, we're
talking about one of the most storied, notorious, and for
a time popular poisons in human civilization. We'd like to
introduce you to arsenic.
Speaker 2 (03:49):
That's right. It actually earned the title the King of
Poison by the fifteenth century, but it had a quite
rich history even well before that.
Speaker 1 (04:00):
Right, we know that ancient Egyptians mind arsenic compounds. We
know that in one of the very very early pharmacological
text the d Materia medica arsenic is also mentioned. This
is a naturally occurring element that is just across the planet,
(04:22):
and you can find a map of naturally occurring arsenic
here in the United States. It's spooky, it's scary stuff.
Speaker 2 (04:29):
And the fact that it was naturally occurring is one
of the many reasons that made it such a popular
tool for getting the job done, because it was easy
to get because of its use in everything from medication
to pesticides, to industrial processing materials and things like that.
And it is odorless, colorless, and tasteless and dissolves in
(04:53):
water and any other liquids easily in its oxide form.
The word arsenic itself comes from from the Greek arsenacon,
which meant bold or potent, and that is an apt
moniker for this little killer.
Speaker 1 (05:08):
And we do know that even in ancient times people
were aware of arsenic's potential as a poison. The first
law against poisoning was passed in eighty two BCE. It
was a Roman law that specifically mentioned outline arsenic because
(05:29):
it was used so often by assassins. And Noel, I
love that you point out the medicinal or the perceived
medicinal benefits of Arsenic, because that's a thread that we
see continuing concurrently with its popularity as a poison. And earlier,
just a moment ago, we mentioned that the fifteenth century
(05:53):
is crucial to Arsenic's role as a poison, used by
everyone from lovers to assassins to wealthy Italian aristocrats. This
is the moment where if Arsenic was some sort of
pop star, it suddenly recorded its breakout single yeah.
Speaker 2 (06:14):
And I think the reason that that's a good way
to put it is because it actually had a substance
had a huge impact on politics, especially in Italy. Italians,
as it turns out, had quite the reputation of wielding
this substance and poisons in general for political gain. So
in the Italian Renaissance, you may have heard of the
(06:36):
Borgia family, and there was a I think there was
a Netflix series called The Borgos or maybe it was
an AMC or something like that, but you can get
it and with Jeremy irons is in it. But it
chronicles this pretty shady Italian Renaissance family that were quite powerful.
In fact, Rodrigo Borgia, who actually went on to become
Pope Alexander the sixth and fourteen ninety two, so no
(06:57):
slouch and big, big social climbers these and he had
two children. One was Cesare, so I think hope I
did okay, and then the other one was Lucrezia. And
Lucrezia actually is the one who got sort of a
bad rap as being a poisoner, because there is an
opera by Donazzetti called Lucrezia, and there's a scene in
(07:18):
it where she apparently poisons several people, five people, and
history doesn't really support that. In fact, she was apparently
quite a pious woman and died without probably ever having
poisoned anyone. Had just credit where credit is due. Upfront,
we're getting a lot of this information from a fantastic
book called The King of Poisons the History of Arsenic
(07:41):
by John Pariscandola. So Lucretia seems to have her hands
mostly clean, but her brother Chesai or Cesare is the
one who really took this to the next level. And
as we'll get to it's interesting because poison got a
bit of a rap as a quote unquote woman's weapon
of that later, so Chesare Borgia apparently was guilty of
(08:05):
just poisoning hundreds of people dozens at the very least
in his pursuit of a political career.
Speaker 1 (08:12):
It was like hism o, his modus operandi. What's fascinating
here is that poisoning via arsenic became so prevalent and
well known in Italy that it was considered a formal
method of assassination. And earlier in the beginning of the show,
you may have heard the phrase italianation italianation. I do
(08:35):
love that Italianation was the slaying term for poisoning via
arsenic outside of Italy.
Speaker 2 (08:42):
I think the Brits came up with that one, and
very British. And we'll get to how this ultimately spread
from Italy elsewhere. Before we do that, I just want
to talk about this. There were a handful of poison
assassins that really made names for themselves, one of whom
was Julia to Lato Fauna, which I love. All of
these assassins have these amazing shorthand names. And she her
(09:08):
story goes a couple of different ways. There's there's there's
several versions of it. But one version is that she
invented this mixture, a harmless looking liquid that apparently is
as few as four to six drops would be enough
to quote destroy a man. And the principal ingredient in
(09:28):
this material, which was called aqua tofauna, is thought to
have been arsenic. And you got to think about the
time we're talking about where men ruled families and governments
iron fists, and women were nothing but chattel. So to
empower women with this material was lots of Funa was
(09:49):
able to do because it you know, there are many
historians who say every woman in Naples probably had a
bottle of this stuff in their you know, medicine cabinets
among their perfumes, that only they would know which one
it was.
Speaker 1 (10:02):
This is this is a crucial point because I don't
know if we're jumping ahead too much with this, but
it seems like a good time to mention the method
of delivery that was employed often in Italy. It wasn't
an immediate death, and this is a instead a slow poisoning,
so you would have there's this old myth I found,
(10:24):
or this old legend that said women in particular parts
of Italy, to keep their husbands faithful, would supply them
with a small amount of poison and then a small antidote,
so they had to keep coming back home. But regardless
of the rat veracity or falsity of that, we do
know is true that people were being poisoned slowly rather
(10:47):
than immediately often.
Speaker 2 (10:49):
You know it's true. And I actually found another fantastic
article called aquatafauna, slow poisoning and husband killing in seventeenth
century Italy from a website called a Blast from the Past,
and it's really kind of just a blog, but it
was written by Wow. It's not even really credited as
having an author, but I checked everything and it had
really great qualifying links and just a fantastic article, specifically
(11:12):
talking about the role that women played in this whole
poisoning epidemic, and Lata Fanna especially being kind of the
one that jump started that, and how a lot of
her story is sort of the stuff of legends. But
to your point, then, the idea of the slow poisoning
was really important in very devout Catholic Italy, right because
it gave the dying husband time to do a couple
(11:34):
of things, one of which was get his affairs in order.
If you're talking about this inheritance powder, making sure that
the wife would be well provided for and the family
would have all that he needed. After he passed, or
the church would have a donation, the church would have
a donation, or that he was able to repent for
his sins. So this is a really interesting thing because
(11:54):
that slow meeting out of poison through food or drink
was really a crucial part of this whole thing. And
there's a fantastic quote in this article from Chambers Journal,
which was a magazine started in eighteen thirty two by
William Chambers. And it's a little long. I'm just going
to read part of it just to kind of give
the sense of at the time how this was looked upon.
(12:14):
Administered in wine or tea or some other liquid by
the flattering traitress, it produced but a scarcely noticeable effect.
The husband became a little out of sorts, felt weak
and languid, so little indisposed that he would scarcely call
in a medical man. After the second dose of the poison,
this weakness and languor became more pronounced the beautiful Medea.
(12:36):
See there's a lot of language in here that characterizes
this woman as some sort of horrible, murderous, harpy type character,
like referencing Medea. But obviously, you know, in political landscape
of the time. There's kind of a gray area there,
but we'll get to that later. This beautiful Medea, who
expressed so much anxiety for her husband's indisposition, would scarcely
be an object of suspicion, and perhaps would prepare her
(12:59):
husband's food or prescribed by the doctor with her own
fair hands. In this way, the third drop would be
administered and would prostrate even the most vigorous man. Okay,
And then this is the last bit to save her
fair fame, the wife would demand a post mortem examination,
resulting nothing except that the woman was able to pose
(13:19):
as a slandered innocent and then it would be remembered
that her husband died without either pain, inflammation, fever, or spasms.
Speaker 1 (13:28):
This is important because for a long time, arsenic was
a difficult poison to identify. Not only was it odorless
and colorless and so on, but arsenic poisoning exhibited symptoms
that could easily be confused with symptoms of diseases that
were common at the time, such as cholera, which you
(13:48):
will remember from several other strange episodes we have done
on Ridiculous History. And because again it was naturally occurring
and considered medicinal people were able to easily obtain arsenic. This,
you know, in our earlier episode on Guy Fox we
talked about the relative ease or difficulty of acquiring gunpowder.
(14:12):
It was much easier to acquire arsenic. And additionally, arsenic
was used in so many other things. We'll get to
that in just a second. I have a great list
for you know, but before we do, I think we
need to bust some stereotypes here. The idea of poison
being so closely associated with Italy. This concept thrived because
(14:38):
it sort of justified the stereotypes that the French or
the British already had about Italians. They thought they were devious,
you know, Monty burns as canned rubbers. Sure, and they
often described it, you know, as an italianation or as
an Italian method of murder, with the connotations being that
(15:00):
somehow cowardly. But the French and the British both were
often using arsenic. They were just claiming it was an
Italian thing.
Speaker 2 (15:10):
It's true. It was actually Catherine de Medici, who married
Henry the Second, who would go on to become the
King of France in fifteen thirty three, who is given
lots of credit for bringing the Italian method of assassination
to France, and specifically in using it for political gain.
Speaker 1 (15:29):
Yes, and by the sixteenth century, court records revealed that
cases involving poisoning were occurring regularly in Britain, if not frequently.
There were about a dozen recorded poisonings between fifteen seventy
one and fifteen ninety eight. And of course one of
(15:49):
the most popular choices of poison was in a stunning
plot twist arsenic.
Speaker 2 (15:55):
Yeah, and in France, Louis the fourteenth got so weirded
out by this thing and feared for his life to
the point that he established a special commission with the
express purpose of investigating this phenomenon. It took him until
sixteen eighty two to finish, during which time one hundred
and four people were tried, thirty four were executed, and
the rest were either banished or got prison terms. And
(16:19):
then this is the first time you start to see
maybe not super well codified regulations regarding the sale of poison,
but it was a little bit more draconian, where if
you were caught supplying someone poison for the purposes of
committing a murder, whether or not they succeeded, you would
be subject to death yourself.
Speaker 1 (16:39):
Right, So not a fine, not imprisonment, but a hard
death penalty if you are even accidentally associated with an
unsuccessful murder attempt. And as we trace Arsenic in the
world of Western Europe, I guess as you say the region,
(17:01):
but saying the world of Western Europe sounded cool, you know,
had this time life vibe. Anyhow, as we see, the
laws were slow to evolve in step with Arsenic's evolution
in terms of popularity. In fact, before eighteen fifty one,
there were no laws against selling poison in England. There's
just it just hadn't occurred to anybody that there should
(17:24):
be a law against that end. Amidst the panopoly of
poisons available there, it was especially easy to purchase arsenic.
Speaker 2 (17:32):
Now I like that one. Then the panopoly of poisons.
That's a good one.
Speaker 1 (17:35):
Ah, thanks so much man. Amidst this great selection, did
we mention the difference between naturally occurring arsenic and arsenic
compounds yet a.
Speaker 2 (17:42):
Little bit at the top of the show. But why
don't we circle back? Because I think that is a
good point and something worth exploring just a little bit further.
Speaker 1 (17:48):
So we mentioned that arsenic was a known thing that
occurred in the natural world, and you could see it
in soil, you could see it in groundwater. But what
is what is white arsenic?
Speaker 2 (18:00):
What do we mean when we say that arsenic is
of course an element and the symbol is as and
its atomic number is thirty three with a mass of
seventy four point nine, and it is in group fifteen
of the periodic table, along with things like nitrogen, bismuth, phosphorus,
and antimony, and it is considered a metalloid.
Speaker 1 (18:23):
It's the twentieth most common element I believe in soil.
Speaker 2 (18:26):
That's right. And apparently it's estimated that its concentration in
the Earth's crust goes from between one to five parts
per million, which means that it is not particularly prevalent
in the Earth's crust, but it's associated with so many
other metals and human activities that it becomes more prevalent
in the Earth's crust.
Speaker 1 (18:46):
And this means that it is entirely possible for people
to receive arsenic poisoning without someone attempting to poison them, right.
Speaker 2 (18:58):
I think even in our Poison Squad episode where we
talked about adulterants in food, Arsenic low levels of arsenic,
that is, was one of the potential adulterants that Harvey's
poison squad we're looking at right.
Speaker 1 (19:09):
So white arsenic then is a poisonous trioxide of arsenic,
which no I believe you mentioned at the top of
the show. And it has legitimate uses. It's been used
as a pesticide, rat poison, it's been used to manufacture glass.
But it was just top notch when it came to
being an agent of mortality. But along with this, I
(19:35):
think this is important to mention. I don't know if
this fascinated you as much as it fascinated me, But
along with this known use of arsenic as a tool
for assassination, it was also used in so many other things.
It went into food coloring, it was used in beauty
products such as Get This arsenic complexion wafers. They were
(19:57):
meant for women who wanted to remove limishes or felt
that their hands were too darkly colored. That stuff was
still available in the nineteen twenties. There's this excellent article
by Honeia Ray called When Poison was Everywhere Available at
the Atlantic, and it's a review of a book called
(20:18):
bitten by which fever, which examines all of the different
products that contained arsenic but were advertised also as containing arsenic,
like wallpaper, was huge. I had no idea, Yeah I was.
Speaker 2 (20:32):
I really used in green pigment, I think is where Yeah,
I read absolutely, which is it was used in green
pigment and studdyingly popular due to a wallpaper manufacturer named
William Morris.
Speaker 1 (20:45):
But what people found is that this green pigment was
so dangerous in terms of its arsenic content that some
of that wallpaper is still off gassing today, and books
that collected William Morris's wallpaper, several of them have to
be quarantined effectively, they have to be contained because you
can't flip through the pages without getting arsenic poisoning.
Speaker 2 (21:06):
Jayce just from like touching it. Wow, well then I
think I for one really needed that little diversion from
all the chaos and death throughout history at the hands
of those wielding arsenics. So you know, a little tainted
wallpaper is a nice respite from this. But unfortunately we
do have to go back into this troubled history.
Speaker 1 (21:27):
Ah, yes, to the history, and troubling is a perfect
word for it. Nol. We mentioned earlier some stuff about
France and some stuff about Italy. Let's take a closer
look at England. We see in the Victorian era that
it was as you had mentioned earlier, arsenic was considered
a woman's weapon, quote unquote, and reviewing cases from England
(21:53):
in eighteen forties, researcher Ian Bernie found that in sixty
percent of the cases the used party was a woman,
thirty seven percent of whom were charged with poisoning their spouse.
And Burnie notes in seventy percent of these poisoning cases
the poison used was arsenic. It was much much more
popular than the I think the second most popular poison
(22:16):
would have been opium, but it was a distant second.
Speaker 2 (22:19):
And you know, you mentioned again this idea of like
arsenic being a woman's weapon. It's such a derisive term.
In the same way that the whole italianation thing was
a way to kind of poo poo the Italians and
call them cowards. Calling it a women's weapon was basically
saying the women were weak, and the political landscape surrounding
their use of this, like I read at the top
of the show, largely, I mean, of course, there were
(22:41):
very nefarious reasons to use this material to have someone killed,
but a lot of times it was used by women
to get out from under the thumb of an abusive husband.
Women were abused, and it especially was true where a
lot of these high profile cases involved much more aristocratic
members society. But as it turns out in England especially,
(23:03):
it was much more likely to be used as a
tool of those in poverty because they had no recourse
to escaping these horrible lives. It was even used on
children when the family couldn't feed them anymore. So there's
a real dark history there. So I think it's really
important when we talk about these terms that we you know,
(23:24):
talk about the context too that they were wielded in. Right.
Speaker 1 (23:27):
Yeah, these became articles of oppression and tools of prejudice,
especially when considered that the data people were looking for
was largely constructed to conform to their pre existing views.
And we see the rank hypocrisy here as well. But
(23:48):
we see another big problem when when we ask about
how they knew that arsenic was found in these cases,
they didn't really have a way to test for it,
so they would have to struck a timeline, you know,
like the old English version of Casey Beckrum kills somebody
with arsenic? How do they know it's arsenic? The best
(24:09):
way they would be able to detect it for a
long time would be to speak with the person who
sold it to him. Thus the law in France right,
it was the best way to find arsenic. The first
known case in which convincing proof of poisoning ever showed
up in court didn't take place until seventeen fifty two
(24:30):
in Oxford, England.
Speaker 2 (24:33):
Was that the one where they found the residue at
the bottom of the food bowl? Yes? Yes.
Speaker 1 (24:37):
The accused party was a thirty one year old woman
named Mary Blandy. She was charged with poising her father
with arsenic And you heard about this one too, right,
I think we both read about this. Mary administered the
powder to her father in food and drink and he
became ill. But also two servants who had eaten some
(24:58):
of the same food suffered the same effect, and that's
when they noticed this powder.
Speaker 2 (25:04):
And I think that circumstantial evidence of the servants having
eaten the food too and come down with the same
symptoms is what probably led the judge to be like, well,
clearly this was not entirely natural. Causes if there are
several people of different ages and health experiencing the same stuff.
And there were very as this book describes non specific
(25:27):
chemical tests that were done, which to me just kind
of says they probably weren't very good and didn't work
and weren't reliable, because, as we'll go on to discuss,
a real chemical test that actually unequivocally proved the existence
of this stuff in food or corpses wouldn't come along
for a little bit later, yea. And in fact, the
nature of the tests in this case were described as
(25:49):
showing that the materials used in the the food behaved
in the same way that oursnick would have. So it's
very very general stuff. She did actually can fest to
putting this powder into her father's food, but apparently she
claimed to have not known it was poison. And this
is interesting. Part of the story is that she was
(26:09):
having an affair with a Scottish soldier by the name
of William Crownston, and he heard that her father had
a sizable inheritance that she was due to receive. So
you know, he makes he comes off sending like a
pretty pretty big rascal in this story, a real pill. Yeah,
but he gave the poison to Mary and told her
(26:32):
that if she gave it to her father, he would
be more likely to accept their romance. That was how
he put it. So she claimed that she didn't know
it was poison. Kind of played dumb a little bit there.
Unclear if she really believed that or not. Certainly doesn't
make her come off looking particularly sharp here, But the
(26:52):
jury did not buy it, right.
Speaker 1 (26:54):
The jury did not buy it, and, partially based on
the arguments of the physician Anthony Addington, Mary was hanged.
Cranston fled to France and died soon afterwards. And this
all started bugging a chemist at the Royal Arsenal in Woolwich, England,
(27:15):
a chemists named James Marsh because he said that the
test Addington conducted were suggestive of arsenic but did not
provide conclusive evidence. The kind of stuff that we be
open and shut in a court of law.
Speaker 2 (27:31):
Kinds of things we think about every day now with forensics,
you know, we take that stuff for granted, but it's
a pretty big deal and really eliminates a lot of
hearsay and a lot of very spurious evidence that could
ultimately convict people that were not guilty. Of the crime.
Speaker 1 (27:47):
Yes, and for instance, he was called Marsh was called
up in eighteen thirty two to test for arsenic in
a murder case and Plumstead, the accused party, was charged
with murdering his grandfather and there was evidence that the
grandson had purchased arsenic purportedly as a rat poison. So
they asked Marsh to test some coffee that had made
(28:09):
several people in the house sick, including the grandfather, and
test the stomach contents of the corpse. He was able
to produce a yellow precipitate which showed the presence of
arsnake and the coffee, but this didn't really seal the
deal for the jury, and he couldn't prove there was
arsnake in the stomach. The jury acquitted the defendant. The grandson,
(28:34):
who later get this, came back and said, yeah, I
did it.
Speaker 2 (28:37):
I totally did it, man, adding insults injury, especially for Marsh,
because he was incredibly irritated by this whole situation and
vowed to come up with a more let's say, stable test.
So he kind of piggybacked off of some of the
work of a chemist by the name of Carl Shiel
(28:58):
who figured out that arsenal acid reacts with zinc and
it creates this compound, this gaseous compound of arsenic and
hydrogen that is called ar sign. And again this is
all from King of Poisons, A History of Arsenic by
John Pariscondola. So marsh was able to improve his test
by piggybacking off of this research. So basically he was
(29:20):
able to capture that gas and it leaves a film
on a material that he was then able to test that.
You had to heat it and then he would test it,
and then you could tell kind of roughly how much
arsenic was in the sample based on the size that
the film produced. So this is a good thing, right,
(29:43):
You could tell how much arsenic was in the sample
based on the size that film produced, and then any
other scientists worth their salt could test that sample and say, yes,
there is in fact arsenic in this There's no more
questionable methods we have. You know, we have a good
system for deciding whether or not this stuff is present
in everything from food samples to corpses. Post mortem, you
(30:06):
can do these tests on bodies. And then there is
even a better version of the test beyond that, where
you could detect smaller amounts, which is probably what you
would need for testing a corpse to find trace amounts
or see if there were amounts beyond normal atmospheric levels
of our snacks that would be found in a body
long after they had died.
Speaker 1 (30:24):
Yes, beyond what I've decided to refer to as ambient arsenic.
Speaker 2 (30:28):
Ambient arsenic.
Speaker 1 (30:29):
So yeah, Hugo Range develops this quicker, simpler test in
eighteen forty one, and we see the dark magic of
arsenic being whittled away by the scientific method and the
advances of the day. And this leads to a tipping point. Now,
remember earlier we had said that there were some initial
(30:50):
laws royal edicts that came into play with arsenic before
it was possible to test word effectively. Now that we,
being human civilization, can tech the presence of arsenic, you
would think maybe its popularity dies down. However, not so,
at least not immediately. You see, arsenic was still readily
available and inexpensive. And if you're poisoning someone, then you're
(31:13):
hoping maybe this person will not be of enough consequence
to warrant a medical investigation. Maybe they'll say clearly they
had cholera. So now let's just bury them. And this
eventually led to Parliament saying we have to do something
about this. The attempted to pass legislation as early as
eighteen nineteen to regulate this sale. Finally regulate the sale
(31:38):
of poisoning drugs such as oxylic acid, corrosive subliminate or
mercuric chloride and of course arsenic. The drug store owners
were concerned that big Pharma yeah time ye, Cottage Pharma. Yeah.
Cottage Pharma at the time thought that this would interfere
with dispensing medicine, and they successfully opposed it. Opposed this
(32:03):
legislation and it was ultimately withdrawn. But that was just
the first volley of a longer legislative process.
Speaker 2 (32:11):
Yeah, I think things got a lot more like you
would see today with you know, if you could go
to buy cold medicine of the store, like for my kid,
I still have to enter my name into a registry
and show my ID to prove that I'm twenty one.
This is exactly the case, because you know, you can
use cold medicine to make methamphetomy. So in eighteen fifty one,
this thing passed called the Sale of Arsenic Regulation Act,
(32:32):
that required people buying arsenic to be twenty one years old,
and it required them to fill in their information in
a poison book or a register, and then they had
to sign for it. So you could have like much
more of a paper trail, much less of a he said,
She said, you know who bought the poison kind of situation.
So you know these things, these safeguards were put in place.
(32:52):
It didn't curb the use of arsenic entirely, and in fact,
in the United States, while it was not near a
popular as it had been in Britain, the colonies or whatever,
it was still going on. And you know, you can
argue in the same way you can about any kind
of regulation, whether me filling out that cold medicine registry,
(33:12):
you know, for buying my kids fair flu causes people
to make less methamphetomy. That as up for debate, but
a Storian, Catherine Watson, said that she was pretty sure
that it did have a gradual effect reducing poisoning crimes,
especially those involving arseny. But of course you could have
situations where people would maybe turn to other substances to
(33:33):
poison their enemies or mother in laws.
Speaker 1 (33:38):
Sure, yeah, mothers in law. You know, I think it
depends on how many there are. So just to set
the scene for you, friends and neighbors, my co hosts
and I are looking a bit mournfully across our table
here in the podcasting studio because we realized there's so
many fascinating things about Arsenic that we probably won't get
(33:59):
into in this episode. No, I have with me a
list of famous people who were probably poisoned by Arsenic,
as well as updates on latest research about their deaths. Ah,
I got so much stuff, man, serial killers, we need
even get into that.
Speaker 2 (34:14):
But then I have a story about a little village
in Hungary in nineteen twenty nine where a group of
women were prosecuted for poisoning like literally everyone in town
because they were all horrible, abusive men. I think yours
sounds less depressing. Let's go with yours, man.
Speaker 1 (34:30):
I don't even know if we can. We might have
to post this on our community page. Ridiculous historians, just
rattle off a few, just give people a sweet taste
of that delicious poison. Alleged victims of Arsenic wolfgang Amadeus
Mozart in seventeen ninety one.
Speaker 2 (34:46):
Then I'm sorry, interrupted, I just want to say. I
had that in my research too. And there's a great
quote from Old Wolfgang where he speaks more or less
on his deathbed where he had fallen seriously ill and
he was convinced that he had been poisoned. Says that
he began to speak of death, and then he said
that he was setting this requiem, the Mozart requiem, which
(35:06):
he is most famously known for for himself. Quote, I
feel definitely that I will not last much longer. I
am sure that I have been poisoned, and I cannot
rid myself of this idea. Someone has given me aqua
tafana and calculated the precise time of my death. Please
Ben go on.
Speaker 1 (35:23):
Only thirty five years old, poor guy, Poor Mazzi and
Napoleon Bonaparte in eighteen twenty one, Alexander the Great in
three hundred and fifty six BCE, allegedly Zachary Taylor in
eighteen fifty though that was later disproven. The list goes
on and on, folks. You can read some of these
additional stories nol and I found in full on our
(35:45):
new community Facebook page, Ridiculous Historians.
Speaker 2 (35:48):
We promised we're gonna hop on there and put this
up there, right Ben, and we commit to it right now.
Butter twin style, boom done. We just put our fists
together and lock it in. Yeah, locked it in, and
we made it made a little poof of magical dust.
Speaker 1 (36:00):
So we are going to head out today. We hope
that you enjoyed our exploration of the strange story of Arsenic.
We also, of course, as always, liked to thank our mastermind,
super producer, Casey Pegrod, who has, believe it or not,
to this day, still not being convicted of poisoning anyone.
Speaker 2 (36:20):
That's because it hasn't kicked it out. He's been giving
it to us a little bit at a time, a
little bit at a time, and before you know it,
we're just going to begging him to take care of
us and nurture us and give us hugs and belly rubs.
I thought I had a cholera.
Speaker 1 (36:31):
Then we'll be in the palm of his evil hand
and on our way to our arsenic riddled graves.
Speaker 2 (36:38):
Will be riddled. It'll just be trace amounts probably right, Yes.
Speaker 1 (36:40):
Yes, our Arsenic tinged a grade.
Speaker 2 (36:43):
I like it.
Speaker 1 (36:44):
We'd like to thank Alex Williams for writing our theme song.
Be sure to tune in for our next episode where
we reveal why and how Germany sacrificed sausage for war and.
Speaker 2 (36:55):
As a former little German boy in fact, spoke like
a native and went to German kindergarten, lived among the
German people until I was six years old. The Germans
do love a good vorced, so I want to hear
that story about what would cause them to have to
give up that delectable treat in the name of justice,
And we can't.
Speaker 1 (37:14):
Wait to tell you in our next episode. In the meantime,
no old folks can find us on Instagram, they can
find us on Facebook, they can find us on Twitter,
where we are some variation of ridiculous history.
Speaker 2 (37:24):
We're still wood shopping the pinterest. Ben and I have
combined our vision boards into a Megavision board involving dolphins
and color swatches and crafts, and.
Speaker 1 (37:34):
We're putting out some Viewmaster adaptations. Does anybody else remember view.
Speaker 2 (37:40):
Masters that one? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (37:44):
Can you hear the riveting tension as you move from
frame to frame?
Speaker 2 (37:47):
Pictures of parks mainly Yeah, And.
Speaker 1 (37:50):
There's like one picture of a Reddit meme that's not
appropriate for work. But again, that's all brainstorming and workshopping is.
Speaker 2 (37:58):
If you have some signs questions for.
Speaker 1 (38:01):
A social media site, we should we should move on
to go ahead and let us know you could write
tw us directly.
Speaker 2 (38:07):
We are ridiculous at HowStuffWorks dot com and most importantly,
we hope that you enjoin us next time for another
episode of ridiculous history. Thanks everyone. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio,
(38:27):
visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen
to your favorite shows.
You forgetting a situation and you're thinking, like, what would
be my dream way to kill this person?
Speaker 2 (00:07):
All the time?
Speaker 3 (00:08):
No, okay, maybe maybe sometimes I don't know.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Just to think about the rhyme, to think about it.
Speaker 3 (00:15):
Well, for centuries, people have asked themselves this question, uh,
historically speaking, what what what what would it take to
just get rid of this inconvenient person in my life?
Speaker 1 (00:28):
Right without getting in trouble?
Speaker 2 (00:30):
Yeah, without getting caught.
Speaker 3 (00:31):
It turns out there is a perfect answer to this question, uh.
And then you'll find it in all kinds of cool
detective novels, you know, Agatha Christie, Our snick and old
Lace comes to mind, right, because our snick was an odorless, tasteless,
clear substance that could very easily be snuck into somebody's
(00:54):
cup o tea, you know, or perhaps administered in various
and sundry other ways without the ever knowing. And again,
because of the lack of forensic technology that existed in
the days of yr, was unlikely to ever be traced
back to the perpetrator of said the heinous crime.
Speaker 1 (01:13):
So tune in to learn how what our brit friends
call the old inheritance powder became the assassin's dream weapon.
Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio. Are you a
(01:52):
jilted lover a turn bit of from every Tom, Dick
and Harry that comes calling? Are you a child of
well desperate to make progress through a little bit of
italianation or inheritance spouder? If so, tune in quickly to
this episode of Ridiculous History.
Speaker 2 (02:05):
My name is Ben. Ben. Your fast talking's got my
head spinning. You made me forget my name once again.
Give me one second. Okay, it's nol and it's true.
This is Ridiculous History, And I'm just gonna say right
out of the front of the show, I'm a little
horse today as opposed to a giant, luxurious steed.
Speaker 1 (02:20):
Huh worth it well, you don't know. I think it
gives a bit of gravitas to your statements.
Speaker 2 (02:27):
And hopefully our super producer, Casey Pegram can fix it
in post.
Speaker 1 (02:31):
The man is a wizard, I am telling you he
is also. In addition to being quite talented, Casey Pegram
is also a very i would say, principled man.
Speaker 2 (02:46):
That's true. If he was ever to slip you a mickey,
he would have damn good reason. Let me tell you
what it would be, a justified mickey.
Speaker 1 (02:52):
Yeah, we had talked about this off the air. If
either of us ever walked by and saw a super producer,
Casey Pegrim dragging a body sized garbage bag down the street,
we would just pick up the other end and help
him move it, because even if it were a body,
he would have good reason for his actions.
Speaker 2 (03:14):
And you know that antiquated term slipped him a mickey
or her a mickey I just use typically referred more
to lacing a drink with a psychoactive drug or something
that would incapacitate someone, not necessarily kill them, like the
mickeys that we're talking about today would.
Speaker 1 (03:30):
Yes, ladies and gentlemen, Today we are talking about the
dark art of poison. Not just any poison. However, we're
talking about one of the most storied, notorious, and for
a time popular poisons in human civilization. We'd like to
introduce you to arsenic.
Speaker 2 (03:49):
That's right. It actually earned the title the King of
Poison by the fifteenth century, but it had a quite
rich history even well before that.
Speaker 1 (04:00):
Right, we know that ancient Egyptians mind arsenic compounds. We
know that in one of the very very early pharmacological
text the d Materia medica arsenic is also mentioned. This
is a naturally occurring element that is just across the planet,
(04:22):
and you can find a map of naturally occurring arsenic
here in the United States. It's spooky, it's scary stuff.
Speaker 2 (04:29):
And the fact that it was naturally occurring is one
of the many reasons that made it such a popular
tool for getting the job done, because it was easy
to get because of its use in everything from medication
to pesticides, to industrial processing materials and things like that.
And it is odorless, colorless, and tasteless and dissolves in
(04:53):
water and any other liquids easily in its oxide form.
The word arsenic itself comes from from the Greek arsenacon,
which meant bold or potent, and that is an apt
moniker for this little killer.
Speaker 1 (05:08):
And we do know that even in ancient times people
were aware of arsenic's potential as a poison. The first
law against poisoning was passed in eighty two BCE. It
was a Roman law that specifically mentioned outline arsenic because
(05:29):
it was used so often by assassins. And Noel, I
love that you point out the medicinal or the perceived
medicinal benefits of Arsenic, because that's a thread that we
see continuing concurrently with its popularity as a poison. And earlier,
just a moment ago, we mentioned that the fifteenth century
(05:53):
is crucial to Arsenic's role as a poison, used by
everyone from lovers to assassins to wealthy Italian aristocrats. This
is the moment where if Arsenic was some sort of
pop star, it suddenly recorded its breakout single yeah.
Speaker 2 (06:14):
And I think the reason that that's a good way
to put it is because it actually had a substance
had a huge impact on politics, especially in Italy. Italians,
as it turns out, had quite the reputation of wielding
this substance and poisons in general for political gain. So
in the Italian Renaissance, you may have heard of the
(06:36):
Borgia family, and there was a I think there was
a Netflix series called The Borgos or maybe it was
an AMC or something like that, but you can get
it and with Jeremy irons is in it. But it
chronicles this pretty shady Italian Renaissance family that were quite powerful.
In fact, Rodrigo Borgia, who actually went on to become
Pope Alexander the sixth and fourteen ninety two, so no
(06:57):
slouch and big, big social climbers these and he had
two children. One was Cesare, so I think hope I
did okay, and then the other one was Lucrezia. And
Lucrezia actually is the one who got sort of a
bad rap as being a poisoner, because there is an
opera by Donazzetti called Lucrezia, and there's a scene in
(07:18):
it where she apparently poisons several people, five people, and
history doesn't really support that. In fact, she was apparently
quite a pious woman and died without probably ever having
poisoned anyone. Had just credit where credit is due. Upfront,
we're getting a lot of this information from a fantastic
book called The King of Poisons the History of Arsenic
(07:41):
by John Pariscandola. So Lucretia seems to have her hands
mostly clean, but her brother Chesai or Cesare is the
one who really took this to the next level. And
as we'll get to it's interesting because poison got a
bit of a rap as a quote unquote woman's weapon
of that later, so Chesare Borgia apparently was guilty of
(08:05):
just poisoning hundreds of people dozens at the very least
in his pursuit of a political career.
Speaker 1 (08:12):
It was like hism o, his modus operandi. What's fascinating
here is that poisoning via arsenic became so prevalent and
well known in Italy that it was considered a formal
method of assassination. And earlier in the beginning of the show,
you may have heard the phrase italianation italianation. I do
(08:35):
love that Italianation was the slaying term for poisoning via
arsenic outside of Italy.
Speaker 2 (08:42):
I think the Brits came up with that one, and
very British. And we'll get to how this ultimately spread
from Italy elsewhere. Before we do that, I just want
to talk about this. There were a handful of poison
assassins that really made names for themselves, one of whom
was Julia to Lato Fauna, which I love. All of
these assassins have these amazing shorthand names. And she her
(09:08):
story goes a couple of different ways. There's there's there's
several versions of it. But one version is that she
invented this mixture, a harmless looking liquid that apparently is
as few as four to six drops would be enough
to quote destroy a man. And the principal ingredient in
(09:28):
this material, which was called aqua tofauna, is thought to
have been arsenic. And you got to think about the
time we're talking about where men ruled families and governments
iron fists, and women were nothing but chattel. So to
empower women with this material was lots of Funa was
(09:49):
able to do because it you know, there are many
historians who say every woman in Naples probably had a
bottle of this stuff in their you know, medicine cabinets
among their perfumes, that only they would know which one
it was.
Speaker 1 (10:02):
This is this is a crucial point because I don't
know if we're jumping ahead too much with this, but
it seems like a good time to mention the method
of delivery that was employed often in Italy. It wasn't
an immediate death, and this is a instead a slow poisoning,
so you would have there's this old myth I found,
(10:24):
or this old legend that said women in particular parts
of Italy, to keep their husbands faithful, would supply them
with a small amount of poison and then a small antidote,
so they had to keep coming back home. But regardless
of the rat veracity or falsity of that, we do
know is true that people were being poisoned slowly rather
(10:47):
than immediately often.
Speaker 2 (10:49):
You know it's true. And I actually found another fantastic
article called aquatafauna, slow poisoning and husband killing in seventeenth
century Italy from a website called a Blast from the Past,
and it's really kind of just a blog, but it
was written by Wow. It's not even really credited as
having an author, but I checked everything and it had
really great qualifying links and just a fantastic article, specifically
(11:12):
talking about the role that women played in this whole
poisoning epidemic, and Lata Fanna especially being kind of the
one that jump started that, and how a lot of
her story is sort of the stuff of legends. But
to your point, then, the idea of the slow poisoning
was really important in very devout Catholic Italy, right because
it gave the dying husband time to do a couple
(11:34):
of things, one of which was get his affairs in order.
If you're talking about this inheritance powder, making sure that
the wife would be well provided for and the family
would have all that he needed. After he passed, or
the church would have a donation, the church would have
a donation, or that he was able to repent for
his sins. So this is a really interesting thing because
(11:54):
that slow meeting out of poison through food or drink
was really a crucial part of this whole thing. And
there's a fantastic quote in this article from Chambers Journal,
which was a magazine started in eighteen thirty two by
William Chambers. And it's a little long. I'm just going
to read part of it just to kind of give
the sense of at the time how this was looked upon.
(12:14):
Administered in wine or tea or some other liquid by
the flattering traitress, it produced but a scarcely noticeable effect.
The husband became a little out of sorts, felt weak
and languid, so little indisposed that he would scarcely call
in a medical man. After the second dose of the poison,
this weakness and languor became more pronounced the beautiful Medea.
(12:36):
See there's a lot of language in here that characterizes
this woman as some sort of horrible, murderous, harpy type character,
like referencing Medea. But obviously, you know, in political landscape
of the time. There's kind of a gray area there,
but we'll get to that later. This beautiful Medea, who
expressed so much anxiety for her husband's indisposition, would scarcely
be an object of suspicion, and perhaps would prepare her
(12:59):
husband's food or prescribed by the doctor with her own
fair hands. In this way, the third drop would be
administered and would prostrate even the most vigorous man. Okay,
And then this is the last bit to save her
fair fame, the wife would demand a post mortem examination,
resulting nothing except that the woman was able to pose
(13:19):
as a slandered innocent and then it would be remembered
that her husband died without either pain, inflammation, fever, or spasms.
Speaker 1 (13:28):
This is important because for a long time, arsenic was
a difficult poison to identify. Not only was it odorless
and colorless and so on, but arsenic poisoning exhibited symptoms
that could easily be confused with symptoms of diseases that
were common at the time, such as cholera, which you
(13:48):
will remember from several other strange episodes we have done
on Ridiculous History. And because again it was naturally occurring
and considered medicinal people were able to easily obtain arsenic. This,
you know, in our earlier episode on Guy Fox we
talked about the relative ease or difficulty of acquiring gunpowder.
(14:12):
It was much easier to acquire arsenic. And additionally, arsenic
was used in so many other things. We'll get to
that in just a second. I have a great list
for you know, but before we do, I think we
need to bust some stereotypes here. The idea of poison
being so closely associated with Italy. This concept thrived because
(14:38):
it sort of justified the stereotypes that the French or
the British already had about Italians. They thought they were devious,
you know, Monty burns as canned rubbers. Sure, and they
often described it, you know, as an italianation or as
an Italian method of murder, with the connotations being that
(15:00):
somehow cowardly. But the French and the British both were
often using arsenic. They were just claiming it was an
Italian thing.
Speaker 2 (15:10):
It's true. It was actually Catherine de Medici, who married
Henry the Second, who would go on to become the
King of France in fifteen thirty three, who is given
lots of credit for bringing the Italian method of assassination
to France, and specifically in using it for political gain.
Speaker 1 (15:29):
Yes, and by the sixteenth century, court records revealed that
cases involving poisoning were occurring regularly in Britain, if not frequently.
There were about a dozen recorded poisonings between fifteen seventy
one and fifteen ninety eight. And of course one of
(15:49):
the most popular choices of poison was in a stunning
plot twist arsenic.
Speaker 2 (15:55):
Yeah, and in France, Louis the fourteenth got so weirded
out by this thing and feared for his life to
the point that he established a special commission with the
express purpose of investigating this phenomenon. It took him until
sixteen eighty two to finish, during which time one hundred
and four people were tried, thirty four were executed, and
the rest were either banished or got prison terms. And
(16:19):
then this is the first time you start to see
maybe not super well codified regulations regarding the sale of poison,
but it was a little bit more draconian, where if
you were caught supplying someone poison for the purposes of
committing a murder, whether or not they succeeded, you would
be subject to death yourself.
Speaker 1 (16:39):
Right, So not a fine, not imprisonment, but a hard
death penalty if you are even accidentally associated with an
unsuccessful murder attempt. And as we trace Arsenic in the
world of Western Europe, I guess as you say the region,
(17:01):
but saying the world of Western Europe sounded cool, you know,
had this time life vibe. Anyhow, as we see, the
laws were slow to evolve in step with Arsenic's evolution
in terms of popularity. In fact, before eighteen fifty one,
there were no laws against selling poison in England. There's
just it just hadn't occurred to anybody that there should
(17:24):
be a law against that end. Amidst the panopoly of
poisons available there, it was especially easy to purchase arsenic.
Speaker 2 (17:32):
Now I like that one. Then the panopoly of poisons.
That's a good one.
Speaker 1 (17:35):
Ah, thanks so much man. Amidst this great selection, did
we mention the difference between naturally occurring arsenic and arsenic
compounds yet a.
Speaker 2 (17:42):
Little bit at the top of the show. But why
don't we circle back? Because I think that is a
good point and something worth exploring just a little bit further.
Speaker 1 (17:48):
So we mentioned that arsenic was a known thing that
occurred in the natural world, and you could see it
in soil, you could see it in groundwater. But what
is what is white arsenic?
Speaker 2 (18:00):
What do we mean when we say that arsenic is
of course an element and the symbol is as and
its atomic number is thirty three with a mass of
seventy four point nine, and it is in group fifteen
of the periodic table, along with things like nitrogen, bismuth, phosphorus,
and antimony, and it is considered a metalloid.
Speaker 1 (18:23):
It's the twentieth most common element I believe in soil.
Speaker 2 (18:26):
That's right. And apparently it's estimated that its concentration in
the Earth's crust goes from between one to five parts
per million, which means that it is not particularly prevalent
in the Earth's crust, but it's associated with so many
other metals and human activities that it becomes more prevalent
in the Earth's crust.
Speaker 1 (18:46):
And this means that it is entirely possible for people
to receive arsenic poisoning without someone attempting to poison them, right.
Speaker 2 (18:58):
I think even in our Poison Squad episode where we
talked about adulterants in food, Arsenic low levels of arsenic,
that is, was one of the potential adulterants that Harvey's
poison squad we're looking at right.
Speaker 1 (19:09):
So white arsenic then is a poisonous trioxide of arsenic,
which no I believe you mentioned at the top of
the show. And it has legitimate uses. It's been used
as a pesticide, rat poison, it's been used to manufacture glass.
But it was just top notch when it came to
being an agent of mortality. But along with this, I
(19:35):
think this is important to mention. I don't know if
this fascinated you as much as it fascinated me, But
along with this known use of arsenic as a tool
for assassination, it was also used in so many other things.
It went into food coloring, it was used in beauty
products such as Get This arsenic complexion wafers. They were
(19:57):
meant for women who wanted to remove limishes or felt
that their hands were too darkly colored. That stuff was
still available in the nineteen twenties. There's this excellent article
by Honeia Ray called When Poison was Everywhere Available at
the Atlantic, and it's a review of a book called
(20:18):
bitten by which fever, which examines all of the different
products that contained arsenic but were advertised also as containing arsenic,
like wallpaper, was huge. I had no idea, Yeah I was.
Speaker 2 (20:32):
I really used in green pigment, I think is where Yeah,
I read absolutely, which is it was used in green
pigment and studdyingly popular due to a wallpaper manufacturer named
William Morris.
Speaker 1 (20:45):
But what people found is that this green pigment was
so dangerous in terms of its arsenic content that some
of that wallpaper is still off gassing today, and books
that collected William Morris's wallpaper, several of them have to
be quarantined effectively, they have to be contained because you
can't flip through the pages without getting arsenic poisoning.
Speaker 2 (21:06):
Jayce just from like touching it. Wow, well then I
think I for one really needed that little diversion from
all the chaos and death throughout history at the hands
of those wielding arsenics. So you know, a little tainted
wallpaper is a nice respite from this. But unfortunately we
do have to go back into this troubled history.
Speaker 1 (21:27):
Ah, yes, to the history, and troubling is a perfect
word for it. Nol. We mentioned earlier some stuff about
France and some stuff about Italy. Let's take a closer
look at England. We see in the Victorian era that
it was as you had mentioned earlier, arsenic was considered
a woman's weapon, quote unquote, and reviewing cases from England
(21:53):
in eighteen forties, researcher Ian Bernie found that in sixty
percent of the cases the used party was a woman,
thirty seven percent of whom were charged with poisoning their spouse.
And Burnie notes in seventy percent of these poisoning cases
the poison used was arsenic. It was much much more
popular than the I think the second most popular poison
(22:16):
would have been opium, but it was a distant second.
Speaker 2 (22:19):
And you know, you mentioned again this idea of like
arsenic being a woman's weapon. It's such a derisive term.
In the same way that the whole italianation thing was
a way to kind of poo poo the Italians and
call them cowards. Calling it a women's weapon was basically
saying the women were weak, and the political landscape surrounding
their use of this, like I read at the top
of the show, largely, I mean, of course, there were
(22:41):
very nefarious reasons to use this material to have someone killed,
but a lot of times it was used by women
to get out from under the thumb of an abusive husband.
Women were abused, and it especially was true where a
lot of these high profile cases involved much more aristocratic
members society. But as it turns out in England especially,
(23:03):
it was much more likely to be used as a
tool of those in poverty because they had no recourse
to escaping these horrible lives. It was even used on
children when the family couldn't feed them anymore. So there's
a real dark history there. So I think it's really
important when we talk about these terms that we you know,
(23:24):
talk about the context too that they were wielded in. Right.
Speaker 1 (23:27):
Yeah, these became articles of oppression and tools of prejudice,
especially when considered that the data people were looking for
was largely constructed to conform to their pre existing views.
And we see the rank hypocrisy here as well. But
(23:48):
we see another big problem when when we ask about
how they knew that arsenic was found in these cases,
they didn't really have a way to test for it,
so they would have to struck a timeline, you know,
like the old English version of Casey Beckrum kills somebody
with arsenic? How do they know it's arsenic? The best
(24:09):
way they would be able to detect it for a
long time would be to speak with the person who
sold it to him. Thus the law in France right,
it was the best way to find arsenic. The first
known case in which convincing proof of poisoning ever showed
up in court didn't take place until seventeen fifty two
(24:30):
in Oxford, England.
Speaker 2 (24:33):
Was that the one where they found the residue at
the bottom of the food bowl? Yes? Yes.
Speaker 1 (24:37):
The accused party was a thirty one year old woman
named Mary Blandy. She was charged with poising her father
with arsenic And you heard about this one too, right,
I think we both read about this. Mary administered the
powder to her father in food and drink and he
became ill. But also two servants who had eaten some
(24:58):
of the same food suffered the same effect, and that's
when they noticed this powder.
Speaker 2 (25:04):
And I think that circumstantial evidence of the servants having
eaten the food too and come down with the same
symptoms is what probably led the judge to be like, well,
clearly this was not entirely natural. Causes if there are
several people of different ages and health experiencing the same stuff.
And there were very as this book describes non specific
(25:27):
chemical tests that were done, which to me just kind
of says they probably weren't very good and didn't work
and weren't reliable, because, as we'll go on to discuss,
a real chemical test that actually unequivocally proved the existence
of this stuff in food or corpses wouldn't come along
for a little bit later, yea. And in fact, the
nature of the tests in this case were described as
(25:49):
showing that the materials used in the the food behaved
in the same way that oursnick would have. So it's
very very general stuff. She did actually can fest to
putting this powder into her father's food, but apparently she
claimed to have not known it was poison. And this
is interesting. Part of the story is that she was
(26:09):
having an affair with a Scottish soldier by the name
of William Crownston, and he heard that her father had
a sizable inheritance that she was due to receive. So
you know, he makes he comes off sending like a
pretty pretty big rascal in this story, a real pill. Yeah,
but he gave the poison to Mary and told her
(26:32):
that if she gave it to her father, he would
be more likely to accept their romance. That was how
he put it. So she claimed that she didn't know
it was poison. Kind of played dumb a little bit there.
Unclear if she really believed that or not. Certainly doesn't
make her come off looking particularly sharp here, But the
(26:52):
jury did not buy it, right.
Speaker 1 (26:54):
The jury did not buy it, and, partially based on
the arguments of the physician Anthony Addington, Mary was hanged.
Cranston fled to France and died soon afterwards. And this
all started bugging a chemist at the Royal Arsenal in Woolwich, England,
(27:15):
a chemists named James Marsh because he said that the
test Addington conducted were suggestive of arsenic but did not
provide conclusive evidence. The kind of stuff that we be
open and shut in a court of law.
Speaker 2 (27:31):
Kinds of things we think about every day now with forensics,
you know, we take that stuff for granted, but it's
a pretty big deal and really eliminates a lot of
hearsay and a lot of very spurious evidence that could
ultimately convict people that were not guilty. Of the crime.
Speaker 1 (27:47):
Yes, and for instance, he was called Marsh was called
up in eighteen thirty two to test for arsenic in
a murder case and Plumstead, the accused party, was charged
with murdering his grandfather and there was evidence that the
grandson had purchased arsenic purportedly as a rat poison. So
they asked Marsh to test some coffee that had made
(28:09):
several people in the house sick, including the grandfather, and
test the stomach contents of the corpse. He was able
to produce a yellow precipitate which showed the presence of
arsnake and the coffee, but this didn't really seal the
deal for the jury, and he couldn't prove there was
arsnake in the stomach. The jury acquitted the defendant. The grandson,
(28:34):
who later get this, came back and said, yeah, I
did it.
Speaker 2 (28:37):
I totally did it, man, adding insults injury, especially for Marsh,
because he was incredibly irritated by this whole situation and
vowed to come up with a more let's say, stable test.
So he kind of piggybacked off of some of the
work of a chemist by the name of Carl Shiel
(28:58):
who figured out that arsenal acid reacts with zinc and
it creates this compound, this gaseous compound of arsenic and
hydrogen that is called ar sign. And again this is
all from King of Poisons, A History of Arsenic by
John Pariscondola. So marsh was able to improve his test
by piggybacking off of this research. So basically he was
(29:20):
able to capture that gas and it leaves a film
on a material that he was then able to test that.
You had to heat it and then he would test it,
and then you could tell kind of roughly how much
arsenic was in the sample based on the size that
the film produced. So this is a good thing, right,
(29:43):
You could tell how much arsenic was in the sample
based on the size that film produced, and then any
other scientists worth their salt could test that sample and say, yes,
there is in fact arsenic in this There's no more
questionable methods we have. You know, we have a good
system for deciding whether or not this stuff is present
in everything from food samples to corpses. Post mortem, you
(30:06):
can do these tests on bodies. And then there is
even a better version of the test beyond that, where
you could detect smaller amounts, which is probably what you
would need for testing a corpse to find trace amounts
or see if there were amounts beyond normal atmospheric levels
of our snacks that would be found in a body
long after they had died.
Speaker 1 (30:24):
Yes, beyond what I've decided to refer to as ambient arsenic.
Speaker 2 (30:28):
Ambient arsenic.
Speaker 1 (30:29):
So yeah, Hugo Range develops this quicker, simpler test in
eighteen forty one, and we see the dark magic of
arsenic being whittled away by the scientific method and the
advances of the day. And this leads to a tipping point. Now,
remember earlier we had said that there were some initial
(30:50):
laws royal edicts that came into play with arsenic before
it was possible to test word effectively. Now that we,
being human civilization, can tech the presence of arsenic, you
would think maybe its popularity dies down. However, not so,
at least not immediately. You see, arsenic was still readily
available and inexpensive. And if you're poisoning someone, then you're
(31:13):
hoping maybe this person will not be of enough consequence
to warrant a medical investigation. Maybe they'll say clearly they
had cholera. So now let's just bury them. And this
eventually led to Parliament saying we have to do something
about this. The attempted to pass legislation as early as
eighteen nineteen to regulate this sale. Finally regulate the sale
(31:38):
of poisoning drugs such as oxylic acid, corrosive subliminate or
mercuric chloride and of course arsenic. The drug store owners
were concerned that big Pharma yeah time ye, Cottage Pharma. Yeah.
Cottage Pharma at the time thought that this would interfere
with dispensing medicine, and they successfully opposed it. Opposed this
(32:03):
legislation and it was ultimately withdrawn. But that was just
the first volley of a longer legislative process.
Speaker 2 (32:11):
Yeah, I think things got a lot more like you
would see today with you know, if you could go
to buy cold medicine of the store, like for my kid,
I still have to enter my name into a registry
and show my ID to prove that I'm twenty one.
This is exactly the case, because you know, you can
use cold medicine to make methamphetomy. So in eighteen fifty one,
this thing passed called the Sale of Arsenic Regulation Act,
(32:32):
that required people buying arsenic to be twenty one years old,
and it required them to fill in their information in
a poison book or a register, and then they had
to sign for it. So you could have like much
more of a paper trail, much less of a he said,
She said, you know who bought the poison kind of situation.
So you know these things, these safeguards were put in place.
(32:52):
It didn't curb the use of arsenic entirely, and in fact,
in the United States, while it was not near a
popular as it had been in Britain, the colonies or whatever,
it was still going on. And you know, you can
argue in the same way you can about any kind
of regulation, whether me filling out that cold medicine registry,
(33:12):
you know, for buying my kids fair flu causes people
to make less methamphetomy. That as up for debate, but
a Storian, Catherine Watson, said that she was pretty sure
that it did have a gradual effect reducing poisoning crimes,
especially those involving arseny. But of course you could have
situations where people would maybe turn to other substances to
(33:33):
poison their enemies or mother in laws.
Speaker 1 (33:38):
Sure, yeah, mothers in law. You know, I think it
depends on how many there are. So just to set
the scene for you, friends and neighbors, my co hosts
and I are looking a bit mournfully across our table
here in the podcasting studio because we realized there's so
many fascinating things about Arsenic that we probably won't get
(33:59):
into in this episode. No, I have with me a
list of famous people who were probably poisoned by Arsenic,
as well as updates on latest research about their deaths. Ah,
I got so much stuff, man, serial killers, we need
even get into that.
Speaker 2 (34:14):
But then I have a story about a little village
in Hungary in nineteen twenty nine where a group of
women were prosecuted for poisoning like literally everyone in town
because they were all horrible, abusive men. I think yours
sounds less depressing. Let's go with yours, man.
Speaker 1 (34:30):
I don't even know if we can. We might have
to post this on our community page. Ridiculous historians, just
rattle off a few, just give people a sweet taste
of that delicious poison. Alleged victims of Arsenic wolfgang Amadeus
Mozart in seventeen ninety one.
Speaker 2 (34:46):
Then I'm sorry, interrupted, I just want to say. I
had that in my research too. And there's a great
quote from Old Wolfgang where he speaks more or less
on his deathbed where he had fallen seriously ill and
he was convinced that he had been poisoned. Says that
he began to speak of death, and then he said
that he was setting this requiem, the Mozart requiem, which
(35:06):
he is most famously known for for himself. Quote, I
feel definitely that I will not last much longer. I
am sure that I have been poisoned, and I cannot
rid myself of this idea. Someone has given me aqua
tafana and calculated the precise time of my death. Please
Ben go on.
Speaker 1 (35:23):
Only thirty five years old, poor guy, Poor Mazzi and
Napoleon Bonaparte in eighteen twenty one, Alexander the Great in
three hundred and fifty six BCE, allegedly Zachary Taylor in
eighteen fifty though that was later disproven. The list goes
on and on, folks. You can read some of these
additional stories nol and I found in full on our
(35:45):
new community Facebook page, Ridiculous Historians.
Speaker 2 (35:48):
We promised we're gonna hop on there and put this
up there, right Ben, and we commit to it right now.
Butter twin style, boom done. We just put our fists
together and lock it in. Yeah, locked it in, and
we made it made a little poof of magical dust.
Speaker 1 (36:00):
So we are going to head out today. We hope
that you enjoyed our exploration of the strange story of Arsenic.
We also, of course, as always, liked to thank our mastermind,
super producer, Casey Pegrod, who has, believe it or not,
to this day, still not being convicted of poisoning anyone.
Speaker 2 (36:20):
That's because it hasn't kicked it out. He's been giving
it to us a little bit at a time, a
little bit at a time, and before you know it,
we're just going to begging him to take care of
us and nurture us and give us hugs and belly rubs.
I thought I had a cholera.
Speaker 1 (36:31):
Then we'll be in the palm of his evil hand
and on our way to our arsenic riddled graves.
Speaker 2 (36:38):
Will be riddled. It'll just be trace amounts probably right, Yes.
Speaker 1 (36:40):
Yes, our Arsenic tinged a grade.
Speaker 2 (36:43):
I like it.
Speaker 1 (36:44):
We'd like to thank Alex Williams for writing our theme song.
Be sure to tune in for our next episode where
we reveal why and how Germany sacrificed sausage for war and.
Speaker 2 (36:55):
As a former little German boy in fact, spoke like
a native and went to German kindergarten, lived among the
German people until I was six years old. The Germans
do love a good vorced, so I want to hear
that story about what would cause them to have to
give up that delectable treat in the name of justice,
And we can't.
Speaker 1 (37:14):
Wait to tell you in our next episode. In the meantime,
no old folks can find us on Instagram, they can
find us on Facebook, they can find us on Twitter,
where we are some variation of ridiculous history.
Speaker 2 (37:24):
We're still wood shopping the pinterest. Ben and I have
combined our vision boards into a Megavision board involving dolphins
and color swatches and crafts, and.
Speaker 1 (37:34):
We're putting out some Viewmaster adaptations. Does anybody else remember view.
Speaker 2 (37:40):
Masters that one? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (37:44):
Can you hear the riveting tension as you move from
frame to frame?
Speaker 2 (37:47):
Pictures of parks mainly Yeah, And.
Speaker 1 (37:50):
There's like one picture of a Reddit meme that's not
appropriate for work. But again, that's all brainstorming and workshopping is.
Speaker 2 (37:58):
If you have some signs questions for.
Speaker 1 (38:01):
A social media site, we should we should move on
to go ahead and let us know you could write
tw us directly.
Speaker 2 (38:07):
We are ridiculous at HowStuffWorks dot com and most importantly,
we hope that you enjoin us next time for another
episode of ridiculous history. Thanks everyone. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio,
(38:27):
visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen
to your favorite shows.
Ridiculous History News
Hosts And Creators
Ben Bowlin
Noel Brown
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