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From the Publisher
Poison: A History: An Account of the Deadly Art and its Most Infamous Practitioners
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Introduction to poison: A historyPoison: A History guides through more than two millennia of famous and infamous poisonings, from the ancient civilizations of Greece and Rome to the latest uses in the twenty-first century, portraying the motive (almost inevitably love, money, or politics), circumstances, and outcome of each incident in its historical context—many of the tales are tragic, some outrageous, and a few even border on the comical. |
Chapter one: Poison in the ancient worldHumans have invented, tested, experimented with, and deployed poisons for their own purposes for centuries, and this activity shows no sign of decreasing in the twenty-first century. In ancient Greece, 2,500 years ago, we find the philosopher Socrates, forced by society to take hemlock and die a painful death, and then Cleopatra, having carried out a number of poison experiments on hapless victims, choose asp venom as her own instrument of suicide. |
Chapter two: Cases from medieval times & the renaissanceIn medieval Europe poison enjoyed its own renaissance, as a dark art and as life in royal courts became particularly perilous. Catherine de Medici is thought to have employed poisoned gloves to dispatch her daughter’s future mother-in-law, and machinations at the court of Henry VIII led to the suspect in a poison plot—the cook, Richard Roose—being cooked in a pot himself. The very name Borgia still has the power to send shivers down the spine, with tales of nefarious deeds. |
Poison: A History: An Account of the Deadly Art and its Most Infamous Practitioners
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Chapter 3: Murder in the 17th and 18th centuriesIn the 17th and 18th centuries, using poison as a means of dispatching someone in the way was the preserve of the well-to-do middle and upper classes. Dispensing with the need for blunt instruments and bloodshed, it even had a whiff of sophistication about it. Mary Blandy, English gentlewoman, never let standards slip. Even when incarcerated pending trial for poisoning her father, she was depicted taking tea with a companion in dainty fashion, despite sporting leg irons beneath her capacious gown. |
Chapter 4: The golden age of poisoningFor poison to have a golden age is a dubious accolade, but “doing away” with an associate or family member for amorous or financial gain has proved too much of a temptation for many over the years. Administering the poison invariably involved stealthy and furtive measures, with the poison of choice often being concealed in some tempting foodstuff, such as a slice of cake. Or worse, the poisoner would administer the dose to the trusting and unwitting victim as 'medicine,' disguising their lethal intent with apparent concern and kindness. |
Chapter 5: From cults to contemporary espionageThe art of poisoning has changed with the times, in terms of both the poison itself and the way that it is applied. Sarin—used to murder indiscriminately in the Tokyo subway—and dioxin— which disfigured Ukrainian president Viktor Yuschenko—are both byproducts of modern herbicides and pesticides. The Reverend Jim Jones induced over 900 people to self-administer cyanide laced with tranquilizers, and the twentieth century saw the first splitting of the atom, which would eventually lead to the polonium that killed Russian agent Vladimir Litvinenko. |
