Since the very earliest
of times poisons have been used as a means for settling old
scores, as instruments for personal advancement, as a means
to execute criminals and by those who found life to be an
intolerable burden. The ancient Greeks and Romans, who could
seldom agree on anything, were both masters of this practice,
but, of course, they selected different agents. The most commonly
used toxin in Greece was the water hemlock, a plant in the
carrot family not to be confused with the evergreen conifer
common in New England. Plato immortalized hemlock, which is
said to be the most violently poisonous plant in the North
Temperate Zone, in his description of the death of Socrates.
All of the above properties of arsenic
contributed to its alleged widespread use in antiquity as
a homicidal agent. Doubtless it is an exaggeration, but it
has been said of this period that poisonings were so common
that few believed in the natural deaths of princes, kings,
or cardinals. Whatever the true extent of its covert use,
arsenic has engendered a body of legends so tangled that reliable
sources today disagree about many of the specifics.
Poison and politics
were also intertwined in the early Renaissance period in Italy.
Records of the city councils of Florence during this period
contain detailed testimony naming victims, prices and contracts,
complete with dates that transactions were completed and payments
made.
Among the most infamous
of poisoners was a woman known as Toffana who made arsenic-laced
cosmetics and instructed women on their use. Another woman,
known as Hieronyma Spara, organized group instruction in the
homicidal uses of arsenic for a number of young married women
who wanted to better their station in life by becoming wealthy
young widows. Reports of death by arsenic containing cosmetics
continued through the twentieth century.
The Gift of the Borgias
In Italy during the Middle Ages the most
widely accused of poisoners were the Borgias, Pope Alexander
VI, and his son, Cesare. Most say that Cesare's half-sister,
Lucretia, was innocent of the Borgias's involvement in wholesale
applied toxicology, but even today her name is irrevocably
linked to the surreptitious use of arsenic.
It was perhaps not surprising for the Borgias
to specialize in dispatching bishops and cardinals. As the
Pope, Alexander VI appointed cardinals who were not only allowed
but encouraged to increase their personal wealth through perquisites
granted by the church. The nouveau riche pillar of propriety
would then be invited to one or more sumptuous meals with
the Borgias.
There
are those who say that arsenic actually improves the taste
of wine. Whether true or not, the Borgias made certain that
their guest consumed as much of the doctored drink as possible.
Following the inevitable and untimely death of the victim,
ownership of his property - by church law - reverted to his
executioners.
So diligently did the Borgias apply their
craft that they soon numbered among the wealthiest and most
powerful men in all of Italy. Their cause was furthered by
Lucretia's successful three marriages into money and station
and by Cesare's position as captain-general of the papal army.
But the dynasty was finally broken in a poetic stroke of justice.
On
an occasion when some cardinals were scheduled later in the
evening to receive the Borgia's hospitality, the Pope and
Cesare returned home early and called for a bottle of wine
in premature celebration. Whether by accident or design, a
servant brought the wrong bottle. The Pope died, but Cesare,
after having a mule slaughtered and dressed, wrapped the carcass
about himself in accord with the ancient superstition that
entering the body of an animal warded off the effects of poisons.
His recovery seems to be the only known proof that such a
remedy actually works, but he was never again to be in a position
of wealth and power.
The origin of the expression "the gift of
the Borgias" is obscure, but it might have reflected the sarcastic
wit of some unknown historian. It may be relevant that the
German word "gift" means both poison and malice.
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There have long been rumors
to suggest that the final agonies of Napoleon Bonaparte
in 1821 were due to the repeated administration of arsenic
by someone in his cortege. |
More Murders and Accidents
There
have long been rumors to suggest that the final agonies of
Napoleon Bonaparte in 1821 were due to the repeated administration
of arsenic by someone in his cortege. This tale persists despite
the failure of modern science to confirm the presence of excess
arsenic in hair samples from Napoleon's corpse.
In his
book Weird and Tragic Shores, Chauncey Loomis, a former professor
of English at Dartmouth College, made a case for the homicidal
arsenic poisoning of a tyrannical Arctic explorer, Charles
Francis Hall. Perhaps Hall, who was born in Rochester, New
Hampshire, should not have imposed his harsh discipline so
indiscriminately among his crew.
When Claire
Booth Luce was the United States ambassador to Italy, she
became a victim of arsenic poisoning because of the continual
flaking of an arsenic-based paint from the embassy dining
room ceiling onto her dinners. She was forced to resign her
position because of ill health brought on by that exposure.
Within
months of each other in 1878, two women were found murdered
near their homes in New Haven, Conn. One had been savagely
beaten and left in a wooded area; the body of the other was
found floating in the water near an amusement park. Surprisingly,
autopsies in both cases found that the women had been poisoned
by enormous doses of arsenic. The tragedies and subsequent
murder trials, along with a glimpse into the seamy side of
the Gilded Age, are described in Arsenic Under the Elms, by
Virginia A. McConnell.
As recently
as 1998, arsenic was implicated in a sensational mass poisoning
in Japan in which four people died and 40 were hospitalized.
Arsenic trioxide had been added to pots of curried beef, which
were served at a village festival. The trial process is expected
to go on for years; the evidence against the accused and their
motive(s) is still murky.
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The Arsenic Eaters
As documented in the mid-1800s, mountaineers
of central Austria (Styria) made a habit of consuming arsenic
preparations once or twice a week as a general stimulant and
tonic. They became known as "arsenic eaters," and some were
reputed to have adopted the practice as a means of building
up a tolerance against poisoning by their enemies. The acquisition
of a modest degree of tolerance has, in fact, been documented
in laboratory animals, but its physiological basis is not
clear.
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The Decline of Sinister Uses
Beginning in the eighteenth century the
incidence of poisonings began to wane as improved methods
for detecting them in body fluids and excrement appeared.
In 1836, an English chemist named James Marsh perfected a
sensitive and specific chemical test for arsenic, and poisoners
thereafter had little hope of escaping detection. But even
as the sinister use of arsenic decreased, certain commercial
applications were found, and various forms became common in
the market place.
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Altruistic Uses of Arsenic
Arsenic
compounds began to be used in agriculture as ingredients in
insecticides, rat poisons, herbicides and wood preservatives,
as well as pigments in paints, wallpaper and ceramics. Although
the agricultural uses would be recognized later as not particularly
eco-friendly - especially when in the form of the then-popular
lead arsenate sprays used against larvae of the gypsy moth
and the boll weevil - they were among the most efficacious
of their time. Even before these applications were widely
employed, however, the most altruistic of all the uses for
arsenic had been launched.
Around
1900 in Frankfurt, Germany, a pharmacologist named Paul Ehrlich
(not to be confused with The Population Bomb author) became
preoccupied with the violently poisonous nature of arsenic.
Ehrlich, however, was convinced that the toxic potential of
arsenic could be harnessed and used therapeutically as a treatment
for diseases such as syphilis. By chemically attaching arsenic
to various carbon and hydrogen (organic) structures, he hoped
to make it less accessible to binding cites on cells that
produce adverse affects for humans and more specifically toxic
for the infectious organisms. The search was tedious to say
the least.
Ehrlich patiently threaded his way through
604 different organic compounds of arsenic before he literally
stumbled on number 605 to which he gave the grandiose name
of Salvarsan. With brilliant insight, he even postulated that
its antimicrobial activity might involve the binding of Salvarsan
to sulfur groups on the microbes. As toxicologists now know,
arsenic - and many other metals - are strongly attracted to
sulfur; some of the sulfur in human proteins is critical to
biological function. Salvarsan became the first drug that
was safe enough to be given to humans and to be truly effective
against the dread spirochete bacteria that causes syphilis.
It was to be replaced immediately on the discovery of penicillin,
but Salvarsan deserves its place in history.
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A Bracing
Tonic
Many other organic arsenical drugs were
eventually introduced for use against various bacterial or
parasitic infections, but few survived the introduction of
antibiotics. One of the longest-lived medicinal preparations
of arsenic was a solution of one-percent potassium arsenite
called Fowler's Solution. Fowler's Solution was first used
as a general tonic, but many reputable dermatologists felt
it had value in the treatment of psoriasis. It was still being
recommended in dermatology textbooks through the 1960's, although
its effects by then were recognized in scientific sources,
such as Torald Sollman's pharmacology text, as "capricious,
unpredictable and uncontrollable both as to good and harm."
In what may be another popular myth, Charles Darwin was reputed
to have self-medicated with Fowler's Solution to the detriment
of his health in later life.
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War Gas and Antidotes
In 1940, it became known to Allied intelligence
that the Germans had developed an organic blistering war gas
containing arsenic, which was known by the code name of Lewisite.
On contact with the skin the gas reacted with sulfur on keratin,
a skin protein, to produce huge blisters that were made worse
by the release of caustic hydrochloric acid, also produced
by the chemical reaction.
The British response to this threat was
an intensive research program that culminated in the discovery
of a simple sulfur-containing organic molecule which was highly
effective in inactivating Lewisite on the skin, since it attracted
arsensic away from biologically more important sites. This
effective antidote became known by the acronym of BAL, for
British Anti-Lewisite. Later it was given the generic name,
dimercaprol.
After the war, interest in dimercaprol continued,
and in view of its low toxicity, it was tested against arsenic
that had been taken internally. It was found to bind arsenic
tenaciously and to hasten its excretion in the urine. It thus
became the first rationally developed chelating agent - a
chemical trap that sequesters and disables toxins. It is also
used in treating people with mercury and gold poisoning.
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Arsenic and Bedrock
Even purely altruistic efforts have resulted
in chaos because of arsenic. The water supplies of much of
the impoverished nation of Bangledesh consisted until recently
of shallow wells that were often polluted by animal and human
wastes. International efforts were mounted to provide better
water supplies by digging deeper wells into aquifers. Many
of these wells ended up tapping water from geologic formations
naturally high in arsenic. As a result, thousands of people
were poisoned. Natural arsenic contamination of drinking water
supplies is also a problem in New Hampshire.
Roger
Smith Ph. D.
Professor of Pharmacology and Toxicology Emeritus
Irene
Heinz Given Professor of Pharmacology and Toxicology Emeritus
Dartmouth Medical School
SOURCES INCLUDE:
- The gentle art of poisoning, Meek, WJ, JAMA. 158:335-339
(1955);
- Toxicology, The Basic Science of Poisons, 5th ed. Klaassen,
CD. Casarett and Doull, McGraw-Hill, NY, 1996;
- Clinical Toxicology of Commercial Products, 5th ed., Gosselin,
RE, Smith, RP and Hodge, HC. , Williams and Wilkins, Baltimore,
1984.
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Links:
Death
at Jamestown: Did the Jamestown colonists really
die of starvation in the winter of 1609 - 1610, or were they
poisoned? A pathologist argues that a common arsenic poison
known as ratsbane did them in.
Poisonings:
Berton Roueche's true stories on poisonings were published
in The New Yorker series "Annals of Medicine" from the 1940s
through the 1980s. Dartmouth toxicologist Roger Smith has
annotated several of these stories with technical background
on the science behind the narratives.
The
Assassination of Napoleon: Ben
Weider, founder of The International Napoleonic Society, argues
that arsenic was a homicidal agent used in Napoleon's death.
The
Wallpaper Did It:
An opposing view on Napoleon's death-by-arsenic from a site
that explores optical illusions and other unusual science-based
phenomena:
Forgiving
the Borgias: Daniel
Rogov, a wine, restaurant and travel critic, takes the position
that the Borgia's have been wrongly maligned and offers a
recipe for a leek tart created in honor of Lucretia's wedding
to Alfonso d'Este.
