Six of the worst poisons and one legendary antidote

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

Today it is quite difficult to understand what was true in the stories of poisoning that have come down to our days through the centuries, what was fiction. Indeed, at that time there were no tests and forensic medical examination, and there were more than enough stories about mysterious poisons. In our review, we are talking about the most legendary poisons, the existence of which has not yet been proven.

1. Gu poison

Gu is an ancient Chinese poison with magical properties. According to the legends, this poison was created by placing poisonous animals - snakes, lizards, scorpions, centipedes and various insects - in a jar. These poisonous creatures devoured each other until there was only one left, which was oversaturated with the toxins of all its digested counterparts. Then poison was extracted from this creature, which was used to kill, cause illness or induce a love spell. Victims of gu poisoning died from vomiting blood. It was rumored that gu could even kill from a distance.

2. Poison on the knife of Parysatid

Parysatida, mother of the Persian king Artaxerxes II (435 or 445 BC - 358 BC). did not get along with her daughter-in-law Statyra. Parysatida was simply jealous, it seemed to her that Statyra "took all the thoughts of her son and he began to love his mother less," so she figured out how to get rid of her. She could not simply poison her daughter-in-law, since both women mistrust each other and were afraid of being poisoned. Therefore, they ate the same dishes from the same dish.

But Parysatida came up with the following move: she smeared one side of the knife with an unknown poison, and then cut off a piece of chicken for herself (with the clean side) and handed the knife to her daughter-in-law. As a result, she died a painful death, but the victory of Parysatida turned out to be Pyrrhic. While on her deathbed, Statira convinced her husband that his mother was to blame for the murder. Artaxerxes exiled Parysatis to Babylon, and they never saw each other again.

3. Poison Eitr

In Scandinavian mythology, the eutr fluid was both the source of life and death. When ice fragments from Niflheim (the primordial kingdom of ice in the north) met sparks from Muspelsheim (the primordial kingdom of fire in the south) in Ginnungagap (primordial chaos, the world's abyss), the ice melted. This liquid was eytr, the original substance from which the primordial being was born - the giant Ymir.

The gods created the Earth from Ymir's flesh, oceans from his blood, mountains from his bones, trees from his hair, clouds from his brain. Midgard, the kingdom of people, was made from Ymir's eyebrows. Eitr was thus responsible for the whole world and all life in it, but it was also a deadly poison, strong enough to kill the gods. According to Norse mythology, in the great last battle of Ragnarok, the great serpent Jormungand, which encircles Midgard, will rise from the ocean to poison the sky.

Thor will kill Jörmungand, but since his blood consists of eitra, Thor will die of poison in just nine steps. In Scandinavian folklore, the legendary liquid of life and death has become synonymous with deadly toxins. In Old Icelandic the word "eytr" meant "poison", and in modern Icelandic the word "eytur" means the same thing.

4. White powder Borgia

The Borgia family today is inextricably linked with poison. It all started with Cem, the half-brother of the Ottoman Sultan Bayezid II. After the death of their father Sultan Mehmed II, the brothers quarreled and began to fight each other. As a result, Jem fled to Rhodes, where he was sheltered by the Master of the Order of Malta, Pierre d'Aubusson. But Bayezid promised the knights a huge annual sum for the fact that they would keep his brother away from the Ottoman Empire so that he would not claim the throne.

As a result, the Maltese transferred Jem to Rome to Pope Innocent VIII. After the death of Innocent in 1492, he was succeeded by Alexander VI (1431-1503), the infamous Rodrigo Borgia. Bayezid continued to pay half of the income of the Ottoman Empire annually for the maintenance of his brother in Rome. The feeding trough ended in September 1494 when Charles VIII invaded Italy to take over the Kingdom of Naples, which he planned to use as a launching pad for a new crusade (which aimed to reclaim Jerusalem).

When Charles VIII reached Rome, he made a deal with the Pope, according to which he stops the further conquest of Italy, but receives "the goose that lays the golden eggs" - Gem. But when the French took Jem from Rome on January 28, 1495, on the way to Naples, he suddenly died on February 25. Rumors that Jem had been poisoned by the Borgia pope spread almost immediately. Popular rumor claimed that Jem was given a mysterious white powder of unknown composition, which supposedly could kill a few weeks after ingestion.

The mysterious white powder soon turned into a legendary poison. A single dose of poison could kill instantly, within days or months. It was a snow-white substance with a pleasant taste that could be easily and imperceptibly mixed into any food or drink. It can allegedly even be poured into boots or added to candles, which made their smoke deadly. So the legends about the famous poisoners of the Borgia began.

5. Aqua tofana

By all accounts, the invention of the 17th century Sicilian woman Tofana was a colorless and transparent liquid, tasteless and not arousing suspicion. It was assumed that the venom was made from arsenic, spearfly, shieldwort, and / or snapdragon. He supposedly could kill with exceptional accuracy: the dose could be calculated so as to kill immediately, in a week, in a month, or in a year. Some stories claim that the victims gradually lost all their hair and teeth and shriveled until they finally died in agony.

Others insist that there were no such acute symptoms, it was just that the victim began to have an incomprehensible weakness that never went away and brought him to death. The poison was usually added to food, but sometimes it was applied to the cheek to infect the victim with a kiss.

6. Powder of inheritance

Poudre de succession or "powder of inheritance" was named for the fact that it was used to eliminate problematic heirs. It was allegedly the invention of one of the most famous poisoners in France, Marie Madeleine Dreux d'Aubre, Marquise de Branville (1630-1676). Various sources state that the powder consisted of frosted glass, "lead sugar", a powdered version of aqua tofan, and arsenic. The poison was supposedly so deadly, just inhaling this powder instantly killed you.

Marie Madeleine Dreux d'Aubre's career as a poisoner began when her father, Antoine Dreux d'Aubre, imprisoned Marie's lover, Captain Godin de Sainte-Croix, in the Bastille. Sainte-Croix's cellmate was an Italian named Exili, who had a vast knowledge of poisons, which he generously shared with his new friend. After his release, Sainte-Croix spoke of the poison of the Marquis, who began experimenting with various formulations, distributing poisoned bread to unsuspecting poor people in hospital wards.

The first deliberate victim of Marie was her father. After that, she killed her brothers Antoine and Fran in order to get the entire inheritance. In 1672, Saint-Croix died under mysterious circumstances, possibly from the inhalation of his own product. As a result, Marie was arrested and tortured with water. Then she was beheaded and burned.

Universal antidote

The ruler of the Kingdom of Pontus, Mithridates VI Eupator (134-63 BC), is said to have been paranoid. However, this was quite justified. His mother poisoned her husband when Mithridates was still a child and ruled the kingdom as regent until he came of age. Even as a child, Mithridates suspected that his mother was plotting to poison him in order to put his brother on the throne. When the young heir found that he was getting worse and worse, he fled to the desert, where for years he tried to develop immunity to any poisons.

It worked. Already in adulthood, Mithridates was known as "irreparable". He allegedly created a universal antidote that could resist any poison. This antidote, the main ingredients of which (according to the records of Pompey the Great) were dried walnuts, figs, rue, leaves and a pinch of salt, was considered a universal antidote for the next 1,800 years.