In the section De Medicis Experimentis he gives a process to poison a sleeping person: the recipe is curious, and would certainly not have the intended effect. A mixture of hemlock juice, bruised datura, stramonium, belladonna, and opium is placed in a leaden box with a perfectly fitting cover, and fermented for several days; it is then opened under the nose of the sleeper. Possibly Porta had experimented on small animals, and had found that such matters, when fermented, exhaled enough carbonic acid gas to kill them, and imagined, therefore, that the same thing would happen if applied to the human subject. However this may be, the account which Porta gives of the effects of the solanaceous plants, and the general tone of the work, amply prove that he was no theorist, but had studied practically the actions of poisons.
The iniquitous Toffana (or Tophana) made solutions of arsenious acid of varying strength, and sold these solutions in phials under the name of “Acquetta di Napoli” for many years. She is supposed to have poisoned more than 600 persons, among whom were two Popes—viz., Pius III. and Clement XIV. The composition of the Naples water was long a profound secret, but is said to have been known by the reigning Pope and by the Emperor Charles VI. The latter told the secret to Dr Garelli, his physician, who, again, imparted the knowledge to the famous Friedrich Hoffman in a letter still extant. Toffana was brought to justice in 1709, but, availing herself of the immunity afforded by convents, escaped punishment, and continued to sell her wares for twenty years afterwards. When Kepfer[11] was in Italy he found her in a prison at Naples, and many people visited her, as a sort of lion (1730). With the Acqua Toffana, the “Acquetta di Perugia” played at the same time its part. It is said to have been prepared by killing a hog, disjointing the same, strewing the pieces with white arsenic, which was well rubbed in, and then collecting the juice which dropped from the meat; this juice was considered far more poisonous than an ordinary solution of arsenic. The researches of Selmi on compounds containing arsenic, produced when animal bodies decompose in arsenical fluids, lend reason and support to this view; and probably the juice would not only be very poisonous, but act in a different manner, and exhibit symptoms different from those of ordinary arsenical poisoning. Toffana had disciples; she taught the art to Hieronyma Spara, who formed an association of young married women during the popedom of Alexander VII.; these were detected on their own confession.[12]
[11] Kepfer’s Travels. Lond., 1758.
[12] Le Bret’s Magazin zu Gebrauche der Staat u. Kirchen-Geschichte, Theil 4. Frankfort and Leipzig, 1774.
Contemporaneously with Toffana, another Italian, Keli, devoted himself to similar crimes. This man had expended much as an adept searching for the philosopher’s stone, and sought to indemnify himself by entering upon what must have been a profitable business. He it was who instructed M. de St. Croix in the properties of arsenic; and St. Croix, in his turn, imparted the secret to his paramour, Madame de Brinvilliers. This woman appears to have been as cold-blooded as Toffana; she is said to have experimented on the patients at the Hôtel Dieu, in order to ascertain the strength of her powders, and to have invented “les poudres de succession.” She poisoned her father, brothers, sister, and others of her family; but a terrible fate overtook both her and St. Croix. The latter was suffocated by some poisonous matters he was preparing, and Madame de Brinvilliers’ practices having become known, she was obliged to take refuge in a convent. Here she was courted by a police officer disguised as an abbé, lured out of the convent, and, in this way brought to justice, was beheaded[13] and burnt near Nôtre Dame, in the middle of the reign of Louis XIV.[14]
[13] The Marchioness was imprisoned in the Conciergerie and tortured. Victor Hugo, describing the rack in that prison, says, “The Marchioness de Brinvilliers was stretched upon it stark naked, fastened down, so to speak, quartered by four chains attached to the four limbs, and there suffered the frightful extraordinary torture by water,” which caused her to ask “How are you going to contrive to put that great barrel of water in this little body?”—Things seen by Victor Hugo, vol. i.
The water torture was this:—a huge funnel-like vessel was fitted on to the neck, the edge of the funnel coming up to the eyes; on now pouring water into the funnel so that the fluid rises above the nose and mouth, the poor wretch is bound to swallow the fluid or die of suffocation; if indeed the sufferer resolve to be choked, in the first few moments of unconsciousness the fluid is swallowed automatically, and air again admitted to the lungs; it is therefore obvious that in this way prodigious quantities of fluid might be taken.