Medical Thoughts of Shakespeare

by Benjamin Rush Field

Thy uncle stole, With juice of cursed hebenon in a vial, And in the porches of mine ears did pour The leperous distilment; whose effect Holds such an enmity with blood of man, That, swift as quicksilver, it courses through The natural gates and alleys of the body; And with a sudden rigour, it doth posset And curd, like sour droppings into milk, The thin and wholesome blood: so did it mine, And a most instant tetter bark’d about, Most lazar-like, with vile and loathsome crust, All my smooth body. Hamlet, Act I., Sc. V.

It would indeed be interesting to know the source of Shakespeare’s knowledge on the physiological action of this alkaloid of tobacco. Most true it is that he has selected an excellent drug for his purpose in taking up the crude oil—Nicotia nin (hebenon). Birds will fall dead as they approach it; one drop is sufficient to kill a dog; and man dies in from two to five minutes after taking a poisonous dose: but the drug produces death by the failure of respiration, not by its direct action on the blood. “In nicotia-poisoning the blood is, however, not perceptibly affected. The amount of the alkaloid necessary to take life is exceedingly small, and although death by asphyxia causes the vital fluid to be everywhere dark, yet the microscope reveals only normal corpuscles. Moreover, Krocker has found that the dark blood rapidly assumes an arterial hue when shaken in the air, and that its spectrum is normal.” (H. C. Wood’s Toxicology, 1882, p. 370.) It is thought by many that Shakespeare did not intend “hebenon” to mean the alkaloid of tobacco, and very plausible arguments have been brought forward to show that he meant hebon or the juice of the yew. Dyer, in his chapter on plants, gives the following extract of a paper read by Rev. W. A. Harrison before the New Shakespeare Society in 1882: “It has been suggested that the poison intended by the Ghost in ‘Hamlet,’ (I-V.), when he speaks of the ‘juice of cursed hebenon,’ is that of the yew, and is the same as Marlowe’s ‘juice of hebon.’ (Jew of Malta, III-IV.) The yew is called hebon by Spenser and by other writers of Shakespeare’s age; and in its various forms of eben, eiben, hiben, etc., this tree is so named in no less than five different European languages. From medical authorities, both of ancient and modern times, it would seem that the juice of the yew is a rapidly fatal poison; next, that the symptoms attending upon yew-poisoning correspond, in a very remarkable manner, with those which follow the bites of poisonous snakes; and, lastly, that no other poison but the yew produces the lazar-like ulcerations on the body, upon which Shakespeare, in this passage, lays so much stress.” From these arguments there seems to be every reason for believing that Shakespeare did mean the juice of the yew, and it is to be hoped that the continual harping on this subject, as an evidence of his medical ignorance, will soon cease.

Recovered again with aquavitæ, or some other hot infusion. Winter’s Tale, Act IV., Sc. III.

I must needs wake you: * * * * Alas! my lady’s dead! * * * * * * * * * * some aquavitæ, ho! Romeo and Juliet, Act IV., Sc. V.

The second property of your excellent sherris is—the warming of the blood; which, before cold and settled, left the liver white and pale, * * * but the sherris warms it, and makes it course from the inwards to the parts extreme. Henry IV—2d, Act IV., Sc. III.

The rapidity with which aconite, in poisonous doses, acts, is forcibly shown in the comparison of it with gunpowder.

A hoop of gold to bind thy brothers in, That the united vessel of their blood, Mingled with venom of suggestion, (As, force perforce, the age will pour it in,) Shall never leak, though it do work as strong As aconitum, or rash gunpowder. Henry IV—2d, Act IV., Sc. IV.

Let me have A dram of poison; such soon-speeding gear As will disperse itself through all the veins, That the life-weary taker may fall dead; And that the trunk may be discharg’d of breath As violently, as hasty powder fir’d Doth hurry from the fatal cannon’s womb. Romeo and Juliet, Act V., Sc. I.

The curative properties of balm or balsam have been known and valued for ages past.

But, saying thus, instead of oil and balm, Thou lay’st in every gash that love hath given me The knife that made it. Troilus and Cressida, Act I., Sc. I.