3. That the post-mortem appearances after yew poisoning and snake poisoning are similar.
Later on, in the play performed before the King, Lucianus thus speaks of the poisonous medicine he uses:—
“Thoughts break, hands apt, drugs fit, and time agreeing,
Confederate season, else no creature seeing,
Thou mixture rank, of midnight weeds collected,
With Hecate’s ban thrice blasted, thrice infected,
Thy natural magic and dire property
On wholesome life usurp immediately”.
Here allusion is made to a mixture of poisonous herbs gathered at midnight, probably hemlock among others, as mentioned in the witches’ incantation in Macbeth, to which we shall refer later. With regard to the gathering of herbs at night, the practice was common, it being supposed that the properties of the plant collected at night were stronger than in the daytime. That there is a certain amount of truth in this is proved by the researches of Sachs and Brown, who have found from their investigations that starch is formed in the leaves of plants during the day, and is consumed during the night, so that the old superstition of the increased activity of the midnight gathered herb was not mythical.
Shakespeare’s well-known description of the poor apothecary of his time, which he introduces in Romeo and Juliet, presents an excellent picture of the needy practitioner in the sixteenth century:—
“I do remember an apothecary,
And hereabouts he dwells, whom late I noted
In tatter’d weeds, with overwhelming brows,
Culling of simples; meagre were his looks,
Sharp misery had worn him to the bones:
And in his needy shop a tortoise hung,
An alligator stuff’d, and other skins
Of ill-shaped fishes; and about his shelves
A beggarly account of empty boxes,
Green earthen pots, bladders, and musty seeds;
Remnants of packthread and old cakes of roses,
Were thinly scattered to make up a show”.[11]
One can readily picture the poverty-stricken appearance of the dark little shop, littered and crowded with the stuffed skins of curious fishes and alligators. One can almost smell the close musty odour blended with the aromatic perfume of drugs and the old cakes of pressed rose leaves, the manner in which they were formerly preserved for medicinal purposes.
The fashionably-dressed Romeo enters, after having made a considerable noise to rouse the attention of the old apothecary from his perchance much-needed repose, and offers his bribe for the poison. Of the purpose for which he requires it he makes little secret.
“Romeo.
Come hither, man. I see that thou art poor;