10 
POISONS ! THEIR EFFECTS AND DETECTION. 
partly from the works of J. Baptista Porta, who wrote a very comprehen¬ 
sive treatise, under the title of Natural Magic, 1 and managed to slide 
into the text, in the sections on cooking {Be Re Coquinaria, lib. xiv.), a 
mass of knowledge as to the preparation of poisons. There are prescrip¬ 
tions that little accord with the title, unless indeed the trades of cook 
and poisoner were the same. He gives a method of drugging wine with 
belladonna root, for the purpose of making the loaded guest loathe drink ; 
he also gives a list of solanaceous plants, and makes special mention of 
nux vomica, aconite, veratrum, and mezereon. Again, in the section Be 
Ancupio, lib. xv., he gives a recipe for a very strong poison which he calls 
“ venenum lupinum ” ; it is to be made of the powdered leaves of Aconi- 
tum lycoctonum, Taxus baccata, powdered glass, caustic lime, sulphide 
of arsenic, and bitter almonds, the whole to be mixed with honey, and 
made into pills the size of a hazel-nut. 
In the section Be Medicis Experiments 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 solana¬ 
ceous 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. The composition of the Naples water was long a 
profound secret, but it 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 2 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, dis¬ 
jointing the same, strewing the pieces with white arsenic, which was 
well rubbed in, and then collecting the juice which dropped from the 
1 J. Bapt. Porta, born 1537, died 1015. Neapolitani Magice Naturalis. Noapoli, 
1589. 2 Kepfer’s Travels. Lond., 1758. 
