12 
POISONS : THEIR EFFECTS AND DETECTION. 
[§ 7 - 
through the breaking of a glass mask while he was preparing some 
poisonous substances, and that Madame de Brinvilliers was courted and 
arrested by a police officer disguised as an abbe, according to Funck 
Brentano, has no foundation in fact. 1 
The numerous attempts of the Italian and Venetian poisoners on the 
lives of monarchs and eminent persons cast for a long time a cloud over 
regal domestic peace. Bullets and daggers were not feared, but in their 
place the dish of meat, the savoury pasty, and the red wine were re¬ 
garded as possible carriers of death. No better example of this dread 
can be found than, at so late a period as the reign of Henry VIII., 2 the 
extraordinary precaution thought necessary for preserving the infant 
Prince of Wales. 
“ No person, of whatsoever rank, except the regular attendants in the 
nursery, should approach the cradle, except with an order from the king’s 
hand. The food supplied to the child was to be largely ‘ assayed ,’ and 
his clothes were to be washed by his own servants, and no other hand 
might touch them. The material was to be submitted to all tests. The 
chamberlain and vice-chamberlain must be present, morning and evening, 
when the prince was washed and dressed, and nothing of any kind 
bought for the use of the nursery might be introduced until it was 
washed and perfumed. No person, not even the domestics of the palace, 
might have access to the prince’s rooms except those who were specially 
appointed to them, nor might any member of the household approach 
London, for fear of their catching and conveying infection.” 3 
However brief and imperfect the foregoing historical sketch of the 
part that poison has played may be, it is useful in showing the absolute 
necessity of a toxicological science—a science embracing many branches 
of knowledge. If it is impossible now for Toffanas, Locustas, and other 
specimens of a depraved humanity to carry on their crimes without 
detection ; if poison is the very last form of death feared by eminent 
political persons ; it is not so much owing to a different state of society, 
as to the more exact scientific knowledge which is applied during life to 
the discrimination of symptoms, distinguishing between those resulting 
from disease and those due to injurious substances, and after death to a 
1 For the court of poisoners ( chambre ardente) and the histories of St Croix, De 
Brinvilliers, the priest Le Sage, the women La Voisin and La Vigoureux, the reader 
may be referred to Voltairo’s Siecle de Louis XIV., Madame de Sevigne’s Lettres, 
Martiniere’s Hist, de la Regne de Louis XIV., Strutzel, De Venenis, etc. 
2 Henry VIII., at one time of his life, was (or pretended to be) apprehensive of 
being poisoned ; it was, indeed, a common belief of his court that Anne Boleyn 
attempted to dose him. “ The king, in an interview with the young Prince Henry, 
burst into tears, saying that he and his sister (meaning the Princess Mary) might 
thank God for having escaped from the hands of that accursed and venomous harlot, 
who had intended to poison them.”— A Chronicle of England during the Reign of the 
Tudors, by W. J. Hamilton, Introduction, p. xxi. 
3 Fronde’s History of England, vol. iii. p. 262. 
