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Speaker 1: Are you a jilted lover turned bit of from every Tom,

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Speaker 1: Dick and Harry that comes calling. Are you a child

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Speaker 1: of wealth desperate to make progress through a little bit

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Speaker 1: of Italian nation or inheritance powder? If so, tune in

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Speaker 1: quickly to this episode of ridiculous history. My name is Ben. Ben.

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Speaker 1: Your fast talking's got my head spinning. Uh you made

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Speaker 1: me forget my name once again? Give me one second. Okay,

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Speaker 1: it's an old and it's true. This is ridiculous history,

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Speaker 1: and I'm gonna stay right at the front of the show.

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Speaker 1: I'm a little horse today, um as opposed to a giant,

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Speaker 1: luxurious steed. Huh worth it well, you don't know. I

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Speaker 1: think it gives a bit of gravitas to your statements

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Speaker 1: and hopefully our superp producer, Casey Pegram can fix it

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Speaker 1: in post. The man is a wizard, I am telling

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Speaker 1: you he is also. In addition to being quite talented,

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Speaker 1: Casey Pegram is also a very i would say, principled man.

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Speaker 1: That's true. If he was ever to slip you a mickey,

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Speaker 1: he would have damn good reason. Let me tell you

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Speaker 1: what it would be, a justified mickey. Yeah, we had

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Speaker 1: talked about this off the air. If either of us

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Speaker 1: ever walked by and saw a super producer Casey Pegram

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Speaker 1: dragging a body sized garbage bag down the street, we

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Speaker 1: would just pick up the other end and help him

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Speaker 1: move it, because even if it were a body, he

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Speaker 1: would have good reason for his actions. And you know

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Speaker 1: that that that the antiquated term slipped him a mickey

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Speaker 1: or her mickey I just used, typically referred more to

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Speaker 1: lacing a drink with a psychoactive drug or something that

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Speaker 1: would incapacitate someone, not necessarily kill them, like the mickey's

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Speaker 1: that we're talking about today would. Yes, ladies and gentlemen,

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Speaker 1: Today we are talking about the dark art of poison.

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Speaker 1: Not just any poison. However, we're talking about one of

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Speaker 1: the most storied, notorious, and for a time popular poisons

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Speaker 1: in human civilization. We'd like to introduce you to arsenic.

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Speaker 1: That's right. It actually earned the title the King of

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Speaker 1: Poison by the fifteen century, but it had a quite

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Speaker 1: rich history even well before that. Right, we know that

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Speaker 1: ancient Egyptians mind arsenic compounds. We know that in one

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Speaker 1: of the very very early pharmacological text the d Materia medica,

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Speaker 1: arsenic is also mentioned. Uh this is a naturally occurring

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Speaker 1: element that is just across the planet. And you can

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Speaker 1: find a map of naturally occurring arsenic here in the

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Speaker 1: United States. It's spooky, it's scary stuff. And the fact

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Speaker 1: that it was naturally occurring is one of the many

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Speaker 1: reasons that made it such a popular tool for getting

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Speaker 1: the job done, because it was easy to get because

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Speaker 1: of its use in everything from medication to pesticides to

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Speaker 1: industrial processing materials and things like that. And it is odorless, colorless,

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Speaker 1: and tasteless and dissolves in water and any other liquids

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Speaker 1: easily in its oxide form um. The word arsenic itself

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Speaker 1: comes from the Greek arsinicon, which meant bold or potent,

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Speaker 1: and that is an apt moniker for this little killer.

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Speaker 1: And we do know that even in ancient times people

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Speaker 1: were aware of arsenic's potential as a poison uh. The

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Speaker 1: first law against poisoning was passed in a D two

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Speaker 1: B c E. It was a Roman law that specifically

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Speaker 1: mentioned outlawing arsenic because it was used so often by assassins.

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Speaker 1: And no, I love that you point out the medicinal

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Speaker 1: or the perceived medicinal benefits of arsenic, because that's a

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Speaker 1: thread that we see continuing concurrently with its popularity as

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Speaker 1: a poison. And earlier, just a moment ago, we mentioned

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Speaker 1: that the fifteenth century is crucial to Arsenic's role as

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Speaker 1: a poison, used by everyone from jilted lovers to assassins

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Speaker 1: to uh wealthy Italian aristocrats. This is the moment where

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Speaker 1: if Arsenic was some sort of pop star, it's suddenly

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Speaker 1: recorded its breakout single. Yeah. And I think the reason

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Speaker 1: that that's a good way to put it is because

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Speaker 1: it actually had a substance had a huge impact on politics,

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Speaker 1: especially in Italy. Italians, as it turns out, had quite

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Speaker 1: the reputation of wielding this substance and poisons in general,

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Speaker 1: um for political gain. So in the Italian Renaissance, you

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Speaker 1: may have heard of the Borgia family and there was

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Speaker 1: a I think there was a Netflix series called The Borgias,

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Speaker 1: or maybe it was a MC or something like that,

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Speaker 1: but you can get it and with Jeremy iron Is

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Speaker 1: in it. But it chronicles this pretty shady Italian Renaissance

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Speaker 1: family that were quite powerful. In fact, Rodrigo Borgia who

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Speaker 1: actually went on to become Pope Alexander the sixwo so

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Speaker 1: no slouch and a big big social climbers these Borgia's um,

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Speaker 1: and he had two children. One was ses I think

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Speaker 1: hope I did okay, and the other one was Lucrezia.

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Speaker 1: And Lucrezia actually is the one who got sort of

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Speaker 1: a bad rap as being a poisoner, because there is

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Speaker 1: an opera by Donnazetti called Lucrezia, and there's a scene

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Speaker 1: in it where she apparently poisons several people five people,

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Speaker 1: and history doesn't really support that. In fact, she was

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Speaker 1: apparently quite a pious woman and died without probably ever

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Speaker 1: having poisoned anyone. Had just credit where credit is due upfront. Um,

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Speaker 1: We're getting a lot of this information from a fantastic

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Speaker 1: book called The King of Poison's History of Arsenic by

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Speaker 1: John Peascandola. So Lucretia seems to have her hands mostly clean, Um,

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Speaker 1: but her brother or sorry, Um, is the one who

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Speaker 1: really took this to the next level. And as we'll

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Speaker 1: get to you, it's interesting because poison got a bit

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Speaker 1: of a rap as a quote unquote woman's weapon. We'll

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Speaker 1: get to that later. So sorry, Porgia apparently was guilty

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Speaker 1: of just poisoning hundreds of people, dozens at the very

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Speaker 1: least Um in his pursuit of a political career. It

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Speaker 1: was like his m O, his modus operande. And what's

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Speaker 1: fascinating here is that poisoning via arsenic became so prevalent

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Speaker 1: and well known in Italy that it was considered a

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Speaker 1: formal method of assassination. And earlier in the beginning of

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Speaker 1: the show, you may have heard the phrase Italian Asian italianation.

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Speaker 1: I do love that Italian nation was the slang term

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Speaker 1: for UH poisoning via arsenic outside of Italy. I think

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Speaker 1: the Brits came up with that one, and very British.

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Speaker 1: And we'll get to how this ultimately spread from Italy elsewhere,

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Speaker 1: but before we do that, I just want to talk

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Speaker 1: about this. There were a handful of poison assassins that

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Speaker 1: that had that really made names for themselves UM. One

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Speaker 1: of whom was Julia Tofana La, which I love. All

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Speaker 1: of these assassins have these amazing shorthand names. UM. And

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Speaker 1: she her story goes a couple of different ways. There's

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Speaker 1: there's there's several versions of it. But one version is

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Speaker 1: that she invented this mixture, a harmless looking liquid um

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Speaker 1: that apparently UH as few as four to six drops

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Speaker 1: would be enough to quote destroy a man, and the

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Speaker 1: instable ingredient, this material, which was called aqua tofauna, is

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Speaker 1: thought to have been arsenic. And you got to think

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Speaker 1: about the time we're talking about where men ruled families

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Speaker 1: and governments with iron fist and women were nothing but chattel.

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Speaker 1: So to empower women with this material was lots of

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Speaker 1: fauna was able to do because you know, there are

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Speaker 1: many historians who say every woman in Naples probably had

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Speaker 1: a bottle of this stuff in their you know, medicine

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Speaker 1: cabinets among their perfumes, that only they would know which

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Speaker 1: one it was. This is this is a crucial point

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Speaker 1: because I don't know if we're jumping ahead too much

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Speaker 1: with this, but it seems like a good time to

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Speaker 1: mention the method of delivery that was that was employed

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Speaker 1: often in Italy. It wasn't an immediate death, and this

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Speaker 1: is a a instead a slow poisoning, so you would

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Speaker 1: have there's this old myth, I founder, this old legend

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Speaker 1: uh that said women in particular parts of Italy, to

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Speaker 1: keep their husbands faithful, would supply them with a small

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Speaker 1: amount of poison and then a small antidote. So they

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Speaker 1: had to keep coming back home. But regardless of the

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Speaker 1: rep veracity or falsity of that, we do know it

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Speaker 1: was true that people were being poisoned slowly rather than

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Speaker 1: immediately often. You know it's true. And I actually found

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Speaker 1: another fantastic article called Aquata Fauna, slow poisoning and husband

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Speaker 1: killing in seventeenth century Italy from website called a Blast

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Speaker 1: from the Past, and it's it's it's really kind of

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Speaker 1: just a blog, but it was written by Wow, it's

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Speaker 1: not even really credited as having an author, but I

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Speaker 1: checked everything and it had really great qualifying links and

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Speaker 1: just a fantastic article, specifically talking about the role that

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Speaker 1: women played in this whole poisoning epidemic and lots of fauna,

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Speaker 1: especially being kind of the one that jump started that,

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Speaker 1: and how a lot of her story is sort of

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Speaker 1: the stuff of legends. But to your point, then, the

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Speaker 1: idea of the slow poisoning was really important in very

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Speaker 1: devout Catholic Italy, right because it gave the dying husband

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Speaker 1: time to do a couple of things, one of which

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Speaker 1: was get his affairs in order. If you're talking about

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Speaker 1: this inheritance powder, making sure that the wife would be

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Speaker 1: well provided for, and the family would have all that

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Speaker 1: even needed after he passed, or the church would have

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Speaker 1: a donation, the church would have a donation, or that

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Speaker 1: he was able to repent for his sins. So this

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Speaker 1: is a really interesting thing because that slow meeting out

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Speaker 1: of poison through food or drink was really a crucial

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Speaker 1: part of this whole thing. And there's a fantastic quote

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Speaker 1: in this article from Chambers Journal, which was a magazine

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Speaker 1: started in eighteen thirty two by William Chambers. And it's

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Speaker 1: a little long. I'm just going to read part of

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Speaker 1: it just to kind of give the sense of at

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Speaker 1: the time how this was looked upon. Administered in wine

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Speaker 1: or tea or some other liquid by the flattering traitress,

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Speaker 1: it produced but a scarcely noticeable effect. The husband became

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Speaker 1: a little out of sorts, felt weak and languid, so

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Speaker 1: little indisposed that he would scare erstually call in a

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Speaker 1: medical man. After the second dose of the poison, this

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Speaker 1: weakness and languor became more pronounced. The beautiful media. See

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Speaker 1: there's a lot of language in here that characterizes this

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Speaker 1: woman as some sort of horrible, murderous, harpy type character,

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Speaker 1: like referencing media. But obviously, you know, in the political

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Speaker 1: landscape of the time, there's kind of a gray area there,

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Speaker 1: but we'll get to that later. This beautiful media, who

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Speaker 1: expressed so much anxiety for her husband's indisposition, would scarcely

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Speaker 1: be an object of suspicion and perhaps would prepare her

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Speaker 1: husband's food or prescribed by the doctor with her own

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Speaker 1: fair hands. In this way, the third drop would be

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Speaker 1: administered and would prostrate even the most vigorous man. Okay,

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Speaker 1: And then this is the last bit, to save her

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Speaker 1: fair fame, the wife would demand a post mortem examination,

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Speaker 1: resulting nothing except that the woman was able to pose

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Speaker 1: as a slandered innocent and then it would be remembered

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Speaker 1: that her husband died without either pain, inflammation, fever, or spasms.

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Speaker 1: This is important because for a long time, arsenic was

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Speaker 1: a difficult poison to identify. Not only was it odorless

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Speaker 1: and colorless and so on, but arsenic poisoning exhibited symptoms

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Speaker 1: that could easily be confused with symptoms of diseases that

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Speaker 1: were common at the time, such as cholera, which you

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Speaker 1: will remember from several other strange episodes we have done

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Speaker 1: on Ridiculous History. And because again it was naturally occurring

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Speaker 1: and considered medicinal. People were able to easily obtain arsenic. This,

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Speaker 1: you know, in our earlier episode on Guy Fox we

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Speaker 1: talked about the relative ease or difficulty of acquiring gunpowder.

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Speaker 1: It was much easier to acquire arsenic. And additionally, arsenic

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Speaker 1: was used in so many other things. We'll get to

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Speaker 1: that in just a second. I have a great list

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Speaker 1: for you know, but before we do, I think we

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Speaker 1: need to us some stereotypes here. The idea of poison

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Speaker 1: being so closely associated with Italy, this concept thrived because

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Speaker 1: it sort of justified the stereotypes that the French or

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Speaker 1: the British already had about Italians. They thought they were devious,

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Speaker 1: you know, Monty Burns asque handed rubbers, and they often

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Speaker 1: described it, you know, as an Italian nation or as

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Speaker 1: a an Italian method of murder, with the connotations being

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Speaker 1: that was somehow cowardly. But the French and the British

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Speaker 1: both were often using arsenic. They were just claiming it

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Speaker 1: was an Italian thing. It's true. It was actually Catherine

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Speaker 1: de Medici who married Henry the Second, who would go

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Speaker 1: on to become the King of France in fifteen thirty three,

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Speaker 1: who is given lots of credit for bringing the Italian

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Speaker 1: method of assassination to France, and specifically in using for

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Speaker 1: political gain. Yes, and by the sixteenth century, court records

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Speaker 1: revealed that cases involving poisoning were occurring regularly in Britain, uh,

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Speaker 1: if not frequently. Uh. There were about a dozen recorded

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Speaker 1: poisonings between fifteen seventy one and fifteen And of course

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Speaker 1: one of the most popular choices of poison was in

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Speaker 1: a stunning plot twist arsenic. Yeah, in France, Louis the

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Speaker 1: fourteenth got so weirded out by this whole thing and

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Speaker 1: feared for his life to the point that he established

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Speaker 1: a special commission with the express purpose of investigating this phenomenon.

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Speaker 1: It took them until sixteen eighty two to finish, during

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Speaker 1: which time a hundred and four people were tried, thirty

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Speaker 1: four were executed, and the rest were either banished or

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Speaker 1: got prison terms. And then this is the first time

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Speaker 1: you start to see maybe not super well codified regulations

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Speaker 1: regarding the sale of poison, but it was a little

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Speaker 1: bit more draconian, where if you were caught supplying someone

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Speaker 1: poison for the purposes of committing a murder. Whether or

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Speaker 1: not they succeeded, you would be subject to death yourself. Right,

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Speaker 1: So not a fine, not imprisonment, but a hard death

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Speaker 1: penalty if you are even accidentally associated with an unsuccessful

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Speaker 1: murder attempt. And as we trace arsenic in the world

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Speaker 1: of Western Europe, I guess as should say the region.

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Speaker 1: The saying the world of Western Europe sounded cool, you know,

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Speaker 1: had this time life vibe. Anyhow, as we see, the

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Speaker 1: laws were slow to evolve in step with arsenics evolution

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Speaker 1: in terms of popularity. In fact, before eighteen fifty one

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Speaker 1: there were no laws against selling poison in England. There's

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Speaker 1: just it just hadn't occurred to anybody that there should

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Speaker 1: be a law against that. And amidst the panopoly of

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Speaker 1: poisons available there, it was especially easy to purchase arsenal.

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Speaker 1: Now I like that one. Then the panopoly of poisons,

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Speaker 1: thanks so much man. Amidst this great selection, do we

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Speaker 1: mention the difference between naturally occurring arsenic and arsenic compounds

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Speaker 1: yet a little bit at the top of the show.

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Speaker 1: But why don't we circle back, because I think that

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Speaker 1: is a good point and something worth exploring just a

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Speaker 1: little bit further. Alright, So we mentioned that arsenic was

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Speaker 1: a known thing that occurred in the natural world, and

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Speaker 1: you can see it in soil, you could see it

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Speaker 1: in groundwater. But what is what is white arsenic? What

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Speaker 1: do we mean when we say that, Well, arsenic is

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Speaker 1: of course an element um, and the symbol is a S,

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Speaker 1: and its atomic number is thirty three with a massive

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Speaker 1: seventy four point nine, and it is in group fifteen

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Speaker 1: of the periodic table, along with things like nitrogen um, bismuth,

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Speaker 1: phosphorus and antimony um. And you know, so it is

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Speaker 1: considered a meta lloid. It is the twentieth most common

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Speaker 1: elements I believe in soil, that's right. And apparently it's

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Speaker 1: estimated that it's concentration in the Earth's crust goes from

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Speaker 1: between one to five parts per million, which means that

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Speaker 1: it is not particularly prevalent in the Earth's crust, but

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Speaker 1: it's associated with so many other metals and human activities

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Speaker 1: that it becomes more prevalent in the Earth's crust. And

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Speaker 1: this means that it is entirely possible for people to

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Speaker 1: receive arsenic poisoning without someone attempting to poison them. Right,

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Speaker 1: I think even in our Poison Squad episode where we

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Speaker 1: talked about adulterants and food arsenic low levels of arsenic,

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Speaker 1: that is was one of the potential adulter ince that

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Speaker 1: Harvey's Poison Squad we're we're looking at right. So white

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Speaker 1: arsenic then, is a poisonous trioxide of arsenic, which only

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Speaker 1: believe you mentioned at the top of the show. And

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Speaker 1: and it has legitimate uses. It's been used as a pesticide,

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Speaker 1: rat poison, it's been used to manufacture glass, but it

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Speaker 1: was just top notch when it came to being an

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Speaker 1: agent of mortality. But along with this, and I think

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Speaker 1: this this important to mention. I don't know if this

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Speaker 1: fascinated you as much as it fascinated me, But along

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Speaker 1: with this known use of arsenic as a tool for assassination,

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Speaker 1: it was also used in so many other things that

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Speaker 1: went into food coloring. It was used in beauty products,

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Speaker 1: uh such as Get this Arsenic complexion wafers. They were

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Speaker 1: meant for women who wanted to remove blemishes or felt

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Speaker 1: that their hands were too darkly colored. That stuff was

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Speaker 1: still available in the nineteen twenties. There's this excellent article

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Speaker 1: by Hanya Ray called When poison was everywhere available at

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Speaker 1: the Atlantic and it's it's a review of a book

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Speaker 1: called Bitten by which Fever, which examines all of the

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Speaker 1: different products that contained arsenic but were advertised also was

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Speaker 1: containing arsenic. Like wallpaper was huge. I had no idea. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: it was, I believe used in green pigment. I think

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Speaker 1: is where absolutely which is it was used in green

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Speaker 1: pigment and studying le popular due to a wallpaper manufacturer

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Speaker 1: in William Morris. But what people found is that this

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Speaker 1: green pigment was so dangerous in terms of its arsenic

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Speaker 1: content that it's some of that wallpaper is still off

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Speaker 1: gassing today, and books that collected William Morris's wallpaper, uh,

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Speaker 1: several of them have to be uh quarantined effectively, they

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Speaker 1: have to be contained because you can't flip through the

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Speaker 1: pages without getting arsenic poisoning, yes, just from like touching it. Wow.

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Speaker 1: Well then I think I for one really needed that

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Speaker 1: little diversion from all the uh the chaos and and

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Speaker 1: and death throughout history at the hands of those wielding arsenic.

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Speaker 1: So you know, a little tainted wallpaper is a nice

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Speaker 1: respite from this. But unfortunately we do have to go

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Speaker 1: back into uh this troubled history. Ah, yes to the history,

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Speaker 1: and troubling is a perfect word for it. Nol. We

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Speaker 1: mentioned earlier some stuff about France and some stuff about Italy.

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Speaker 1: Let's take a closer look at England. We see in

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Speaker 1: the Victorian era that it was as as you have

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Speaker 1: mentioned earlier, arsenic was considered a woman's weapon quote unquote,

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Speaker 1: and reviewing cases from England in eighteen forties, researcher Ian

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Speaker 1: Bernie found that in sixty of the cases uh the

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Speaker 1: accused party was a woman, thirty seven percent of whom

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Speaker 1: were charged with poisoning their spouse. And Bernie notes, and

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Speaker 1: seventy of these poisoning cases the poison used was arsenic.

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Speaker 1: It was much much more popular than the I think

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Speaker 1: the second most popular poison would have been opium, but

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Speaker 1: it was a distant second. And you know, you mentioned

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Speaker 1: again this idea of like arsenic being a woman's weapon.

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Speaker 1: It's such a derisive term. In the same way that

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Speaker 1: the Italian nation thing was a way to kind poo

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Speaker 1: poo the Italians and call them cowards. Calling it a

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Speaker 1: woman's weapon was basically saying the women were weak, and

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Speaker 1: the political landscape surrounding their use of this like I

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Speaker 1: read at the top of the show, largely. I mean,

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Speaker 1: of course, there there were very nefarious reasons to use

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Speaker 1: this material to have someone killed, but a lot of

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Speaker 1: times it was used by women to get out from

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Speaker 1: under the thumb of an abusive husband. Women were abused,

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Speaker 1: and it especially was true where a lot of these

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Speaker 1: high profile cases involved much more aristocratic members of society.

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Speaker 1: But as it turns out in England especially, it was

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Speaker 1: much more likely to be used as a tool of

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Speaker 1: those in poverty because they had no recourse to escaping

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Speaker 1: these horrible lives. It was even used on children, um,

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Speaker 1: when the family couldn't feed them anymore. Um. So there's

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Speaker 1: a real dark history there. So I think it's really

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Speaker 1: important when we talk about these terms that we you know,

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Speaker 1: talk about the context too that they were wheelded in. Right. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: is these became articles of oppression and tools of prejudice,

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Speaker 1: especially when consider that the data people were looking for

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Speaker 1: it was largely constructed to conform to their pre existing views. Uh.

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Speaker 1: And we see the rank hypocrisy here as well. But

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Speaker 1: we see another big problem when when we asked about

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Speaker 1: how they knew that arsenic was found in these cases,

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Speaker 1: they didn't really have a way to test for it,

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Speaker 1: so they would have to construct a timeline, you know,

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Speaker 1: like um ye old English version of casey back room,

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Speaker 1: Uh killed somebody with arsenic? How do they know it's arsenic?

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Speaker 1: The best way they would be able to detect it

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Speaker 1: for a long time would be to speak with the

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Speaker 1: person who sold it to him. Thus the law in

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Speaker 1: France right, it was the best way to find arsenic.

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Speaker 1: The first known case in which convincing proof of poisoning

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Speaker 1: ever showed up in court and take place until seventeen

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Speaker 1: fifty two in Oxford, England. Was that the one where

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Speaker 1: they found the residue at the bottom of the food bowl. Yes. Yes,

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Speaker 1: The accused party was a thirty one year old woman

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Speaker 1: named Mary Blandi. She was charged with poisoning her father

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Speaker 1: with arsenic And and you heard about this one too,

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Speaker 1: right we I think we both read about this. Mary

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00:23:23,280 --> 00:23:26,959
Speaker 1: administered the powder to her father in food and drink,

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Speaker 1: and he became ill, but also too servants who had

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Speaker 1: eaten some of the same food suffered the same effect.

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Speaker 1: And that's when they noticed this powder. And I think

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Speaker 1: that circumstantial evidence of the servants having eaten the food

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Speaker 1: too and come down with the same symptoms. Is what

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Speaker 1: probably led the judge to be like, well, clearly this

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Speaker 1: was not entirely um natural causes if there are several

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Speaker 1: people of different ages and health um experiencing the same stuff,

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Speaker 1: and there were very uh as this book describes non

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Speaker 1: specific can coal tests that were done, which to me

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00:24:01,880 --> 00:24:04,600
Speaker 1: just kind of says they probably weren't very good and

381
00:24:04,680 --> 00:24:07,159
Speaker 1: didn't work and weren't reliable, because, as we'll go on

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Speaker 1: to discuss, a real chemical test that actually unequivocally proved

383
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Speaker 1: the existence of this stuff in food or or corpses

384
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Speaker 1: wouldn't come along for a little bit later. And in fact,

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Speaker 1: the the nature of the tests in this case were

386
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Speaker 1: described as showing that the materials used in the you know,

387
00:24:25,359 --> 00:24:28,800
Speaker 1: the food behaved in the same way that arsenic would have.

388
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Speaker 1: So it's it's very very general stuff. She did actually

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Speaker 1: confess to putting this powder into her father's food, but

390
00:24:36,920 --> 00:24:39,840
Speaker 1: apparently she claimed to have not known it was poison,

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Speaker 1: And this is interesting. Part of the story is that

392
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Speaker 1: she was having an affair with a Scottish soldier by

393
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Speaker 1: the name of William Crawnston, and he heard that her

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Speaker 1: father had a sizeable inheritance that she was due to receive. Um.

395
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Speaker 1: So it's you know, he makes he comes off standing

396
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Speaker 1: like a pretty pretty big rascal in this story, a

397
00:24:59,080 --> 00:25:03,400
Speaker 1: real pill. Yeah. But he gave the poison to Mary

398
00:25:03,480 --> 00:25:06,399
Speaker 1: and told her that if she gave it to her father,

399
00:25:06,520 --> 00:25:10,520
Speaker 1: he would be more likely to accept their their romance.

400
00:25:11,040 --> 00:25:13,240
Speaker 1: That was how he put it. So she claimed that

401
00:25:13,280 --> 00:25:15,480
Speaker 1: she didn't know it was poison. Kind of played dumb

402
00:25:15,480 --> 00:25:18,080
Speaker 1: a little bit there. Unclear if she really believed that

403
00:25:18,200 --> 00:25:20,840
Speaker 1: or not. UM. Certainly doesn't make her come off looking

404
00:25:20,840 --> 00:25:25,399
Speaker 1: particularly sharp here, but um. The the jury did not

405
00:25:25,480 --> 00:25:28,520
Speaker 1: buy it, right. The jury did not buy it, and,

406
00:25:28,680 --> 00:25:33,240
Speaker 1: partially based on the arguments of the physician Anthony Addington,

407
00:25:34,080 --> 00:25:40,360
Speaker 1: Mary was hanged. Cranston fled to France and died soon afterwards.

408
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Speaker 1: And this all started bugging a chemist at the Royal

409
00:25:45,040 --> 00:25:50,159
Speaker 1: Arsenal in Woolwich, England, uh chemist named James Marsh because

410
00:25:50,200 --> 00:25:54,879
Speaker 1: he said that the test Addington conducted were suggestive of

411
00:25:55,160 --> 00:26:00,119
Speaker 1: arsenic but did not provide conclusive evidence. The kind of

412
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Speaker 1: stuff that we be open and shut in a court

413
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Speaker 1: of law, kind of the things we think about every

414
00:26:04,680 --> 00:26:07,320
Speaker 1: day now with forensics, you know, we take that stuff

415
00:26:07,359 --> 00:26:09,800
Speaker 1: for granted, but it's it's a pretty pretty big deal

416
00:26:10,080 --> 00:26:13,440
Speaker 1: and really eliminates a lot of hearsay and a lot

417
00:26:13,520 --> 00:26:18,000
Speaker 1: of very spurious evidence that could ultimately convict people that

418
00:26:18,080 --> 00:26:21,720
Speaker 1: were not guilty of the crime. Yes, and for instance,

419
00:26:21,720 --> 00:26:24,240
Speaker 1: he was called marsh was called up in eighteen thirty

420
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Speaker 1: two to test for arsenic in a murder case in Plumstead.

421
00:26:28,600 --> 00:26:32,800
Speaker 1: The accused party was charged with murdering his grandfather and

422
00:26:32,960 --> 00:26:36,840
Speaker 1: there was evidence that the grandson had purchased arsenic uh

423
00:26:36,880 --> 00:26:39,760
Speaker 1: purportedly as a rat poison. So they asked marsh to

424
00:26:39,840 --> 00:26:42,679
Speaker 1: test some coffee that had made several people in the

425
00:26:42,720 --> 00:26:47,600
Speaker 1: house sick, including the grandfather, and test the stomach contents

426
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Speaker 1: of the corpse. He was able to produce a yellow

427
00:26:51,560 --> 00:26:55,800
Speaker 1: precipitate which showed the presence of arsenic in the coffee,

428
00:26:55,840 --> 00:26:59,800
Speaker 1: but this didn't really seal the deal for the jury,

429
00:27:00,200 --> 00:27:02,280
Speaker 1: and he couldn't prove there was our sneak in the stomach.

430
00:27:02,520 --> 00:27:07,320
Speaker 1: The jury acquitted the defendant. The grandson, who later get

431
00:27:07,400 --> 00:27:09,679
Speaker 1: this came back and said, yeah, I did it. I

432
00:27:09,760 --> 00:27:13,880
Speaker 1: totally did it. Man, adding insults injury, especially for marsh

433
00:27:14,200 --> 00:27:17,520
Speaker 1: Um because he was incredibly irritated by this whole situation

434
00:27:17,640 --> 00:27:21,320
Speaker 1: and vowed to come up with a more um let's say,

435
00:27:21,520 --> 00:27:25,439
Speaker 1: stable test. So he kind of piggybacked off of some

436
00:27:25,520 --> 00:27:28,119
Speaker 1: of the work of a chemist by the name of

437
00:27:28,200 --> 00:27:33,720
Speaker 1: Carl shiel Um who figured out that arsenic acid reacts

438
00:27:33,800 --> 00:27:37,480
Speaker 1: with zinc and it creates this compound, this gaseous compound

439
00:27:37,920 --> 00:27:41,280
Speaker 1: um of arsenic and hydrogen that is called our sign.

440
00:27:41,560 --> 00:27:43,639
Speaker 1: And again this is all from King of Poisons, The

441
00:27:43,680 --> 00:27:47,439
Speaker 1: History of Arsenic by John Paris Gondola. So marsh was

442
00:27:47,480 --> 00:27:51,600
Speaker 1: able to improve his test by piggybacking off of this research.

443
00:27:52,119 --> 00:27:55,720
Speaker 1: So basically he was able to capture that gas and

444
00:27:55,760 --> 00:27:58,159
Speaker 1: it leaves a film on a material that he was

445
00:27:58,200 --> 00:28:00,720
Speaker 1: then able to test. Um. You had to heat it

446
00:28:00,760 --> 00:28:02,480
Speaker 1: and then he would test it, and then you could

447
00:28:02,600 --> 00:28:06,240
Speaker 1: tell kind of roughly how much arsenic was in the

448
00:28:06,280 --> 00:28:14,720
Speaker 1: sample based on the size that the film produced. So

449
00:28:14,800 --> 00:28:16,399
Speaker 1: this is a good thing, right, You could tell how

450
00:28:16,480 --> 00:28:18,679
Speaker 1: much arsenic was in the sample based on the size

451
00:28:18,840 --> 00:28:22,600
Speaker 1: that film produced, and then any other scientists worth their salt,

452
00:28:23,040 --> 00:28:26,280
Speaker 1: uh could test that sample and say, yes, there is

453
00:28:26,400 --> 00:28:30,080
Speaker 1: in fact arsenic in this There's no more questionable methods

454
00:28:30,119 --> 00:28:32,800
Speaker 1: we have, you know, we have a good system for

455
00:28:32,880 --> 00:28:35,640
Speaker 1: deciding whether or not this stuff is present in everything

456
00:28:35,680 --> 00:28:39,440
Speaker 1: from food samples to corpses. Post mortem, you can do

457
00:28:39,520 --> 00:28:41,959
Speaker 1: these tests on bodies, and then there is even a

458
00:28:42,000 --> 00:28:44,120
Speaker 1: better version of the test beyond that, where you could

459
00:28:44,120 --> 00:28:46,680
Speaker 1: detect smaller amounts, which is probably what you would need

460
00:28:46,800 --> 00:28:49,640
Speaker 1: for testing a corpse to find trace amounts, or you know,

461
00:28:49,800 --> 00:28:53,800
Speaker 1: see if there were amounts beyond normal atmospheric levels of

462
00:28:53,880 --> 00:28:56,160
Speaker 1: arsenics that would be found in a body long after

463
00:28:56,200 --> 00:28:59,400
Speaker 1: they had died. Yes, beyond what I've I've decided to

464
00:28:59,440 --> 00:29:04,560
Speaker 1: refer to as ambient arsenic. So yeah, Hugo Range develops

465
00:29:04,600 --> 00:29:08,160
Speaker 1: this quicker, simpler test in eighteen forty one, and we

466
00:29:08,240 --> 00:29:12,640
Speaker 1: see the dark magic of arsenic being whittled away by

467
00:29:12,720 --> 00:29:15,959
Speaker 1: the scientific method and the advances of the day. And

468
00:29:16,080 --> 00:29:20,240
Speaker 1: this leads to a tipping points. And I remember earlier

469
00:29:20,520 --> 00:29:23,600
Speaker 1: we had said that there were some initial laws royal

470
00:29:23,800 --> 00:29:26,760
Speaker 1: edicts that came into play with arsenic before it was

471
00:29:26,800 --> 00:29:31,680
Speaker 1: possible to test word effectively. Now that we, being human civilization,

472
00:29:31,920 --> 00:29:35,640
Speaker 1: can detect the presence of arsenic, you would think maybe

473
00:29:35,680 --> 00:29:40,360
Speaker 1: it's popularity dies down. However, not so, at least not immediately.

474
00:29:40,560 --> 00:29:44,000
Speaker 1: You see arsenic was still readily available and inexpensive, and

475
00:29:44,040 --> 00:29:48,080
Speaker 1: if you're poisoning someone, then you're hoping maybe this person

476
00:29:48,160 --> 00:29:51,440
Speaker 1: will not be of enough consequence to warrant a medical investigation.

477
00:29:51,880 --> 00:29:55,320
Speaker 1: Maybe they'll say, clearly they are choleras, so now let's

478
00:29:55,360 --> 00:30:00,240
Speaker 1: just bury them. And this eventually lead to par Element

479
00:30:00,360 --> 00:30:03,240
Speaker 1: saying we have to do something about this. The attempted

480
00:30:03,280 --> 00:30:07,160
Speaker 1: to pass legislation as early as eighteen nineteen to regulate

481
00:30:07,640 --> 00:30:11,520
Speaker 1: the sale finally, regulate the sale of poison and drugs

482
00:30:11,600 --> 00:30:17,240
Speaker 1: such as oxylic acid, corrosive subliminate or mercuric chloride and

483
00:30:17,320 --> 00:30:21,640
Speaker 1: of course arsenic. The drug store owners were concerned Big

484
00:30:21,640 --> 00:30:25,800
Speaker 1: Farma at the time, Cottage Farma. Yeah, Cottage Farma at

485
00:30:25,800 --> 00:30:30,959
Speaker 1: the time, I thought that this would interfere with dispensing medicine,

486
00:30:31,400 --> 00:30:36,680
Speaker 1: and they successfully opposed it, opposed this legislation and it

487
00:30:36,760 --> 00:30:41,400
Speaker 1: was ultimately withdrawn. But that was just the first volley

488
00:30:41,640 --> 00:30:44,680
Speaker 1: of a longer legislative process. Yeah, then things got a

489
00:30:44,680 --> 00:30:47,440
Speaker 1: lot more like you would see today with you know, um,

490
00:30:47,560 --> 00:30:49,440
Speaker 1: if you could go to buy cold medicine of the store,

491
00:30:49,480 --> 00:30:51,400
Speaker 1: like for my kid, I still have to enter my

492
00:30:51,480 --> 00:30:53,920
Speaker 1: name into a registry and show my ide to prove

493
00:30:53,920 --> 00:30:56,520
Speaker 1: that I'm twenty one. This is exactly the case, because

494
00:30:56,600 --> 00:30:58,880
Speaker 1: you know, you can use cold medicine to make methamphetamine.

495
00:30:59,080 --> 00:31:02,720
Speaker 1: So in eighteen fifty one this thing passed called the

496
00:31:02,760 --> 00:31:05,960
Speaker 1: Sale of Arsenic Regulation Act that required UM people buying

497
00:31:06,080 --> 00:31:08,560
Speaker 1: arsenic to be twenty one years old, and it required

498
00:31:08,600 --> 00:31:12,200
Speaker 1: them to fill in their information in a poison book

499
00:31:12,280 --> 00:31:14,200
Speaker 1: or a register, and then they had to sign for it.

500
00:31:14,400 --> 00:31:16,600
Speaker 1: So you could have like much more of a paper trail,

501
00:31:16,920 --> 00:31:19,440
Speaker 1: much less of a he said, she said, you know

502
00:31:19,480 --> 00:31:22,040
Speaker 1: who bought the poison kind of situation. So you know,

503
00:31:22,360 --> 00:31:25,240
Speaker 1: these things, these safeguards were put in place. It didn't

504
00:31:25,480 --> 00:31:29,160
Speaker 1: curb the use of arsenic entirely UM and in fact,

505
00:31:29,240 --> 00:31:32,520
Speaker 1: in the United States, while it was not nearly as

506
00:31:32,600 --> 00:31:35,120
Speaker 1: popular as it had been in Britain, the colonies or whatever,

507
00:31:35,440 --> 00:31:38,200
Speaker 1: it was still going on. And you know, you can

508
00:31:38,320 --> 00:31:40,040
Speaker 1: argue in the same way you can about any kind

509
00:31:40,040 --> 00:31:44,680
Speaker 1: of regulation, whether me filling out that cold medicine registry,

510
00:31:44,920 --> 00:31:48,200
Speaker 1: you know, for buying my my kids thera flew uh

511
00:31:48,320 --> 00:31:50,640
Speaker 1: causes people to make less myth amphetam me. That has

512
00:31:50,720 --> 00:31:53,360
Speaker 1: up for debate, but a story, and Catherine Watson said

513
00:31:53,360 --> 00:31:56,160
Speaker 1: that she was pretty sure that it did have a

514
00:31:56,240 --> 00:32:01,520
Speaker 1: gradual effect reducing poisoning crimes, especially was involving arsenic um.

515
00:32:01,520 --> 00:32:04,200
Speaker 1: But of course you could have situations where people would

516
00:32:04,200 --> 00:32:08,040
Speaker 1: maybe turn to other substances to poison their uh, their

517
00:32:08,160 --> 00:32:12,880
Speaker 1: enemies or mother in laws. Sure yeah, mothers in law. Uh.

518
00:32:12,920 --> 00:32:14,880
Speaker 1: You know, I think it depends on how many there are.

519
00:32:16,200 --> 00:32:19,640
Speaker 1: So just to set the scene for you, friends and neighbors,

520
00:32:20,040 --> 00:32:23,360
Speaker 1: my co host and I are looking a bit mournfully

521
00:32:23,400 --> 00:32:26,920
Speaker 1: across our table here in the podcasting studio because we

522
00:32:27,000 --> 00:32:30,640
Speaker 1: realized there's so many fascinating things about arsenic that we

523
00:32:30,720 --> 00:32:34,040
Speaker 1: probably won't get into in this episode. No. I have

524
00:32:34,280 --> 00:32:37,560
Speaker 1: with me a list of famous people who were probably

525
00:32:37,640 --> 00:32:41,760
Speaker 1: poisoned by arsenic as well as updates on latest research

526
00:32:41,960 --> 00:32:45,840
Speaker 1: about their deaths. I got so much stuff, man, serial killers,

527
00:32:45,880 --> 00:32:47,560
Speaker 1: we don't even get into that. But then I have

528
00:32:47,600 --> 00:32:51,040
Speaker 1: a story about a little village in Hungary where a

529
00:32:51,400 --> 00:32:55,200
Speaker 1: group of women were prosecuted for poisoning like literally everyone

530
00:32:55,240 --> 00:32:58,360
Speaker 1: in town because they were all horrible abusive men um.

531
00:32:58,800 --> 00:33:02,000
Speaker 1: I think yours sounds less pressing. Let's go with yours, man.

532
00:33:02,480 --> 00:33:04,719
Speaker 1: I don't even know if we can. We might have

533
00:33:04,760 --> 00:33:08,640
Speaker 1: to post this on our community page. Ridiculous historians just

534
00:33:08,720 --> 00:33:11,440
Speaker 1: rattle off a few just to give people a sweet

535
00:33:11,440 --> 00:33:15,640
Speaker 1: taste of that that delicious poison Alleged victims of Arsenic

536
00:33:15,840 --> 00:33:19,840
Speaker 1: wolf Gang. I'm Adeus mozartin and I'm sorry I interrupted.

537
00:33:19,840 --> 00:33:21,520
Speaker 1: You want to say I had that in my research too.

538
00:33:21,520 --> 00:33:24,000
Speaker 1: And there's a great quote from Old wolf Gang where

539
00:33:24,040 --> 00:33:27,240
Speaker 1: he speaks um more or less on his deathbed, where

540
00:33:27,240 --> 00:33:30,480
Speaker 1: he had fallen seriously ill um and he was convinced

541
00:33:30,800 --> 00:33:33,200
Speaker 1: that he had been poisoned. He says that he began

542
00:33:33,280 --> 00:33:35,560
Speaker 1: to speak of death, and then he said that he

543
00:33:35,680 --> 00:33:39,000
Speaker 1: was setting this requiem, the Mozart Requiem, which he is

544
00:33:39,080 --> 00:33:43,719
Speaker 1: most famously known for for himself. Quote, I feel definitely

545
00:33:43,800 --> 00:33:46,040
Speaker 1: that I will not last much longer. I am sure

546
00:33:46,080 --> 00:33:48,560
Speaker 1: that I have been poisoned, and I cannot rid myself

547
00:33:48,560 --> 00:33:52,360
Speaker 1: of this idea. Someone has given me aqua tofana and

548
00:33:52,440 --> 00:33:55,760
Speaker 1: calculated the precise time of my death. Please Ben go

549
00:33:55,840 --> 00:33:59,440
Speaker 1: on only thirty five years old, poor guy, Poor Mozzi

550
00:33:59,760 --> 00:34:03,360
Speaker 1: and Napoleon Bonaparte in eighteen twenty one, Alexander the Great

551
00:34:03,400 --> 00:34:07,440
Speaker 1: and three fifty six b CE allegedly Zachary Taylor in

552
00:34:07,480 --> 00:34:10,759
Speaker 1: eighteen fifty though that was later disproven. The list goes

553
00:34:10,880 --> 00:34:13,640
Speaker 1: on and on, Folks. You can read some of these

554
00:34:13,920 --> 00:34:17,279
Speaker 1: additional stories NOL and I found in full on our

555
00:34:17,560 --> 00:34:22,120
Speaker 1: new community Facebook page, Ridiculous Historians. We promised we're gonna

556
00:34:22,160 --> 00:34:23,480
Speaker 1: hop on there and put this up there right Ben,

557
00:34:23,520 --> 00:34:26,160
Speaker 1: We're gonna commit to it right now. Butter twin style,

558
00:34:26,560 --> 00:34:29,000
Speaker 1: boom done. We just put our fists together and lock

559
00:34:29,080 --> 00:34:30,440
Speaker 1: it in. Yet locked it in, and we made it

560
00:34:30,480 --> 00:34:33,640
Speaker 1: made up a little proof of magical dust. So we

561
00:34:33,719 --> 00:34:35,799
Speaker 1: are going to head out today. We hope that you

562
00:34:36,000 --> 00:34:40,399
Speaker 1: enjoyed our exploration of the strange story of Arsenic. We also,

563
00:34:40,640 --> 00:34:45,160
Speaker 1: of course, as always, like to thank our mastermind, super producer,

564
00:34:45,280 --> 00:34:47,960
Speaker 1: Casey pet Groom, who has believe it or not, to

565
00:34:48,320 --> 00:34:52,239
Speaker 1: this day still not being convicted of poisoning anyone. Well,

566
00:34:52,239 --> 00:34:53,839
Speaker 1: that's because it hasn't kicked in out. He's been giving

567
00:34:53,880 --> 00:34:55,680
Speaker 1: it to us a little bit at a time, a

568
00:34:55,680 --> 00:34:57,799
Speaker 1: little bit at a time, and before you know, we're

569
00:34:57,840 --> 00:34:59,600
Speaker 1: just gonna be begging him to take care of us,

570
00:34:59,600 --> 00:35:02,280
Speaker 1: in our for us and give us hugs and belly rubs.

571
00:35:02,400 --> 00:35:04,319
Speaker 1: I thought I had a cholera. Then we'll be in

572
00:35:04,320 --> 00:35:07,240
Speaker 1: the palm of his evil hand and on our way

573
00:35:07,280 --> 00:35:10,960
Speaker 1: to our arsenic riddle, the graves will be riddle. It'll

574
00:35:10,960 --> 00:35:14,000
Speaker 1: just be trace amounts probably right, Yes, Yes, our our

575
00:35:14,200 --> 00:35:17,080
Speaker 1: arsenic tinge the graves like it. We'd like to thank

576
00:35:17,120 --> 00:35:20,239
Speaker 1: Alex Williams for writing our theme song. Be sure to

577
00:35:20,320 --> 00:35:24,880
Speaker 1: tune in for our next episode where we reveal why

578
00:35:25,000 --> 00:35:28,239
Speaker 1: and how Germany sacrifice sausage for war. And as a

579
00:35:28,239 --> 00:35:31,120
Speaker 1: former little German boy, I in fact spoke like a

580
00:35:31,200 --> 00:35:34,520
Speaker 1: native and went to German kindergarten lived among the German

581
00:35:34,560 --> 00:35:36,960
Speaker 1: people until I was six years old. The Germans do

582
00:35:37,040 --> 00:35:38,600
Speaker 1: love a good voice, so I want to hear that

583
00:35:38,680 --> 00:35:41,280
Speaker 1: story about what would cause them to have to give

584
00:35:41,400 --> 00:35:46,239
Speaker 1: up that delectable treat in the name of justice, And

585
00:35:46,280 --> 00:35:48,760
Speaker 1: we can't wait to tell you in our next episode.

586
00:35:48,800 --> 00:35:51,600
Speaker 1: In the meantime, the old folks can find us on Instagram,

587
00:35:51,600 --> 00:35:53,759
Speaker 1: they can find us on Facebook, they can find us

588
00:35:53,800 --> 00:35:56,920
Speaker 1: on Twitter, where we are some variation of ridiculous history.

589
00:35:57,000 --> 00:35:59,880
Speaker 1: We're still wood shopping the pinterest. Ben and I have

590
00:36:00,160 --> 00:36:04,560
Speaker 1: combined our vision boards into a Megavision board involving dolphins

591
00:36:04,560 --> 00:36:08,359
Speaker 1: and color swatches and crafts. We're putting out some view

592
00:36:08,440 --> 00:36:12,880
Speaker 1: Master adaptations. Do you does anybody else remember view Masters

593
00:36:15,840 --> 00:36:18,279
Speaker 1: that one Yeah, can you hear the riveting tension as

594
00:36:18,320 --> 00:36:22,040
Speaker 1: you moved from frame to frame? Pictures of parks mainly yeah,

595
00:36:22,080 --> 00:36:24,920
Speaker 1: and there's there's like one picture of a of a

596
00:36:24,960 --> 00:36:28,279
Speaker 1: reddit meme that's not appropriate for work. But again, that's

597
00:36:28,320 --> 00:36:31,920
Speaker 1: all brainstorming and workshopping, is uh. If you have some

598
00:36:32,040 --> 00:36:36,680
Speaker 1: suggestions for a social media site, we should we should

599
00:36:36,680 --> 00:36:38,640
Speaker 1: move on to go ahead and let us know. You

600
00:36:38,680 --> 00:36:41,359
Speaker 1: can write to us directly. We are ridiculous at how

601
00:36:41,360 --> 00:36:43,880
Speaker 1: stuff works dot com and most importantly, we hope that

602
00:36:43,920 --> 00:36:46,560
Speaker 1: you will join us next time for another episode of

603
00:36:46,680 --> 00:36:53,600
Speaker 1: ridiculous history. Thanks everyone,