Apothecary

By Toni Mount

A yellow fog filled Gilbert Eastleigh’s apothecary’s shop with its sulphurous airs, nosing into every corner. Gilbert suppressed a cough as he poured the mixture from a flask into a bubbling retort. A new cloud of vapour spewed forth, hissing, writhing like a serpent, making the old man’s eyes water with its venomous breath.

Gilbert is the medieval ‘apothecary’ in ‘The Colour of Poison’ but what, exactly, was an apothecary and what did he do?

Medieval apothecaries were the equivalent of our modern pharmacists. An apothecary’s shop was full of various cures, most of which he prepared himself. He was usually a trusted member of the community, but at times, apothecaries were accused of practising magic or witchcraft. In an age before folk had easy access to doctors and when hospitals were religious foundations, more interested in curing your soul than your body, the apothecary was an ordinary person’s best hope of a cure or relief from an illness. Because apothecaries saw different people with various illnesses each day, most had a huge knowledge of the human body and herbal remedies.

Early in the Middle Ages, an apothecary would have cultivated all the plants and herbs needed for his medicines himself. Later, supplies became more organised, especially in cities like London, York and Bristol, with individuals growing plants to order for the apothecaries.

The recipes for the wines, syrups, cordials and medicines were passed down through the generations, from master to apprentice. They were closely guarded secrets too, since the most successful apothecary would have the most customers. While some apothecaries worked on a casual basis from their own homes, many had their own retail premises, usually a small shop. The front of the shop would have shelves full of medicines and herbs and in the back section, the apothecary would prepare medicines as and when they were needed. Ideally, he would also have access to a garden, where he could grow some of the less exotic herbs and plants he needed to prepare his cures. Some of the most popular medicines were prepared in advance, ready for sale, just as in a modern-day pharmacy. Other cures were prepared as and when needed, and were made up precisely, with the apothecary using his knowledge of the patient and the illness to prepare what he thought would be the ideal remedy.

Apothecaries were often spicers or pepperers as well. Because their work involved weighing out small amounts of herbs and spices for use in medicine, or for direct sale to customers, their trade was regulated by the Grocers’ Guild. It was impossible to separate the two businesses completely as both were involved in importing and distributing spices from abroad, for use in cooking and in the preparation of products such as spiced wines. In addition to food and drugs, apothecaries also sold inks and pigments to the stationers, beauty products and perfumes, substances used in fumigation and pest control and even good luck charms and novelties such as serpent-stones – what we know to be ammonite fossils.

A collection of medical recipes from the fifteenth century [now MS136 at the Literary Society of London] has remedies which make use of herbs that really could have performed the cure as intended:

For the Migraine take half a dishful of barley, one handful each of betony, vervain and other herbs that are good for the head; and when they be well boiled together, take them up and wrap them in a cloth and lay them to the sick head and it shall be whole – I proved.

A sick headache might well be eased by this poultice. Betony was a favourite herb in medieval times and was taken internally for a range of ailments. It’s still used today in treatments for nervous headaches and some types of migraine. Vervain is also used in modern medicine as a nerve tonic and as a calming restorative for patients in a debilitated condition. It too is used to treat migraine and depression.

For those troubled with digestive problems, this fifteenth century remedy would have helped:

To void Wind that is the cause of Colic take cumin and anise, of each equally much, and lay it in white wine to steep, and cover it over with wine and let it stand still so three days and three nights. And then let it be taken out and laid upon an ash board for to dry nine days and be turned about. And at the nine days’ end, take and put it in an earthen pot and dry over the fire and then make powder thereof. And then eat it in pottage or drink it and it shall void the wind that is the cause of colic.

Both these spices, anise and cumin, are carminatives, so this medicine would do exactly what it said on the tin – or earthen pot. The herbs dill and fennel could be used instead to the same effect – twentieth century gripe water for colicky babies contained dill. Wind and constipation were common preoccupations in the Middle Ages because folk ate so many pulses and little roughage, apart from cabbage.

Despite such suitable treatments as these, other remedies, despite the use of some exotic ingredients, could only have worked as panaceas. These concoctions are for gout:

Take badger’s grease and swine’s grease and hare’s grease and cat’s grease, dog’s grease and capon’s grease and suet of a deer and sheep’s tallow, of each equally much and melt them in a pan. Then take the juice of herb-robert, morell, mallow and comfrey and daisy and rue, plantain and maidenhair, knapweed and dragance, of each equally much juice, and fry them in the pan with the aforesaid greases, and keep it well, for the best ointment for gout is this. Or:

Take an owl and pluck it clean, and open it clean and salt it. Put it in a new pot and cover it with a stone and put it in an oven and let it stand till it be burnt. And then stamp [pound] it with boar’s grease and anoint the gout therewith.

A cough cure was more pleasant, consisting of the juice of horehound to be mixed with diapenidion and eaten. Horehound is good for treating coughs and diapenidion is a confection made of barley water, sugar and whites of eggs, drawn out into threads, so perhaps a cross between candy floss and sugar strands. It would have tasted nice and sugar is good for the chest, still available in an over-the-counter cough mixture as linctus simplex. Another pleasant cough treatment was coltsfoot comfits, like tiny sugary sticks of pale brown rock. King Henry III had the apothecary, Philip of Gloucester, supply him with 7½ lbs of diapenidion when the king visited the West Country in May 1265, along with 5lbs of grana, all together costing 7s 6d. My source for this [The Royal Apothecaries by Leslie G Matthews, 1967, pub by the Wellcome Historical Medical Library] suggests ‘grana’ meant aromatic seeds to aid digestion, like caraway or cumin, or it could have been Grains of Paradise, a kind of pepper. But ‘grana’ was also a name given to the exotic ‘kermes’ – dried scale insects, imported as a crimson dye. Could they have been used medicinally? Or was grana to be used to dye the king’s robes?

Another medicinal possibility is that grana was for dyeing the bed linen and curtains as part of the treatment of smallpox, in which the sickroom was swathed in red. Today we know this wasn’t so daft since red cloth filters out UV light, to reduce the production of scar tissue and to protect the eyesight of patients with smallpox or measles (these two diseases were hard to tell apart in the early stages anyway) – red light works for burns victims and would have decreased the pock marking in the case of smallpox. The medieval apothecary, like Gilbert Eastleigh in ‘The Colour of Poison’, was expected to know so much about such treatments, even if the reasons why they worked – or didn’t – were beyond the medical knowledge of the time.

N.B. One fifteenth century school book gives a list of collective nouns, including ‘a poison of treaclers’ (i.e. apothecaries who sold medicinal treacle).

Toni is offering a copy of her book, The Colour of Poison, as this week's giveaway -ADD LINK

About Toni Mount
Toni Mount earned her research Masters degree from the University of Kent in 2009 through study of a medieval medical manuscript held at the Wellcome Library in London. Recently she also completed a Diploma in Literature and Creative Writing with the Open University. Toni has published many non-fiction books, but always wanted to write a medieval thriller, and her first novel “The Colour of Poison” is the
result. Toni regularly speaks at venues throughout the UK and is the author of
several online courses available at www.medievalcourses.com.

The Colour of Poison is published by MadeGlobal.com
It is being featured in our giveaway section until May 1st. For a chance to win a copy, click HERE

Poison - hidden weapon of the Tudor wife

by Deborah Swift

The population of early modern England regarded poisoning as the most cowardly and unsporting method of murder:

of all murders poisoning is ye worst and most horrible 1. because it is secrett 2 because it is not to be prevented 3 because it is most against nature and therefore most hainous 4 it is alsoe a cowardly thing                                                                                  ~Sir John Coke

17th century poison cabinet or cunning woman's book

In 1663 Mary Bell was accused of killing her husband - six years earlier she had put poison into his food. This demonstrates one of the difficulties of poisoning - that it is an 'invisible' crime. Poison is a unique method of murder because it allows no self-defence, no chance for the victim to understand what is happening, and is often done secretly over a long time frame. Because poisoning involved planning and was done in cold-blood, it was perfect for those without social power. 

The servant classes, women and the weak were always the prime suspects in poisoning cases. Poisoning was a skill often linked to witchcraft - akin to the mixing of potions and charms. It was considered almost exclusively a wife's weapon because her main duty was to provision the house, and she alone was in charge of the cooking. Poison has always been linked with femininity.

In Tudor and Stuart England poisoning a husband or employer was seen as a kind of petty treason. This is because it challenged the husband's superiority, masculinity and domestic power. Men had a huge fear of being poisoned by their wives, but in actual fact there were very few cases. The cases that did come to light received enormous publicity, and poisoning was often featured in chapbooks of the time. In 1677 a pamphlet records a sixteen year old girl who admitted to poisoning her mother. Much was made of her treasonous behaviour, her cold-blood, her malice and wickedness, blurring the lines between witchcraft and murder.

Aqua Tofana, a poison, was known in Italy as 'inheritance powder' - a tool used by rich wives to murder their husbands. Supposedly Mozart died of Aqua Tofana poisoning. 

Right up until the Victorian era women had no legitimate outlet for violence in this society where men carried guns and swords and were allowed to use them in anger or to defend themselves from another's violent attack. Men's violence was seen as hot, the result of choler and anger; women's as cold, the result of bile and bitterness. Women could be beaten, within the law, but had little chance of retribution.

Men feared being poisoned because women were seen as harbouring a wickedness (thanks to Eve) that was waiting to erupt. In 1654 Jane Scales was supposed to have poisoned her baby. She said she had fed the baby sugar, but after the baby grew ill and died, the white powder was believed to be something far more sinister. Although she had no credible motive, she was found guilty, and the motive was malice or random wickedness.

The threat of the maidservant was equivalent to that of the wife. Resentful servants such as Liddy Wilson poisoned a whole household with ratsbane. Ratsbane was a common poison in this period, as was henbane, monk's blood, nightshade and arsenic. 

A 17th century peddler hawking his apothecary's wares

Poison was easy to obtain - there were no regulations governing its purchase, and many plants could be found wild. It was very difficult to detect once ingested, leading to physicians searching for 'signs' through an external examination. 'Signs' included altered skin colour, vomiting, strange bruising of the skin, even bleeding wounds. In 1662 the first autopsy to discover poison was performed on Anne Mennin by David Shevell and Charles Clerke. What the actual evidence was is not on record, but they pronounced that they had found 'the poison'. Nightshade berries perhaps?

In the case of Mary Bell, where it took six years to come to a verdict - the extra evidence was supplied by witnesses. Often witnesses were the main form of evidence. Margaret Armestronge said that the chickens ate Mary Bell's husband's vomit and they promptly keeled over and died. Such tales to bolster the evidence were very common and taken as tangible proof.

Because there was such fear of poison, the prevention and cure of poisoning was big business in Tudor and Stuart England. It was quite common to have mistakenly eaten poisonous roots, fungi or herbs, and physicians often diagnosed poison as the cause in the event that the patient deteriorated and their cures failed to produce better health. Add to this the nation's fear of poisoning, and you have a large market for peddling a cure.

Weird cures involved unicorn horn and Bezoar stones. A Bezoar stone (often from the Far East) was like a gallstone from the intestines of  a llama, goat or stag. The stone was said to detect and cure poison, and the stones were mounted like a jewel on a chain and dipped into drinks to counter the effects of poison. Queen Elizabeth I kept a Bezoar stone 'sett in golde hanging at a little Bracelett … The most parte of this stone being spent' implying that the Queen used it well.

17thC Bezoar stone mounted in gold

Needless to say, I shan't be dunking one of those in my morning coffee!

Sources

Murder in Shakespeare's England by Vanessa McMahon

The Recipes Project - cures for poison 

A Blast From the Past - Mike Dash's blog 

Early Modern England - Sharpe

chat to me on twitter @swiftstory

www.deborahswift.com

Double Cream & Strychnine

by A.J.Griffiths-Jones

Courtesy of Wellcome Images
Creative Commons

Strychnine. A colourless, highly toxic, bitter crystalline alkaloid most commonly used as a pesticide for killing rodents.

However, in the late 19th and early 20th century, this potentially fatal poison was used by those in search of a recreational stimulant and became popular amongst men seeking a drug that would both invigorate them and calm the nervous system. It was added to tonics and remedies across Europe and America, gaining a reputation for aiding neurological disorders and acute constipation. It was also known to remedy alcohol poisoning. However, there was a much more sinister use for strychnine, one that would etch it's memory upon the criminal court cases for decades to come. That of lethal poison for the seasoned murderer.

To understand how one might subdue a victim with a dose of strychnine, we must first understand what it is. The most common source of strychnine comes from small seeds, obtained from the 'Strychnos Nux Vomica' tree. It can be introduced into the body orally or may be administered by injection. It is a bitter substance to the taste buds, therefore was most commonly dispensed by mixing with some sweet tasting liquid or by concealment inside a capsule. The subsequent poisoning results in muscular convulsions and a torturous progression of symptoms, causing a long and agonising death, in some cases lasting up to two hours. The victim may first present with nausea or vomiting, which is closely followed by convulsions caused by the muscles contorting in a series of spasms. The facial features would become rigid, set in a grimace, and frothing at the mouth would occur. Eventually the victim would die of asphyxiation as the muscles in the stomach and throat inhibited breathing. To imagine the severity of such a prolonged and harrowing death, must cause one to wonder at the mind of a criminal who would choose such a drug as their 'Modus Operandi'.

Our first strychnine murderer was Christina Edmunds, the daughter of a well-known architect, from Margate, England. Edmunds was known simply as the 'Chocolate Cream Poisoner', due to her chosen method of concealing the strychnine. The second criminal that we will look at is Dr. Thomas Neill Cream, a medical man of Scottish-Canadian origins, who earned himself the moniker 'The Lambeth Poisoner" after the area of London in which he sought his prey.

Both criminals opted to use the same lethal toxin to eliminate their victims, but methods of administration and motive were far from comparable. Edmunds was an amateur poisoner, unsure of dosage and effects, whilst Dr. Cream had been using carefully measured doses of strychnine in both his personal and professional life for many years. However, the instigating factor in the cases of Edmunds and Cream was that their criminal activities began with the intention of poisoning just one victim but then escalated into a killing spree, resulting in both murderers receiving the death penalty. Additionally, in each circumstance, adultery was a key factor.

Christina Edmunds began her villainous career in the summer of 1870 by attempting to poison the wife of her lover, Doctor Charles Beard, by lacing a box of chocolates with doses of strychnine. It is reported that the affair was extremely one-sided and that Dr.Beard, not reciprocating Edmunds’ feelings, tried to end the relationship, which then resulted in the woman trying to do away with his wife. Unfortunately for Edmunds, the lady became violently ill but eventually recovered and therefore the cause of her sickness was not immediately discovered.

 In a similar tryst, over a decade later in Chicago, Illinois, Dr. Thomas Neill Cream wrote the prescription for an epilepsy tonic which was in turn administered by his lover to her elderly husband. The ensuing trial of both parties resulted in Julia Stott, Cream's paramour, turning state's evidence which guaranteed her acquittal whilst Cream languished in Joliet State Penitentiary for the next ten years. Eventually his sentence was commuted, after much petitioning, but by the time he was released in July 1891, Julia Stott was nowhere to be found.

Several months after her unsuccessful attempt to eliminate Mrs. Beard, Christina Edmunds began buying boxes of chocolate creams, which she took home and laced with strychnine, afterwards returning them to the shop for unwitting customers to purchase. She then began sending parcels of the confectionery to prominent people, including Mrs. Beard, which in turn caused the police to connect the large number of illnesses with the chocolate gifts. Naturally, the local shopkeeper became suspicious of the quantity of chocolates that Edmunds was buying, forcing her to travel to different vendors to avoid detection. Although only one death by strychnine poisoning was recorded, four-year old Sidney Barker, Edmunds was arrested and not only charged with his murder but also the attempted murder of Mrs. Beard. It seems that in hindsight, Doctor Beard had eventually informed the authorities of his suspicions.

In Cream's case, a decade spent inside Joliet did nothing but fuel his desire for retribution and after a brief detour to collect a rather healthy inheritance left to him by his father, he boarded a passenger ship to England where he would spend the next twelve months on a poisoning spree. Whereas we have seen that Edmunds was perhaps incited to act upon her instincts as a woman scorned, Cream's motives for vengeance were interspersed with the gradual onset of syphillis, which had become a constant source of debilitation during his incarceration. Both felons suffered varying degrees of insanity, however the causes were dissimilar. At Christina Edmunds' trial her mother testified that both sides of their family had a history of mental illness and this attributed to her original sentence of death being substituted with a life sentence in Broadmoor Criminal Lunatic Asylum.

Dr. Thomas Neill Cream had suffered a decade of nightmares, migraines and drug withdrawal symptoms during his years behind bars and, coupled with his desire to seek revenge upon womankind, had spent his entire sentence plotting how and to whom he would administer his lethal concoction. Initially he administered the strychnine together with a white liquid mixture of brocine, telling his victims that the tonic would help to clear up pimpled skin and give them a healthier complexion. However, after the girls complained that the medicine was too bitter, Cream ordered a box of gelatin capsules from a local chemist in which to mask the taste of the poison and make it more palatable.

Dr. Cream chose his London victims carefully; they were all streetwalkers living within the Lambeth area, a place that Cream knew well should he need to flee to his lodging house or lose the trail of ensuing police officers. In the case of each victim, Cream waited for opportunity to present itself and prepared the drugs in advance, whereas Christina Edmunds was actually unaware of the number of people she had poisoned until the time of her arrest.

Both criminals only ceased their toxic misdemeanors when they were arrested and charged. We can therefore assume that without the timely intervention of law enforcement, there may have been many more victims for both Edmunds and Cream.

Cream was tried and hanged at Newgate in November 1892, while Edmunds lived on inside Broadmoor until 1907.

It is worth noting that the hangman, James Billington, swore to his dying day that Cream confessed to being the notorious ‘Jack the Ripper’ as he stood upon the gallows. However, there is little evidence to prove the likelihood of this.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

For further reading on Cream, the author of this article has released a book named Prisoner 4374, an autobiographical account of the Lambeth Poisoner.

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