Poison as a universal remedy for all problems: The most famous poisoners in history. The most famous poisoners

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Poisons, they are also toxic substances, these are chemicals that, when ingested in sufficient doses, can cause intoxication (poisoning) or death. Poisons can enter the body through the mouth, lungs, or skin, or be absorbed into the skin upon contact.

One possible way to classify poisons is to group them according to chemical and physical characteristics, such as acids, alkalis, alkaloids, industrial solvents, inorganic compounds, organic compounds, poisonous gases, poisonous foodstuffs.

In addition, poisons can be classified according to their physiological effects. A number of chemicals act as local poisons; among them:

1) caustic substances that destroy tissues upon direct contact (inorganic acids, caustic alkalis and phenol);

2) irritating substances, in particular compounds of arsenic, lead, mercury, zinc.

3) systemic poisons; they enter the bloodstream and affect the heart, kidneys, nervous system and other vital organs. This type includes cyanides, sleeping pills, opium derivatives and strychnine.

Since ancient times, there has been an idea that if nature has created a poison, then it has an antidote for it, you just need to be able to find it, and this is not an easy task.

If in diseases it was sometimes possible to find the correct path of treatment empirically, then in case of poisoning, superstition prevailed for an exceptionally long time. The explanation is not difficult to find: the poisoners kept the recipes of poisons secret, the charlatans were interested in intriguing the public. All this led to the fact that even sensible observations did not accumulate in medicine for a long time, and diseases were often explained by the action of poisons, and poisoning, on the contrary, by diseases.

It is extremely difficult to identify poison by symptoms alone. Peritonitis and acute indigestion are similar to poisoning by acids and metal compounds; apoplexy, epilepsy and cerebral hemorrhage - for drug poisoning; symptoms of a concussion - on intoxication. Sleeping pills and alkaloids often cause dilation or, conversely, constriction of the pupils. By the smell of exhaled air, poisoning with ammonia, acetic acid and cyanide (the smell of bitter almonds) can be determined.

Blueness of the skin (cyanosis) that occurs with shallow breathing indicates corrosive poisons, lead compounds, or poisonous foods. Damage to the oral cavity and stomach tissues, accompanied by vomiting with blood and mucus, is caused by poisoning with strong acids and alkalis. Dizziness, vomiting, and diarrhea suggest exposure to gastrointestinal irritants, food poisoning, or metal compounds such as lead, arsenic, and copper. Aconite, arsenic and lead cause paralysis.

The main sources of accidental fatal poisoning are ethyl (wine) alcohol, drugs (heroin and cocaine), barbiturates, lead, methyl (wood) alcohol and carbon tetrachloride. When committing suicide, they are most often poisoned by barbiturates, household gas, exhaust fumes and cyanide. Children under the age of six are often poisoned and die by taking iron supplements for candy.

Antique history - the history of poisoning

Greek myths repeatedly refer to poisons. Hekate - the mistress of shadows in the underworld, the goddess of ghosts and nightmares, a connoisseur of poisonous means; Medea - the heroine of the famous legend of the Argonauts - a sorceress and cruel poisoner. "Herbs of Medea" (aconite) are sung by Greek and Roman poets. In addition, the Hellenes had a "state poison", they called hemlock, which acquired a bitter reputation, being the cause of the death of many famous men in Greece. Pliny, Tacitus, Seneca write about the deadly hemlock in Roman times: "Cycuta, a poison, terrible when consumed, was used in Athens to kill criminals" (Pliny St.); "This is the poison with which criminals were killed in Athens" (Tacitus); "The poison with which the Athenians condemned by the criminal court are killed" (Seneca). Athens, like other policies, did not immediately reach democracy, but the reforms of Solon (594 BC), the rule and laws of Pericles (about 490 ... 429 BC) strengthened the democratic management, which must be understood as the existence of certain legal norms for all free citizens of the policy.

Interest in poisonous plants continued in ancient Rome. Thus, when vice and debauchery reached a high degree in Rome during the civil wars, suicide became a custom, and, in case of a good reason, it was possible to obtain a decoction of hemlock or aconite from the authorities. The Romans looked at voluntary death as a kind of valor.

The first "poisoning case" in Rome took place in 331 BC. Poisoning hit the noble patricians like an epidemic, to which they attributed what was happening. On the denunciation of the slave, the case went to the Senate: the patricians, whose names were preserved by history (Cornelia and Sergius), were found to have various drugs, but they assured that they were medicines, not poisons. However, when they were forced to show it on themselves, they died. During the investigation, 100 female poisoners were executed (Titus Livius).

Poisoning in Rome has become so widespread that food tasters are united in a special board, like other artisans *. And the ancient custom of clinking glasses so that wine splashes from one goblet to another. For what? To show that there is no poison in wine. The position of a food-checking slave was introduced among the Romans by Antony, following the example of the Eastern kings.

During the long principate of Augustus, there was a lot of talk about poisoning, but suspicions fell not on him, but on his wife Livia. Livia, a powerful and ambitious woman, subjugated the emperor to her will when choosing an heir. Augustus was very concerned about this issue, since his direct descendants - the grandsons Gaius and Lucius (sons of his daughter from his first marriage) died in the prime of life and youth, which was attributed to the intrigues of their stepmother. "Cruel stepmothers are preparing a deadly poison" - these lines from Ovid's poems went around in society. Gaius Caligula called his great-grandmother Livia "Ulysses in a woman's dress."

While all these events were taking place, Augustus's health deteriorated and some wondered if Livia's malice was there.

Emperor Caligula was also a connoisseur of poisons. He knew their properties, made various mixtures and, apparently, tested them on slaves. When a gladiator named Dove won, but was slightly wounded, Caligula put a mixture of poisons into his wound, from then on he called her "pigeon" and wrote down under this name in the list of his poisons. Caligula sent poisoned treats to many Romans. After his death, a huge chest filled with various poisons was discovered. Caligula's successor, Claudius, burned the contents of this chest, and the poisons and records of the poisoning emperor burned down. There is another version: Claudius ordered the chest to be thrown into the sea, and the waves washed the poisoned fish for a long time to the surrounding shores.

After the murder of Caligula, power, to a certain extent by accident, passed to Claudius, who promised the military rewards if they swore allegiance to him. Claudius was always under the influence of his wives and freedmen, who gained great power over him. By Messalina, Claudius had a son, Britannicus, and a daughter, Octavia. After the execution of Messalina, he married Agrippina, the mother of the four-year-old Nero.

One must think that the ambitious Agrippina put a lot of work, clearing the way to power for her son. Under his pressure, in the thirteenth year of his life, Nero was adopted by Claudius, and then Claudius married him to his daughter Octavia. Towards the end of his life, Claudius clearly regretted his marriage to Agrippina and the adoption of Nero. Claudius died from a poison prepared by the famous poisoner Locusta in Rome, a woman of Gallic origin *. The poison was served in mushrooms, Claudius's favorite dish. The physician Claudius (Tacitus) took part in the conspiracy.

It is assumed that Locusta used a poison based on aconite, but the Romans also knew hemlock. It is possible that the poisons were prepared from a mixture of these and other poisonous plants. Locusta received a rich estate and the right to have apprentices as a gift from Nero. She was executed by Galba in 68.

In this regard, we must also mention Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, who went down in history under the name of Caracalla. This emperor reigned for six years (211...217) and was killed, like many of his predecessors. Caracalla was wild, cruel and vengeful. After the death of Caracalla, a lot of poisons were found in the palace, which he received from Asia, partly as a gift, and partly paying a lot of money for them. Traditions call the names of his associates, who knew how to mix poisons and were engaged in black magic and alchemy. It is possible that Caracalla not only purchased poisons, but also resold them to the Roman provinces as a very expensive commodity.

Love potions, which included both poisons and magic, found a new home in Eastern Rome (Constantinople). One of the first emperors of Eastern Rome, Valens (364...378), published a law according to which persons suspected of poisoning were subjected to the death penalty. In the reign of Justinian I (succeeded in 527), when all Roman legislation was brought into the system, the laws become especially strict. All those who made love drinks, possessed the secret of witchcraft, poisoners were punished by death on the cross, burned or thrown into a cage with wild animals. Doctors were also punished if it turned out that the treatment was related to a crime.

In Byzantium, during its thousand-year existence in endless conspiracies and struggle for the throne, the defeated rival was usually eliminated by blinding, although it is known that poisons found their adherents there. In Byzantium, this custom was considered almost philanthropic and the death penalty was often replaced by blinding. The Varangians learned from the Byzantines how to blind their enemies. The Russian princes also adopted this custom. So, the Galician prince Dmitry Shemyako in 1446 blinded the rightful great Moscow prince Vasily, nicknamed the Dark.

Borja - the most famous poisoners

Italy preserves the traditions of ancient Rome, for Italian poisons and Italian antidotes continue to occupy a leading place in the history of poisoning.

In 1492, the Spanish royal couple, Isabella and Ferdinand, wanting to have support in Rome, spent 50,000 ducats to bribe the participants in the conclave in favor of their candidate, the Spaniard Rodrigo Borja, who in the papacy took the name of Alexander VI. In Italy he was called Borgia, and under this name Alexander VI and his descendants went down in history. The depravity of the papal court defies description. Together with Alexander VI, his son Cesare, later a cardinal, and his daughter Lucretia took part in fornication, incest, conspiracies, murders, poisonings. Wealth and power allowed Alexander VI to play a significant role in politics, but his heinous life was known among the people from the retellings and accusatory sermons of the Dominican monk Savonarola (Savonarola was accused by the pope of heresy and executed in 1498).

The high position of Alexander VI and the crimes committed in his family are reflected in countless records of contemporaries and subsequent historians. Not only chroniclers, but also the successor of Alexander VI on the papal throne, Pope Julius II, report poisonings of noble persons. Here are a few excerpts from old chronicles: "As a rule, a vessel was used, the contents of which one day could send to eternity an uncomfortable baron, a wealthy church minister, an overly talkative courtesan, an overly playful valet, yesterday a devoted murderer, today still a devoted lover. in the darkness of the night, the Tiber took in its waves the insensible body of the victim of the "cantarella" ... ".

"Cantarella" in the Borgia family was called poison, the recipe for which Cesare allegedly received from his mother Vanozza Cataneya, a Roman aristocrat, his father's mistress. The poison apparently contained arsenic, copper salts and phosphorus. Subsequently, missionaries brought poisonous native plants from South America conquered at that time, and papal alchemists prepared mixtures so poisonous that one drop of poison could kill a bull.

“Tomorrow morning, when they wake up, Rome will know the name of the cardinal who slept his last sleep that night,” these words are attributed to Alexander VI, who supposedly said them to his son Cesare on the eve of the holiday in the Vatican, meaning to use the festive table to poison the objectionable cardinal .

Traditions say that either Lucretia or Alexander VI owned a key, the handle of which ended in an inconspicuous point rubbed with poison. Being invited to open the chambers where works of art were kept with this key, the guest slightly scratched the skin of the hand, and this was enough for fatal poisoning. Lucrezia had a needle, inside of which there was a channel with poison. With this needle, she could kill any person in the crowd.

No less terrible is Cesare, who tried to unite the principalities of the Romagna under his rule. “His audacity and cruelty, his entertainment and crimes against friends and foes were so great and so famous that he endured everything transmitted in this respect with complete indifference ... This terrible infection of Borja lasted for many years, until the death of Alexander VI allowed people to breathe freely again."

The death of Alexander VI was caused by an accident. He decided to poison the cardinals he did not like, but, knowing that they were afraid of his meals, he asked Cardinal Adrian di Carneto to give up his palace for the day for a feast. Previously, he sent his valet there with poisoned wine and ordered that it be served to those whom he indicated. But due to a fatal mistake for Alexander VI, he drained a glass of this wine, while Cesare diluted it with water. The Pope died after four days of torment, and the twenty-eight-year-old Cesare remained alive, but suffered for a long time from the consequences of poisoning.

The Italian school of poisoners found new patronage in the person of the French queen Catherine de Medici (1519-1589), who came from a noble Italian family of bankers and rulers of Florence, the great-niece of Pope Clement VII. During the life of her husband, King Henry II, Catherine did not play any significant political role. After the unexpected death of Henry II (he was wounded in a tournament), she remains with four sons, the eldest of whom Francis II was barely 15 years old. Death quickly claimed this son as well, and Catherine became regent under the ten-year-old King Charles IX.

Catherine brought with her to France the traditions of the Medici house, at her service were performers, experts in black magic, astrologers, two Italians Tico Brae and Cosmo (Cosimo) Ruggieri and a Florentine Bianchi - a great lover of making perfumes, fragrant gloves, women's jewelry and cosmetics. The life doctor of the royal family, the famous surgeon Ambroise Pare, believed that poisons were behind all these objects, and therefore wrote that it would be better "to avoid these spirits like the plague, and send them (these persons) out of France to the infidels in Turkey" .

Catherine is considered the culprit of the death of Queen Jeanne d'Albret of Navarre, the mother of the future King of France Henry IV, an active member of the Huguenot party. was according to the recipe of Messer Renault, a Florentine, who after that became hated even by the enemies of this empress. Jeanne d'Albret dies from arsenic, arsenic was also found in a person who tried to poison Coligny. It is unlikely that the poisoned gloves caused the death of the Queen of Navarre, but contemporaries of the events described accepted this version. Birag, said that the religious war should be resolved not by the loss of a large number of people and funds, but by cooks and kitchen staff.

Another version tells of Tofana, who lived in Naples and sold for a lot of money a mysterious liquid in small vials with the image of a saint. They were distributed throughout Italy and were called Neapolitan water, "aqua Tofana" ("water of Tofana") or "manna of St. Nicholas of Bari". The liquid was transparent and colorless and did not arouse suspicion, since the image on the bottles of the saint made it possible to think that this was a church relic. The activity of the poisoner continued until the life doctor of Charles VI of Austria, who examined the liquid, stated that it was poison and that it contained arsenic. Tofana did not admit her guilt and hid in a monastery. The abbots and the archbishop refused to extradite her, since there was antagonism between the church and the secular authorities. The indignation in society was so great that the monastery was surrounded by soldiers. Tofana was captured, executed, and her body was thrown into a monastery, which hid her for a long time. Chronicles report that this happened in Palermo in 1709 (according to other sources - in 1676) and that more than 600 people were poisoned by Tofana. It is quite possible that the later poisoner, who not only lived in many cities of Italy, but also visited France, was called by the same name.

"The state is poison"

France reached its external and internal power under King Louis XIV (1643-1715). In his long reign, a centralized state is created, which he himself defines with the words "The state is me." Lush courtyard, prim etiquette become a model for all European countries. The 17th century is known in Europe as the century of Louis XIV. But against this background, like a cancerous tumor, crimes grow. "Crimes (poisoning) haunted France in the years of her glory, just as it happened in Rome in the era of the best days of the republic" (Voltaire).

Chronicles cast a shadow over many courts in Europe, where the passion for alchemy went hand in hand with the appearance of charlatans, poisoners and experts in black magic.

The first and most terrible thing happened in the middle of the reign of Louis XIV. The beginning was laid by the young marquise Marie Madeleine de Brainvilliers. Her life is so unusual that, in addition to the memoirs of her contemporaries, she is described in a short novel by Alexandre Dumas and in Hoffmann's story "Mademoiselle de Scudery".

They write that the fearless Marchioness tested the effect of poisons on the patients whom she visited at the Hotel Dieu hospital. The Marquise not only believed in the power of poison, but also made sure that doctors could not detect it in the body of a poisoned person. After that, the fate of her father, Dre d "Aubre, was resolved: the daughter gave him poison in small portions and after eight months of illness he died. However, most of the father's fortune passed to his two sons. killed both brothers within a year.Marquise became the heiress, suspicions began to fall on her, but at the autopsy of the corpses of her relatives, doctors did not find signs of poisoning.

Marquis ruined the case. A widespread legend says that Sainte-Croix died suddenly in the laboratory, poisoned by poisonous fumes, from which he protected himself with an accidentally broken glass mask. There are other versions of his death, but the fact of it remains irrefutable. Upon learning of the death of Sainte-Croix, the Marquise seemed to shout: "Little box!". According to other stories, she received this small box in her will from Sainte-Croix. The police tested the properties of the liquids in this mysterious box on the animals that died. Clouds were gathering over the marquise, but her youth, beauty and money saved her for a while, although she had other crimes besides those told. De Brainvilliers fled France after the arrest of her accomplices, hiding for three years in different places, but she was tracked down in Liege and brought to Paris. When she appeared before the supreme court of the Parisian parliament, the king ordered that "justice be done regardless of rank."

The Marquise de Brainvilliers was executed in 1676. By this time, a large number of alchemists appeared in France, including many people of the court. The search for the philosopher's stone, however, went hand in hand with poisoning. A woman enters the stage under the name of La Voisin. She supports the alchemists, takes part in the organization of the manufactory and, apparently, earns a lot of money. La Voisin is smart and observant, she is an excellent physiognomist and has compiled a classification in which she connects facial features with a certain character of a person. Her official sign was divination and fortune telling, but all black magic was part of her arsenal of interests: witchcraft, love remedies, and poisons created her advertising in Paris. "Nothing is impossible for me," she told her clients. La Voisin not only predicted the death of their wealthy relatives to the heirs, but even undertook to actually help fulfill her predictions. The French, who were inclined to ridicule everything, called her remedies "powder for inheritance."

La Voisin and her accomplices were sentenced to death, after which, during a search, they were found to have arsenic, mercury, many vegetable poisons, spanish fly powder and biological ingredients (animal remains, excrement, blood, urine, etc.), which were also regarded as poisons then.

The 18th century and the reign of Louis XV did not save France from political intrigues, where many conflicts were resolved with the help of poisons. Again, as in the previous reign, rumors of poisoning accompanied the illnesses and deaths of noble people. These rumors were fed by the fact that around the bored king there was a constant struggle for influence on him between his favorites and courtiers. She reached a special intensity when, in the course of a short period of time, the favorite of the king, the Marquise Pompadour, the dauphin, the dauphin and, finally, the queen died. Suspicions fell on the Minister of Foreign Affairs, the Duke of Choiseul, who was clearly accused of poisoning the Marquis of Pompadour. Chronicles say that the Dauphine Marie-Josephine, Princess of Saxony, also believed that she was poisoned.

Court and business

The beginning of the era of forensic toxicology was laid in France and is associated with the name of Mathieu Joseph Bonavunture Orfila (born in 1787). In 1811, he organized a laboratory at his home, where he studied the effects of poisons on animals, being most interested in arsenic. At the age of 26, he published the first book on toxicology and gradually gained fame as France's chief toxicologist. Having tried many methods for determining arsenic in the body of a poisoned person, he came across an article published in 1836 by the English chemist James Marsh, the inventor of a simple method for determining small amounts of arsenic. Using this new method, Orfila found that arsenic is normal in the human body, that reagents are often contaminated with arsenic, and that this can lead to erroneous conclusions.

1840 is considered the year of the birth of forensic chemistry. The case of Marie Lafargue, who poisoned her husband with arsenic, was heard. Orfila was invited from Paris as an expert, who "showed" to the composition of the court the metallic arsenic isolated from the body of the victim.

In practice, it turned out to be very useful to observe the ability of arsenic to accumulate in the hair, while arsenic remains, as it were, packed in the hair, moving as it grows from the root along its length. Thus, it is possible to judge with sufficient accuracy the time that has elapsed since the poisoning. However, when determining arsenic in a corpse after its burial, it turned out that under the influence of putrefactive bacteria, the insoluble arsenic of the cemetery earth sometimes passes into a soluble state, penetrates into the corpse and accumulates in the tissues.

Sensational was the case of poisoning, which was examined in the 50s of our century in France for more than 10 years in connection with these new data. The experts were such famous scientists as toxicologists Rene Fabre, Cohn-Abrest and physicist Frederic Joliot-Curie.

The 19th century can be considered the beginning of an era when the active principle began to be isolated from many plants. The first discoveries were made by Sertuner, who isolated morphine from opium in 1803; in 1818, Covant and Peletier discovered strychnine* in the emetic nut; Giesecke discovered coniine in hemlock, and two years later Possel and Reiman isolated nicotine from tobacco, Main in 1831 obtained atropine from belladonna.

The first crimes caused by the intake of alkaloids were the work of doctors, for they knew their properties before it became known to the general public. The criminals acted boldly, as they were sure of success: it was impossible to detect the poison. On November 15, 1823, when examining the case of the doctor Edme Castan, who was accused of poisoning his friends brothers Hippolyte and Auguste Balle with morphine in the hope of obtaining their fortune, the Attorney General of France de Broe exclaimed in despair: "You murderers, do not use arsenic and other metallic poisons "They leave traces. Use vegetable poisons! Poison your fathers, poison your mothers, poison all your relatives, and the inheritance will be yours."

Oscar Wilde in his essay "Brush, Pen and Poison" describes the biography of the young artist and writer Thomas Griffith Wainwright. This dandy, refined and gifted, commits a series of crimes for the sake of money with the help of a new poison - strychnine.

The confusion and indignation of forensic scientists forced analytical chemists to leave relatively well-studied mineral poisons and turn to methods for detecting plant alkaloids. As always, in a new business, successes gave way to disappointments, and although in the middle of the century color reactions were already developed that discovered many alkaloids in the body of a poisoned person, only the 20th century solved this difficult task thanks to the successes of physics.

Forensic doctors took advantage of all the methods of physics and physical chemistry and began to attract specialists in these new areas of knowledge to help. The same methods were widely used due to the fact that the development of the chemical-pharmaceutical industry led to the manufacture of new synthetic drugs, which were potentially extremely dangerous, as more and more new drugs fell into the hands of millions of people, which could also be used for criminal purposes. .

In the early 1930s, barbituric acid derivatives (barbiturates, hypnotics and sedatives) dominated. Various drugs of this class literally flooded the market: for example, their world production in 1948 amounted to 30 tons.

The Second World War brought a new wave of synthetic drugs: hard times, economic and social disasters led to the search for drugs that relieve nervous tension. Medicines were created, called tranquilizers (sedatives). All of these new synthetic drugs also have toxic effects when taken in large doses or when used continuously.

To the credit of today's forensic experts, it must be said that they keep close contact with specialists in the field of physical chemistry, not to mention the fact that many forensic laboratories are equipped with the appropriate physical and chemical equipment.

Currently, methods such as emission spectral analysis, atomic absorption spectroscopy, polarography, various types of chromatography, activation analysis, and some other methods are widely used to determine very small amounts of harmful substances.

Illustration: Proskurin Pavel

As long as there is a human society, so many of its individual representatives are looking for the most effective ways to send their neighbors to the forefathers. Poisons play an important role here. It is not known who first thought of treating the opponent with poisonous mushrooms. Perhaps it was the leader of some ancient tribe, and a certain “mushroom man” from his retinue experienced the deadly properties of specific mushrooms in advance ...

fatal legacy

To begin with, let's go to Italy of the 15th century, because this country occupies a significant place in the history of poisoning. In 1492, the Spanish ruling couple, Isabella and Ferdinand, who dreamed of having support in Rome, spent a fantastic amount for those times - 50 thousand ducats to bribe the cardinal conclave and elevate their protégé, a Spaniard by origin, Rodrigo Borja (in Italy, his called Borgia). The adventure was a success: Borgia became pope under the name of Alexander VI. The Dominican friar Savonarola (accused of heresy and executed in 1498) wrote of him this way: "While still a cardinal, he acquired notoriety due to his many sons and daughters, the meanness and infamy of this offspring."

What is true is true - together with Alexander VI, his son Cesare (later a cardinal) and daughter Lucrezia played an important role in intrigues, conspiracies, and the elimination of objectionable persons (mainly by poisoning). Not only contemporaries, but also Pope Julius II, who occupied the Holy See since 1503, testifies to the poisoning of noble and not very persons. Let us quote verbatim one of the chroniclers. “As a rule, a vessel was used, the contents of which could one day send an uncomfortable baron, a wealthy church minister, an overly talkative courtesan, an overly playful valet, yesterday a devoted murderer, today still a devoted lover into eternity. In the darkness of the night, the Tiber took in its waves the insensible bodies of the victims of the “cantarella”.

It should be clarified here that "cantarella" in the Borgia family was called poison, the recipe for which Cesare received from his mother, the Roman aristocrat Vanozza dei Cattanei. Probably, the composition of the potion contained white phosphorus, copper salts, and arsenic. Well, and only then some so-called missionaries brought from South America the juices of plants so poisonous that it was not difficult for any papal alchemist to prepare deadly mixtures from them with a variety of properties.

death rings

As the legends say, either Lucretia or Alexander VI himself had a key that ended in a tiny point. This point was rubbed with poison. The key was handed to the intended victim with a request to open some secret door "as a sign of absolute trust and disposition." The tip only slightly scratched the guest's hand ... That was enough. Lucretia also wore a brooch with a hollow needle, like a syringe needle. Here things were even simpler. An ardent hug, an accidental prick, an embarrassed apology: “Ah, I'm so awkward ... This is my brooch ...” And that's it.

Cesare, who tried to unite the principalities of the Romagna under his rule, was hardly more humane. The chronicler already mentioned above tells about him: “His audacity and cruelty, his entertainments and crimes against his own and others were so great and so famous that he endured everything transmitted in this respect with complete indifference. This terrible curse of the Borgia lasted for many years, until the death of Alexander VI put an end to it and allowed people to breathe freely again. Cesare Borgia owned the ring, where there was a cache of poison, opened by pressing a secret spring. So he could quietly add poison to the glass of his companion ... He also had another ring. From the outside it was smooth, and from the inside it had something like snake teeth, through which poison entered the bloodstream when shaking hands.

These famous rings, like others that belonged to the sinister Borgia family, are by no means fiction, some of them have survived to this day. So, on one of them is the monogram of Cesare and his motto is engraved: "Do your duty, no matter what happens." A sliding panel was mounted under the frame, covering the hiding place for the poison.

boomerang effect

But the death of Alexander VI could be commented on with sayings: “Don’t dig a hole for another, you yourself will fall into it”, “For what you fought for, you ran into it”, and so on. In a word, it was like this. The wicked pope decided to poison several cardinals he did not like at once. However, he knew that they were afraid of his meals, so he asked Cardinal Adrian da Corneto to give him his palace to arrange a feast. He agreed, and Alexander sent his valet to the palace in advance. This servant was supposed to serve glasses of poisoned wine to those whom Alexander himself indicated with a conventional sign. But something went wrong with the poisoners. Either Cesare, who prepared the poison, mixed up the glasses, or it was a mistake of the valet, but the killers themselves drank the poison. Alexander died after four days of torment. Cesare, who was about 28 years old, survived but was left disabled.

Cobra strikes

And now let's look at France in the 17th century, where no less monstrous events took place. “Poisoning,” wrote Voltaire, “haunted France in her glory years, just as it happened in Rome in the era of the best days of the republic.”

Marie Madeleine Dreux d'Aubrey, Marquise de Brainvilliers, was born in 1630. At a young age, she married, everything was fine, but a few years after her marriage, the woman fell in love with an officer Gaudin de Sainte-Croix. Her husband, a man of broad views, was not at all shocked by this connection, but her father Dreux d'Aubre was indignant. At his insistence, Sainte-Croix was imprisoned in the Bastille. And the Marquise harbored evil ... She told Sainte-Croix about the huge fortune of her father and about her desire to get it, finished with the unbearable old man. And so began this terrible story.

While incarcerated, Sainte-Croix met an Italian named Giacomo Exili. He introduced himself as a student and assistant of the famous alchemist and pharmacist Christopher Glazer. And this Glaser, it should be noted, was a very respectable figure. The personal pharmacist of the king and his brother, who not only enjoyed the patronage of the highest aristocracy, but also arranged public demonstrations of his experiments with the highest permission ... But Exili spoke little about these aspects of his teacher's activities, more about himself. Whether or not Giacomo lied about being close to Glaser, he said he was sent to the Bastille for "his close study of the art of poisons."

St. Croix, in love, was just what he needed. He saw a chance to learn this "art" and with open arms went to meet the Italian. When Sainte-Croix was liberated, he presented the recipes for "Italian poisons" to the Marquise, which soon, with the help of a number of knowledgeable (and indigent) alchemists, were embodied in real poisons. From that day on, the fate of the Marquise's father was a foregone conclusion, but the officer's young lover is not so simple as to act without a firm guarantee. The Marquise became a selfless nurse at the Hôtel-Dieu hospital. There, she not only tested the poison on the sick, but also made sure that the doctors could not detect any traces of it.

The marquise killed her father carefully, feeding him small portions of poison for eight months. When he died, it turned out that the crime was committed in vain - most of the fortune passed to his sons. However, nothing could stop the reptile - the one who started killing usually does not stop. The young beauty poisoned two brothers, sister, husband and children. Her accomplices (those same alchemists) were arrested and confessed. Saint-Croix by that time could not help his beloved in any way - he had died long before that in the laboratory, having inhaled the vapors of the potion. The Marquise tried to escape from France, but was captured in Liege, convicted, tried and executed in Paris on July 17, 1676.

queen of poisons

And soon the baton of poisoning was taken over by a woman known as La Voisin. Her "official" profession was divination, but she won fame for herself as the "queen of poisons." To her clients, La Voisin said: "Nothing is impossible for me." And she predicted ... But she did not just prophesy to the heirs the imminent death of their wealthy relatives, but helped to fulfill (not in vain, of course) her predictions. Voltaire, prone to ridicule, called her drugs "powders for inheritance." The end came when La Voisin became involved in a plot to poison the king. After her execution, arsenic, mercury, vegetable poisons, as well as books on black magic and witchcraft were found in a secret room in her house.

However, the collapse of the poisoner and the wide publicity of the circumstances of this helped little and taught few people. The XVIII century and the reign of Louis XV did not save France from conflicts that were resolved with the help of poisons, just as no era has saved any country from them.

Frederick Graham Young is considered to be Britain's most famous poisoner. He was only 14 when he poisoned his stepmother. Even while in a psychiatric clinic, Young managed to extract poison and poisoned staff and patients. Worried about his life, the clinic staff recognized him cured and set him free. Where Young again took up the old.

Frederick Young was born on September 7, 1947. His mother died almost immediately after giving birth. The boy was raised by his father's sister Winifred and her husband Jack. And although the father visited his son quite often, it was those whom he knew from early childhood who were closest to Fred. But a few years later, the father of the future poisoner remarried and took his son to him.

Later, psychologists will conclude that the forced separation from loved ones had a very strong effect on the boy's psyche. He decided that life is a continuous pain and disappointment. And offended the whole world. When Young grew up and went to school, he became interested in Nazism and the history of famous crimes. Later, the poisoner admits that his idol was Dr. Harvey Crippen, who poisoned his wife at the beginning of the 20th century and almost escaped justice.

When Fred was nine years old, relatives began to notice some oddities in his behavior. In particular, he bought a badge with a Nazi swastika from a junk dealer and wore it practically without taking it off. And one day, Fred's stepmother caught him rummaging through a dumpster. The stepson explained to her that he was looking for chemical elements there.

It is worth saying that Fred was really very talented. He studied excellently, and his knowledge of chemistry simply delighted teachers. After Fred graduated from elementary school with a commendation sheet, his father gave his son a set of young chemists. And the future poisoner enthusiastically set about experimenting, trying to extract poison from improvised materials.

One day, Fred's stepmother Molly caught him during an experiment on a mouse. The poisoner injected her with poison and watched her agony. The woman was shocked, threw the mouse away and yelled at her stepson. As eyewitnesses noted, in fact, between Fred and Molly there were quite normal relations. But that case was a turning point.

After his stepmother interrupted Fred's experiment, he became very angry with her. First, he drew a picture that showed a tombstone with the inscription: "In memory of the late hated stepmother - Molly Young." But it didn't stop there. A plan of revenge was already ripening in my head. Around the same time, he came across a book about a 19th-century criminal, Edward Pritchard, who poisoned his wife and son with antimony In its pure form, it is not very dangerous, but some oxides are extremely toxic.The symptoms caused by antimony poisoning are very similar to natural diseases, and often doctors do not state poisoning, but make an erroneous diagnosis).

It is very problematic to get antimony in its pure form in order to prepare a dangerous oxide from it. Especially for a 13 year old. But Fred Young's knowledge of chemistry delighted some veteran chemists. And the poisoner managed to get antimony.

First, he experimented on mice. For one of these experiments, Young invited his friend Chris William, who was also fond of chemistry. However, the poisoning experience made a deep impression on Chris, and he stopped communicating with Fred. He thought that his friend had betrayed him, and decided to punish him. For the entire first half of 1961, the poisoner slipped antimony oxide into a former friend's sandwiches. And he carefully watched how he was tormented by vomiting and convulsions.

Throughout 1961, Young calculated the most optimal dosage for poisoning. As experimental subjects, he used relatives, primarily his stepmother. In October and November 1961, his stepmother suffered several bouts of severe vomiting. Then the same symptoms appeared in Fred's father. The beloved Aunt Winifred did not escape poisoning.

Molly Young's health continued to deteriorate. The poisoner mixed ever-increasing doses of the poison into her food. Molly died in 1962. For some unknown reason, a thorough examination of the deceased was not carried out.

The body was cremated, and all evidence of poisoning that could be found in Molly's body was destroyed. From that moment on, Young finally decided that he could poison people with impunity.

The poisoner continued to poison his father, and he eventually ended up in the hospital, where he was diagnosed with arsenic poisoning. Fred Young, when he heard about such a diagnosis, was even indignant.

- How can you not see the differences between antimony and arsenic poisoning? he told the doctor.

The doctor at first dismissed the boy, but he began to carefully describe the symptoms of poisoning, which plunged the doctor into a real shock. Of course, Fred didn't say how the antimony got into his father's body. But the correct diagnosis helped the doctors save the man. The knowledge shown by Fred in poisons finally convinced his relatives that it was their child prodigy who was involved in the ailments of Aunt Winifred, father and stepmother. But Fred was very careful, and the relatives could not catch him by the hand. This was done by a chemistry teacher at the school where the poisoner studied.

The teacher also had some suspicions about Yang. He began to closely follow the boy and even secretly examined his briefcase. Where he found notebooks with drawings of people in death throes, detailed descriptions of the dosages of various poisons, bottles with the remnants of antimony oxide. But arresting a minor in the UK is not easy. And law enforcement went to the trick.

An experienced psychiatrist came to the school under the guise of a representative of a career guidance bureau. The doctor talked to Fred Young and made sure that he was clearly a psychopath. His official conclusion allowed the police to obtain a court order to conduct a thorough search of the Youngs' home. The police managed to find seven kinds of different poisons and many different mixtures of antimony oxide. Later it turns out that Fred experimented, choosing such mixtures that could somehow drown out the rather sharp taste of antimony.

Young initially tried to fight back. But law enforcement agencies played on the vanity of the poisoner. A little psychological pressure, a few compliments, an expression of admiration, and Yang “floated”. Soon he proudly told how he poisoned his stepmother and experimented on his relatives.

“I chose relatives because they are always there and I could keep a diary of observations of the results of experiments,” the young poisoner said during interrogations.

Young was subjected to a thorough psychological examination. He did not at all repent of his deed, with pleasure he told how he poisoned his loved ones. “He clearly lacks the concept of love for his neighbor, and there was not even an understanding in his thoughts that he must live according to some laws established in society,” the experts said in an official conclusion.

The case of the poisoning student caused a huge resonance in society. The Supreme Court of Britain, the famous Old Bailey, took the case into its proceedings. It is noteworthy that it was in this court that Young's idol Harvey Crippen was sentenced to death in 1910. The young poisoner was declared insane and sent to a psychiatric hospital in Broadmore. The verdict stated that Young could not be released until special permission from the Department of the Interior.

Young liked Broadmore. Despite the fact that it was a closed institution, but first of all it was still a medical clinic. Thanks to his wide knowledge of pharmacology and toxicology, Young quickly gained favor with some doctors. He helped laboratory assistants prepare medicines, gave junior staff advice on the use of medicines when there were no doctors nearby. And soon he achieved that he was given a "green card", a kind of pass that allowed Young to walk in the yard without supervision and opened the doors to most of the clinic's premises. Including some laboratories.

The first suspicions that they had done something stupid appeared among the clinic staff after the death of the killer John Berridge. An autopsy revealed that he died from cyanide poisoning. Although Young did not have access to potassium cyanide, one of the patients recalled Fred telling other patients about how to isolate this poison from the leaves of a laurel growing in the yard. But Yang was not suspected.

And later, the clinic staff and patients often began to experience pain in the stomach, vomiting, and convulsions. An internal investigation revealed that only Young, who had access to most of the facilities, had the ability to poison staff and patients. But there was no direct evidence for this. And the doctors decided to get rid of Young ... releasing him to freedom.

The first step in this plan was to allow Yang to celebrate Christmas with Aunt Winifred. After the holiday, he again returned to the clinic. By that time, a conclusion had already been sent to the Ministry of Internal Affairs that Young had completely recovered and could be released. But the poisoner himself did not know this. Taking a sip of freedom, he returned to the clinic very offended. It was then that he wrote in his diary: "When I get out of here, I will kill one person for every year spent here." This recording will be discovered after the second arrest of Young.

In early 1971, 23-year-old Frederick Young was released after spending 9 years in the clinic. Almost immediately, he left for a neighboring county, in which no one knew about his addictions. In April 1971, Young got a job as a storekeeper in a company manufacturing high-precision optical equipment and photographic equipment. The poisoner quickly won trust in the firm. The employees of the company considered Yang an executive, quiet and modest young man. And Ron Havit, who prepared his successor from Young, generally became the newcomer's best friend.

Hevit took care of Young in every possible way, treated him to cigarettes, lent money, invited him to the pub after work. And the poisoner paid him "experiments", mixing poison into tea and food. However, not only to him. This time Yang decided to try something new. He used thallium as the main ingredient in his mixtures.

Warehouse manager Bob Egle was hospitalized soon after. He was diagnosed with indigestion, convulsions and vomiting. Soon Havit fell ill with the same symptoms, and then several other employees of the company felt similar symptoms.

On July 7, 1971, Egle died. An autopsy was not performed, as the doctors were sure that he died of bronchial pneumonia caused by pyelonephritis. But Yang still calmed down for a while. In September, he went back to his old ways.

The next victim of the poisoner was Fred Biggs. For almost three weeks he suffered from convulsions and stomach pains, after which he died. Yang was very lamented:

“Poor Fred! This is terrible! I can't understand how it happened. I loved him so...

A few days later, four more employees of the company “fell ill”. Two lost their hair, they all experienced stomach pains and a nervous breakdown. The company's management was worried about the "epidemic": after all, rumors could cause serious damage to the reputation. Businessmen, secretly from employees, turned to Dr. Ian Andersen. He carefully checked the premises of the company for possible infection, talked with the staff. Young employee Young's deep knowledge of chemistry amazed the doctor. He advised the company's management to carefully check the young storekeeper.

And they turned to Scotland Yard, from where they received information about the past of the executive storekeeper. Forensic experts conducted a thorough examination of all the sick and the remains of the dead. All had traces of thallium. The police decided to detain Yang.

A vial of thallium was found in the poisoner's pocket, and a list of victims was found in his apartment. Two of whom had already died, and the rest were still fighting for their lives. Despite such “lethal” evidence, Young at first denied his involvement in the poisonings, but the desire to boast still overpowered. The poisoner began to talk about his crimes. “I stopped seeing them as people like me. For me, they became guinea pigs,” he said during interrogations.

But when he was asked why he confesses, because he will be put on life imprisonment, Young shrugged his shoulders and said:

- You still need to prove my guilt, and at the trial I will refuse everything.

He did retract his testimony at the trial, but that didn't help. Too much evidence testified against him. Therefore, the jury found him guilty on all counts, and the court in July 1972 sentenced him to life imprisonment. But Yang already knew that the conclusion of psychiatrists allows him to hope not for prison, but for a psychiatric clinic. And so it happened: the poisoner was sent to the Park Lane clinic, near Liverpool.

And although in the new clinic the poisoner was not given such freedom of action as in Broadmore, he managed to distinguish himself there. In 1990, the poisoner managed to grow a poisonous mushroom, which he mixed with his excrement. After drying this mass, a potent poison should have been obtained. Young was immediately sent to the maximum security prison at Parkhurst on the Isle of Wight. Where he died on August 22 of the same year. The official cause of death was a heart attack. But in some media there was information that the death of the famous poisoner was by no means accidental. However, evidence for this has never been found.