JIST

Poisons in Myths, Legends, Folklore, Literature, and Movies

Poisons have always interested me, especially exotic poisons discussed in literature, movies, myths, and legends. Very frequently, I get requests from potential authors writing a mystery story or novel to tell them about a poison, which could possibly kill a person in this-or-that way. Many of them have weird notions about poisons. For instance, it takes quite some time to convince them that we do know the taste of cyanide (it is slightly bitter), and that it is not such a quick poison that nobody lives to tell its taste. The lore of poisons is full of mystery and intrigue, and I have always wanted to share my thoughts on this. That is why when Professor Pillay gave me this rare honour to write a guest editorial for his excellent journal, I could not contain my desire to write something on this fascinating subject.

One legendary poison tree that fascinates me is Bohun Upas, the so-called “tree of poisons.” Legend has it, that it produced toxic fumes which could kill plants and animals for miles around. If one slept under its shade, he would never awaken. It is even said that the Malaysians executed their prisoners by tying them to the trunk of this great tree! By 15th century, the lore of this tree had grown so much, that highly stylized drawings of the Bohun Upas were in some of the first printed books. We of course now know that there is no such tree. The closest that I can think of to the Bohun Upas is the Bausor Tree (Antiaris toxicaria), which produces a poisonous latex used by natives on arrow tips.

A lot of folklore, and many legends are associated with aconite (Aconitum napellus), one of my favorites.

Commonly known as monk’s hood (because of the shape of its flower), it was known as far back in time as during the Anglo-Saxon times. It was then called “thung.” The term “thung” later came to be used for any highly poisonous plant. Several tribes used it as a weapon by coating their spears and arrowheads with its strong poison. The plant was used for killing panthers, wolves (the reason for it being called “wolfsbane”), and other carnivores. The Greeks termed it “lycotonum,” and believed that aconite was the first poison created, made by Hecate from the foam of Cerberus. Aconite was used as an arrow poison in primitive Europe, Alaska, and Asia. On the Greek island of Chios, aconite was used for the euthanasia of old and infirm men. It was often used for criminal purposes. Claudius I, Emperor of Rome, is said to have been slain by his own physician who gave him aconite by treachery. It was so often used for political assassinations that the Roman emperor Trajan banned its cultivation altogether. Anyone caught gardening these flowers risked a penalty of death. Gerard, an herbalist of Queen Elizabeth’s time, wrote, “There hath been little heretofore set down concerning the virtues of aconite, but much might be saide of the hurts that have come thereby.” When Hamlet faced Laertes in a duel, the latter covered his blade in juices from monk’s hood. Surprisingly, aconite continues to be used in recent times too. In a series of recent infamous trials in Japan, three women and one man were proven to have collected millions of yen in their murder-for-insurance ring; the women prepared for their husbands sweet-bean buns laced with monk’s hood. The trials ended in 2002, and all received long prison terms.

Poison smoke is something which catches my imagination sometimes. The Chinese were famous for using chemicals to generate it. They would pump smoke from burning mustard and other toxic plants into tunnels of the enemy. They also used burning pepper (as a poisonous smoke) as a weapon. They used the so-called “stink pots”, which consisted of pepper burned in oil, causing irritating and suffocating smoke. The Japanese used finely ground pepper which was put in thin rice paper pouches and thrown at the faces of their adversaries to temporarily blind them. The Indian schools of martial arts, (which gave birth to many Far Eastern schools of hand-to-hand combat through Indian Buddhist missionaries) such as Kalaripayattu, Vajramushti, Marman, and Kara-hatse (the forefather of Karate), are among those who have applied forms of pepper as a combative tool.

Deadly nightshade (Atropa belladonna) is another of my favorites. This is the plant that supposedly poisoned the troops of Marcus Antonius during the Parthian wars. It was used almost regularly in Europe for homicidal poisonings. Five to ten berries can kill a person. It was used by primitive people as an arrow poison, and was common in Rome. Livia and Agrippina both used it to kill off rivals. The Romans used the plant as a type of “weapon” to contaminate their enemies’ food reserves. In 184 BC, Hannibal’s army used belladonna plants to induce disorientation. According to Buchanan’s History of Scotland, when Duncan I was King of Scotland, Macbeth’s soldiers poisoned a whole army of Danes with a liquor treated by an infusion of “Dwale” – an infusion of belladonna – supplied to them during a truce. Suspecting nothing, the invaders drank, and were easily overpowered and murdered in their sleep by the Scots. The Bishop of Münster in 1672 AD, attempted to use belladonna-containing grenades in an assault on the city of Gröningen. Cesare Borgia had a fondness for belladonna during the Renaissance. This chemical was also the infamous “truth serum” that was used in so many legal battles and court cases of days past. This “serum” caused many concerns, as a possible use for “brain-washing.” In one of Tintin’s stories (Flight 714), the villain Rastapopoulos asks his doctors to inject belladonna into the millionaire Carreidas, so he would divulge some secret information (see figure).

Surprisingly, the drug continues to be used today in narcoanalysis. The Russian Secret Service, The CIA, and even the CBI (of India) have been accused time and again to have used this drug for getting the “facts” out of criminals, traitors, and terrorists. I am not a very great fan of its use in narcoanalysis, as its efficacy is not scientifically proven, and certainly it does not pass the stringent Daubert test required by all courts in the US. Indian courts do not talk of Daubert test overtly, but they have virtually the same view on these tests. Some refinements are needed before we can use this drug as a true truth serum. Belladonna appeared during World War II in a different context. The Germans had invented a type of nerve gas that was odourless, colourless, and very deadly. The only antidote to prevent the paralyzing effect of this gas was atropine from belladonna. Luckily, the German gas was never used in actual combat.

One poison depicted in a film that intrigues me is the one highlighted in Snow White, a 1987 film based on the classic fairytale. In the film adaptation, Snow White’s jealous stepmother attempts to kill her using a poison comb, and finally a poison apple. What was in that poison apple? No one knows. But we can make a reasonable guess. After tasting the poisoned apple, Snow White lies in a state of sleep, until she is later woken by a handsome Prince. Some kind of narcotic? Morphine? Doesn’t seem very credible, as all alkaloids have a bitter taste. It has to be a tasteless narcotic, which could be injected by a syringe. I know of none. Poisoned apples of course remind all of us of apple pips, which contain cyanide. Could the long stupor be because of cyanide? Doesn’t seem likely to me.

One would expect the film Poison (1991) to use poison as a basic plot. But it doesn’t use any of the conventional poisons. The only poison mentioned in the storyline is the “elixir of human sexuality”, which is isolated by a scientist. After drinking it, he is transformed into a hideous murdering monster.

Some poisons have been considered for warfare against the enemy in very unconventional ways. When LSD was discovered, one “innovative” idea that floated around was to poison the entire water supply of an enemy nation with LSD. Since LSD acts as a hallucinogen in very low dosages, and since virtually any quantity of this could be synthesized in a laboratory, this was not such outlandish an idea, as it sounds at first go. Fortunately this idea was never tried! But controversy still surrounds the issue of some American soldiers in Vietnam having been administered the deadly anticholinergic hallucinogen, BZ (quinuclidinyl benzilate) by the US Army, in order to turn them into demented, inhuman, killing machines. Though this has never been proved, the 1990 Hollywood film “Jacob’s Ladder” chillingly deals with the whole issue in a very realistic manner.

Arguably, the writer who used the maximum number of poisons in his/ her writing is Dame Agatha Christie (1890-1976). In her stories, she used a vast range of poisons, including strychnine (The Mysterious Affair at Styles, 1920), chloral hydrate (The Secret Adversary, 1922), morphine (Murder on the Links, 1923), trinitrin (The Chocolate Box, 1925), barbitone (The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, 1926), prussic acid (cyanide), cholera germs, and gelsemium (The Big Four, 1927), ricin (The House of Lurking Deaths, 1929), poisonous gas (The Face of Helen, 1930), cocaine (Peril at End House, 1932), arsenic (The Tuesday Night Club, 1932), atropine (The Thumb Mark of St. Peter, 1932), potassium cyanide (The Blue Geranium, 1932), digitalin (The Herb of Death, 1932) and barbitone again (Lord Edgware Dies, 1933). Dame Agatha supposedly acquired her vast knowledge of poisons from her work in pharmacy. I wouldn’t say one would learn a great deal on poisons by reading her works, but certainly one can read the stories critically, trying to notice flaws (if any) in the story line. An entertaining academic exercise that I would strongly recommend. For those who would like to dwell deeper into her poisons, the following book would be very interesting: “The Poisonous Pen of Agatha Christie” by Michael C Gerald.

Poisons will continue to fascinate us through the twenty-first century. When modern, sophisticated analytical tests for detecting poisons were developed in the 20th century, it was thought that their use would dwindle, and the poison lore would die down. But there are no signs of it yet. And this gives us

–       the forensic toxicologists

–       yet another century to rejoice!