“The Royal Art of Poison: Filthy Palaces, Fatal Cosmetics, Deadly Medicine, and Murder Most Foul" by Eleanor Herman, reviewed by Kay Johnson
Throughout history, especially in Medieval and Renaissance times, royalty and royalty-to-be often had abundant reason to be fearful of poison in their food and drink. Jealousy was common. Enemies could be anywhere and, to avoid big problems, most monarchs employed a taster or, in the case of Louis XIV, 324 of them.
That didn’t help much, says Herman, because nasty substances weren’t just used to steal a crown. Lead was found in cosmetics then. Sulfur was used to powder wigs, and mercury and arsenic, along with human remains, were prescribed as medicine. Urine was used by the clothing industry. Bloodletting was employed to reset “humors.” Rooster dung was given to induce vomiting, and even the air that the average person breathed could be poisonous.
But this book isn’t all about murder — or history, for that matter. Herman spends a good amount of time telling about royal as well as everyday lives and how people lived in the 14th-through-18th-centuries. She then explains how we know what we know now, and why the heyday of poison, if you will, ended.
read more here @ Crow River Media
No comments:
Post a Comment