The poison, the most silent protagonist of the crime

The poison has been used as a status symbol while other times it has been used as a death penalty, acting as a fulminant weapon or as an agonizing weapon.

In all cases in which he has been the protagonist and determining. It is part of a story full of spurious interests, struggles of power among shadows, anonymous murders and even great killings. Would you like to learn more about the poison throughout history? Continue reading to learn more!

Content

• The poison in antiquity
• The poison in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries
  • 1. Arsenic
  • 2. Cyanide
  • 3. Talium and Polonium
    • Resources

The poison in antiquity

If we look back in our history, We find great examples in which poison was used as an effective weapon against oneself or against other people in order to get their death.

In a few occasions it was used as An elitist privilege, reserved only for those who could afford it. It was in this way that in the year 399 to.C., Socrates was given the possibility of having a quiet death, induced by A Cup of Cut. In this case it was his disciples who paid the poison for him.

However, for Socrates to be a placid death, The cup he drank should have more than poison, For example, some opioid, alcohol, or both, then When the hemlock enters the body, as with any toxic substance, it tries to expel it and cause agony. 

The active substance of the hemlock is similar to that used in lethal injection.

Another historical character, The last queen of the Ptolemaic dynasty of ancient Egypt, Cleopatra VII , He also used poison in the year 30 to.C. To provoke his death before falling into the hands of the first emperor of the Romans, Octavio Augusto, who supposedly had planned to exhibit it as a trophy in Rome. In this case, The lethal poison used was that of an Egyptian cobra.

In this regard, it should be taken into account that Animal poison is much more complex than plants. It's about a Neurotoxic poison that acts almost fulminant and does not cause undesirable effects, such as muscle spasms throughout the body or face deformation.

If we continue advancing in our history, we can take into account The Middle Ages and in the Renaissance era, Well the poison was A weapon used indiscriminate By people with power to get rid of their enemies. Well known is The history of the Borgia family.

The poison in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries

1. Arsenic

With the arrival of the nineteenth century the end for arsenic, that for centuries had been The toxic substance most used as poison, being impossible to detect with any of the senses and very easy access. Napoleon and Nero are among their victims, a lethal compound that, paradoxically, It was also used in the past to treat different conditions.

Arsenic was used for pest control.

2. Cyanide

During the twentieth century, Other toxic substances They took prominence. He cyanide It was the basis used for Gas cameras in the Nazi extermination fields. It was about A profitable poisoning, since with the lowest expense you could end the maximum of people, which was the main objective.

Hitler himself, before hitting a shot, ingested a capsule with this poison with his wife Eva Braun. At that time, One of the perhaps more chilling finals was that of Joseph Goebbels (Nazi propaganda minister) And his wife Magda, who before committing suicide killed their six children with poisoned chocolate.

Premeditated they killed all their children, convinced that the world that would be after the Nazi regime did not deserve to be lived.

Cyanide It was also used with one of the greatest heroes of World War II, the English mathematician Alan Turing , who deciphered the enigma code, used by the German army. After being convicted of his sexual orientation, he underwent a chemical castration, which altered his body in a brutal way. Finally He took his life by biting an poisoned apple.

3. Talium and Polonium

Like arsenic, The Talio It has no flavor or smell and has an additional advantage: it does not take effect up to two or three days after being ingested.

Besides, he polonium It generated a high impact, by killing in 2006 in London the former kgb member Alexander v. Litvinenko. Polonium is not a chemical poison, but a radioactive substance. This poisoning He caught attention for his cruelty (It was three weeks of agony) and for its very high cost (To manufacture it, a nuclear reactor was needed).

As we have seen, Despite their dark history, poisons curiously can also serve to offer decent death.

Resources

• The death penalty due to lethal injection
• How much do you know about Alan Turing?
• The almost perfect crime against Russian ex -spy Alexander Litvinenko in London