The Poison Trials: Wonder Drugs, Experiment, and the Battle for Authority in Renaissance ScienceIn 1524, Pope Clement VII gave two condemned criminals to his physician to test a promising new antidote. After each convict ate a marzipan cake poisoned with deadly aconite, one of them received the antidote, and lived—the other died in agony. In sixteenth-century Europe, this and more than a dozen other accounts of poison trials were committed to writing. Alisha Rankin tells their little-known story. At a time when poison was widely feared, the urgent need for effective cures provoked intense excitement about new drugs. As doctors created, performed, and evaluated poison trials, they devoted careful attention to method, wrote detailed experimental reports, and engaged with the problem of using human subjects for fatal tests. In reconstructing this history, Rankin reveals how the antidote trials generated extensive engagement with “experimental thinking” long before the great experimental boom of the seventeenth century and investigates how competition with lower-class healers spurred on this trend. The Poison Trials sheds welcome and timely light on the intertwined nature of medical innovations, professional rivalries, and political power. |
Common terms and phrases
alchemical anatomical Andreas Andreas Libavius animals appeared Arnald Arnald of Villanova authors Avicenna became Berthold bezoar bezoar stone Black Death body Caravita’s oil chap charlatans cians claimed condemned criminals court cure death described Dioscorides disease dissection dose empirics Europe exotic experience experimental Falloppio Ferdinand’s Galen Gentilcore Georg am Wald Giovio Handsch’s herbs Hohenlohe human Hyso HZA Neuenstein included Johannes Kurtzer Bericht Landgrave Langenburg Latin letter Libavius Lusitano marketplace marvelous Mattioli McVaugh Medical Charlatanism Medicine medieval Mithridates mithridatium Monardes Montanus Neuenstein noted Orta panacea Panacea Amwaldina Paolo Giovio papal Paracelsus Paré patients physi physicians Pietro Pietro Andrea Mattioli poison antidotes poison trials Pope Clement VII Posthius princes Rankin remedies Renaissance Richardus Rome saw in chapter seventeenth Silesian terra sigillata sixteenth century specific substances test subjects testimonials Testimonium texts theriac Theriac to Piso tion took treatise trial of Caravita’s Tümler unicorn horn vomited Wald’s Wittich wonder drugs