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Fie upon our physicians, who should blush to be outdone by a woman in their own province. Beckmann, in his article on secret poisoning, has given a particular account of this woman, the Marchioness de Brinvilliers. And how, then, must I, too, go to work to dissever that sweet and peaceful union of soul and body? What species of sensations should I seek to produce?
He adds that when the hand was dampened with ether "there was no sensation of heat, but, on the contrary, an agreeable feeling of coolness." Beckmann, in his History of Inventions, Vol.
III, page 272, 1817 edition, Beckmann thus describes the process: The deception of breathing out flames, which at present excites, in a particular manner, the astonishment of the ignorant, is very ancient.
Beckmann, in his "History of Inventions," and Lebret, in his "Magazin zum Gebrauche der Staaten Kirche Geschichte," or Magazine of Materials for a History of a State Church, relates that, in the year 1659, it was made known to Pope Alexander VII. that great numbers of young women had avowed in the confessional that they had poisoned their husbands with slow poisons.
Becker and Fritze lost no time in explanation or denial, but went straight to the root of the matter and sought to buy off Scanlon. Becker declares that every reparation was offered. Scanlon takes a pride to recapitulate the leases and the situations he refused, and the long interviews in which he was tempted and plied with drink by Becker or Beckmann of the firm.
Beckmann, in his History of Inventions, paints it with more fidelity, and in prose more pleasing than Cowley's poetry. He says, "There are few plants which acquire, through accident, weakness, or disease, so many variegations as the tulip. When uncultivated, and in its natural state, it is almost of one colour, has large leaves, and an extraordinarily long stem.
Since Beckmann wrote, the method of producing smoke and sparks from the mouth has been still further improved. The fire can now be produced in various ways. One way is by the use of a piece of thick cotton string which has been soaked in a solution of nitre and then thoroughly dried. This string, when once lighted, burns very slowly and a piece one inch long is sufficient for the purpose.
The atrocious system of poisoning, by poisons so slow in their operation, as to make the victim appear, to ordinary observers, as if dying from a gradual decay of nature, has been practised in all ages. Those who are curious in the matter may refer to Beckmann on Secret Poisons, in his "History of Inventions," in which he has collected several instances of it from the Greek and Roman writers.
This I owed, in the first place, to an extraordinary man named Albert Beckmann, a former Hanoverian revolutionary, and afterwards private librarian to Louis Napoleon, who was at this time a press agent for several interests, respecting which I was never quite clear. This man succeeded in making my acquaintance as an open admirer, in which capacity he showed himself remarkably obliging.
In these Maori villages it was remarked that sanitary arrangements were provided, such as, says Beckmann in his History of Inventions, did not exist in the palace of the King of Spain at that time.