Please Don’t Judge Me By My Search History - Reflections on Mushrooms
Way back in 2000/2001, I wrote my honours thesis on poisons in antiquity. While my research coalesced into the xenophobic perception of poisoners in the classical world, this was after spending years (yes years - I decided on this topic in early 1998) collecting references to poisons in Greek and Latin literature. This interest is likely because I had extended family suggesting “natural” remedies to treat the arthritis I have suffered from since I was five years old. My mother would hand the pamphlets to me, and I would sit down with the family’s set of Encyclopaedia Brittanica and look up the ingredients. All of this is to say that I have been fascinated with toxicology following a childhood.
If you have been living under a rock, you might have missed the case of Erin Patterson who has just been found guilty of poisoning four people, killing three, with the inclusion of dehydrated mushrooms in beef wellingtons. With all the reporting on this case, especially the focus on her internet search history, I have been hearing a constant refrain from my family: “none of us had better die suspiciously, Yvette, because your search history would be damning.”
Needless to say, I have followed this case closely since the deaths were first reported, and the case has some similarities with that of the death of the Roman emperor Claudius in 54 CE.
Claudius’ death was described by three historical sources:
So notorious, later, were the whole proceedings that authors of the period have recorded that the poison was sprinkled on an exceptionally fine mushroom; though, as a result of his natural sluggishness or intoxication, the effects of the drug were not immediately felt by Claudius. At the same time, a motion of his bowels appeared to have removed the danger. Agrippina was in consternation: as the last consequences were to be apprehended, immediate infamy would have to be braved; and she fell back on complicity—which she had already assured—of the doctor Xenophon. He, it is believed, under cover of assisting the emperor’s struggles to vomit, plunged a feather, dipped in a quick poison, down his throat: for he was well aware that crimes of the first magnitude are begun with peril and consummated with profit. Tacitus, Annals, 12.67.
That Claudius was poisoned is the general belief, but when it was done and by whom is disputed. Some say that it was his taster, the eunuch Halotus, as he was banqueting on the Citadel with the priests; others that at a family dinner Agrippina served the drug to him with her own hand in mushrooms, a dish of which he was extravagantly fond. Reports also differ as to what followed. Many say that as soon as he swallowed the poison he became speechless, and after suffering excruciating pain all night, died just before dawn. Some say that he first fell into a stupor, then vomited up the whole contents of his overloaded stomach, and was given a second dose, perhaps in a gruel, under pretence that he must be refreshed with food after his exhaustion, or administered in a syringe, as if he were suffering from a surfeit and required relief by that form of evacuation as well. Suetonius, Life of Claudius, 44.1-3.
He [Claudius] would not endure her [Agrippina’s] behaviour, but was preparing to put an end to her power, to cause his son [Brittanicus] to assume the toga virilis, and to declare him heir to the throne. Agrippina, learning of this, became alarmed and made haste to forestall anything of the sort by poisoning Claudius. But since, owing to the great quantity of wine he was forever drinking and his general habits of life, such as all emperors as a rule adopt for their protection, he could not easily be harmed, she sent for a famous dealer in poisons, a woman named Lucusta, who had recently been convicted on this very charge; and preparing with her aid a poison whose effect was sure, she put it in one of the vegetables called mushrooms. Then she herself ate of the others, but made her husband eat of the one which contained the poison; for it was the largest and finest of them. And so the victim of the plot was carried from the banquet apparently quite overcome by strong drink, a thing that had happened many times before; but during the night the poison took effect and he passed away, without having been able to say or hear a word. It was the thirteenth of October, and he had lived sixty-three years, two months, and thirteen days, having been emperor thirteen years, eight months and twenty days.
Curiously, these sources all say that the mushrooms were poisoned, and not poisonous. This is not to say that poisonous mushrooms were unknown in antiquity, or even in relation to this case. According to Pliny the Elder (Natural History, 22.46.92):
Among the things which it is rash to eat I would include mushrooms, as although they make choice eating they have been brought into disrepute by a glaring instance of murder, being the means used to poison the Emperor Tiberius Claudius by his wife Agrippina, in doing which she bestowed upon the world, and upon herself in particular, yet another poison—her own son Nero.
Pliny goes on to describe the poisonous nature of some mushrooms and theorise what gives them this nature.
Most modern scholarship on the death of Claudius now agree that the emperor died as the result of mushroom poisoning, not poisoned mushrooms. The death cap mushroom (Amanita phalloides) has been a popular candidate,[1] but fly agaric (Amanita muscaria) has also been suggested.[2] I find this second hard to believe given their colourful nature. That said, an argument has been made that he was not poisoned at all.[3]
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Fly agaric mushrooms (Amanita muscaria) look nothing like edible mushrooms |
I do agree that the likelihood that poisoned mushrooms were used when poisonous mushrooms were available is slim; in the words of Gilbert Bagnani [4] why “paint the lily”? A poisonous mushroom seems far more probable, which opens the door for accidental poisoning.
So back to the Erin Patterson case. How are these two cases similar?
- Both describe mushrooms as the source of the poison.
- Both involve the preparation of poisonous and non-poisonous portions for a shared meal.
- In both the accused poisoner was a woman.
Well, in an analysis piece I read this morning, much has been made of the use of poison as a more feminine crime. Cases like the death of Claudius has assisted in the creation of this stereotype. In addition to Agrippina, Locusta/Lucusta is described as a professional poisoner, and a woman originally from Gaul.
I deliberately avoided addressing the association between women and the use of poisons in my honours thesis in order to make the research concise. In addition to this the taster, a eunuch slave Halotus was implicated in the plot. As a eunuch, he would be seen as quite feminine. The inclusion of the Greek doctor Xenophon fits more with my old thesis. Doctors were seen as distinctly foreign in Rome and had access to various poisons. People might note that Patterson tried to make out that the poisonous mushrooms were purchased from an Asian grocer, thus trying to implicate a perceived “foreigner” for the deaths. This action really made me reflect further on my old thesis. I was struck by the idea that the “poisoning woman” trope is just another form of othering as was the “foreigners use poisons” stereotype I explored in my thesis to “other” targeted groups. In fact, according to Katherine Ramsland,[5] male poisoners outnumber women, so perhaps people should think a little more critically when indulging in stereotypes, be they looking at current crimes, or historical analysis.
I am also thinking that should someone die after eating my food, I ought not try to clear my internet browser history, and be very honest with the authorities.
[3] Marmion VJ, Wiedemann TE. “The death of Claudius.” Journal of Royal Society of Medicine. 2002 May;95(5):260-1. doi: 10.1177/014107680209500515.
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