The Poison Duel 4#: The Medical Origins of the Poison Duel? September 23, 2014
Author: Beach Combing | in : Medieval, Modern , trackback
The earliest nineteenth-century poison duel seems to have been that almost fought in 1821 in Virginia. However, there are pre-nineteenth-century records and strangely they concern doctors. The earliest record anywhere that Beach has been able to dig up was an alleged reference in the Iranian poet Nizami (obit 1209). Nizami in one poem (Treasury of Secrets) records that two physicians agreed to fight each other with poison: each would give the other a poison and the doctors would then attempt, by their skill, to provide an antidote. One doctor succeeds in neutralizing a terrible poison he had been given to swallow: the other, though, was so terrified at having to smell a magically poisoned rose that he dropped dead from terror. Of course, this is not the same thing as the poison duel described in previous posts: this is a game of skill and nerve; the modern poison duel is a game of chance and nerve. But perhaps the Treasury, or similar medieval legends, were the seed from which the nineteenth-century legend grew? There is interestingly one other pre-nineteenth century reference that involves doctors. Cagliostro (obit 1795), the Italian occultist and scientist was said to have challenged a Scottish doctor in Russia to a duel by poison, one Dr John Samuel Rogerson. Cagliostro wanted to give Rogerson two arsenic pills and said that he would swallow a poison given by Rogerson, which he would be able to cure. The Scot sensibly refused. We are not that far from Nizami here. In the nineteenth and twentieth century a form of this legend seems to have continued with scientists rather than doctors. It is alleged that Rudolf Virchow (a liberal scientist) when challenged by Bismarck to a duel in 1865 said that he would fight with two sausages, one filled with Trichinella: Bismarck would have to choose and eat a sausage. Almost the same story is told about Faraday who was challenged by some young hot head and who immediately pointed at two sausages, one infected and one clean. Wikipedia claims that the Virchow vs Bismarck sausage duel was ‘well documented in the contemporary scientific literature’. That does not mean, of course, that it is true and, in any case, Beach has yet to see any evidence. It sounds like an old legend surging up into new forms. It has now become a battle of chance rather than skill, but the scientist shows wit and ability in outmaneuvering their martial or martially-minded rival. Brains are more powerful than brawn apparently. Perhaps in the end medicine is where we should seek origins of the nineteenth-century poison duel? drbeachcombing AT yahoo DOT com
