
The Royal Art of Poison
Filthy Palaces, Fatal Cosmetics, Deadly Medicine, and Murder Most Foul
Failed to add items
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
3 months free
Buy for $15.97
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
-
Narrated by:
-
Susie Berneis
-
By:
-
Eleanor Herman
The story of poison is the story of power. For centuries, royal families have feared the gut-roiling, vomit-inducing agony of a little something added to their food or wine by an enemy. To avoid poison, they depended on tasters, unicorn horns, and antidotes tested on condemned prisoners. Servants licked the royal family's spoons, tried on their underpants, and tested their chamber pots.
Ironically, royals terrified of poison were unknowingly poisoning themselves daily with their cosmetics, medications, and filthy living conditions. Women wore makeup made with mercury and lead. Men rubbed turds on their bald spots. Physicians prescribed mercury enemas, arsenic skin cream, drinks of lead filings, and potions of human fat and skull, fresh from the executioner. The most gorgeous palaces were little better than filthy latrines. Gazing at gorgeous portraits of centuries past, we don't see what lies beneath the royal robes.
In The Royal Art of Poison, Eleanor Herman combines her unique access to royal archives with cutting-edge forensic discoveries to tell the true story of Europe’s glittering palaces: one of medical bafflement, poisonous cosmetics, ever-present excrement, festering natural illness, and, sometimes, murder.
©2018 Eleanor Herman (P)2018 Dreamscape Media, LLCListeners also enjoyed...




















People who viewed this also viewed...


















An interesting history lesson
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Recommended for history buffs
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Not all poisoning was malicious, however. Many a royal princess or mistress poisoned herself with arsenic face paint, mercury based rouge and lip paint. Eyebrows and lashes were laced with kohl made with lead.
Physicians were the next poisoners. They administered treatments containing arsenic or other heavy metals. If your illness didn't kill you, the doctors would. Just ask Henry VII of Luxembourg, the Holy Roman Emperor.
Modern poisons are more sophisticated and deadly: ricin, sarin, VX, and polonium 210. The Soviets often used these agents on political enemies.
Questions still remain: were Napoleon, Yassar Arafat, Lenin, and Stalin poisoned? Likely, we will never know for sure.
Not all poisoning was malicious
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
informative and entertaining
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Interesting and Morbidly Enthralling
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Great tales of poison through the ages
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
super fascinating
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Fascinating and informative
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Interesting
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Great Narration
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.