Gazing at gorgeous portraits of centuries past, we don't see what lies beneath the royal robes and the stench of unwashed bodies the lice feasting on private parts and worms nesting in the intestines. Physicians prescribed mercury enemas, arsenic skin cream, drinks of lead filings and potions of human fat and skull, fresh from the executioner. Ironically, royals terrified of poison were unknowingly poisoning themselves daily with their cosmetics, medications and filthy living conditions. Servants licked the royal family's spoons, tried on their underpants and tested their chamber pots. To avoid poison, they depended on tasters, unicorn horns and antidotes tested on condemned prisoners. 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. The story of poison is the story of power.
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