The Poison Plague

New in the ?terrific?( NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING AUTHOR JAYNE ANN KRENTZ) Templar Knight mystery series. When a cake kills a squire, the castle governor enlists the help of Templar Bascot de Marins. But as murder spreads beyond the castle walls, he wonders if it is in fact the work of a lethal master of poisons.

With the 16th and 17th Century outbreaks of the Plague, came the arrests and executions of many hospital workers who were accused of conspiring to spread the disease. "Plagues, Poisons and Potions" contains a detailed study of this fascinating phenomenon associated with the Plague. It examines the courts and the part played by torture, as well as considering the socio-economic conditions of the workers, highlighting an early modern form of 'class warfare'.

Did food poisoning cause the Black Plague, the Salem witch-hunts, and other significant events in human history? In this pathbreaking book, historian Mary Kilbourne Matossian argues that epidemics, sporadic outbursts of bizarre behavior, and low fertility and high death rates from the fourteenth to the eighteenth centuries may have been caused by food poisoning from microfungi in bread, the staple food in Europe and America during this period. "A bold book with a stimulating thesis. Matossian's claims for the role of food poisoning will need to be incorporated into any satisfactory account of past demographic trends."--John Walter, Nature "Matossian's work is innovative and original, modest and reasoned, and opens a door on our general human past that historians have not only ignored, but often did not even know existed."--William Richardson, Environmental History Review "This work demonstrates an impressive variety of cross-national sources. Its broad sweep also reveals the importance of the history of agriculture and food and strengthens the view that the shift from the consumption of mold-poisoned rye bread to the potato significantly contributed to an improvement in the mental and physical health of Europeans and Americans."--Naomi Rogers, Journal of American History "This work is a true botanical-historical tour de force."--Rudolf Schmid, Journal of the International Association of Plant Taxonomy "Intriguing and lucid."--William K. Beatty, Journal of the American Medical Association

In 1524, Pope Clement VII gave two condemned criminals to his physician to test a promising new antidote. After each convict ate a marzipan cake poisoned with deadly aconite, one of them received the antidote, and lived—the other died in agony. In sixteenth-century Europe, this and more than a dozen other accounts of poison trials were committed to writing. Alisha Rankin tells their little-known story. At a time when poison was widely feared, the urgent need for effective cures provoked intense excitement about new drugs. As doctors created, performed, and evaluated poison trials, they devoted careful attention to method, wrote detailed experimental reports, and engaged with the problem of using human subjects for fatal tests. In reconstructing this history, Rankin reveals how the antidote trials generated extensive engagement with “experimental thinking” long before the great experimental boom of the seventeenth century and investigates how competition with lower-class healers spurred on this trend. The Poison Trials sheds welcome and timely light on the intertwined nature of medical innovations, professional rivalries, and political power.

When a cake kills a squire, the castle governor enlists the help of Templar Bascot de Marins. But as murder spreads beyond the castle walls, he wonders if it is in fact the work of a lethal master of poisons.--From Content Reserve screen.

Apprentice wizard Adramal is now a detective with the City Watch. But someone wants her dead - during a routine investigation, she is poisoned, and only her magic and quick thinking save her life. Her father suspects followers of the evil god Zorian are to blame. He insists Adramal leave for the island kingdom of Salmar, beyond Zorian's influence, while the Watch investigates. The Salmarian priests trick her into revealing herself as a wizard, and sentence her to death for practising magic. Desperate, she chooses to assist a plague-stricken village rather than be executed. But not all the villagers welcome her help, and Zorian's reach may well be longer than she thought...

Adramal is now a detective with the City Watch. But someone wants her dead - during a routine investigation, she is poisoned, and only her magic and quick thinking save her life. Her father suspects followers of the evil god Zorian are to blame. He insists Adramal leave for the island kingdom of Salmar, beyond Zorian's influence, while the Watch investigates. The Salmarian priests trick her into revealing herself as a wizard, and sentence her to death for practising magic. Desperate, she chooses to assist a plague-stricken village rather than be executed. But not all the villagers welcome her help, and Zorian's reach may well be longer than she thought...