Affective killings - also during sex - are nothing special. At least several times in history, however, the murderer decided to use a very unusual murder weapon. The King of Naples, as well as several wives of a Danish tenant, died from poison injected… vaginally.
It is difficult to say what was driving the mistress of the king of Naples, Władysław I of Anjou, when she decided to put poison into her birth paths. But if you believe the Roman physician Paolo Zacchia, the plot was successful. In 1414, the Neapolitan ruler moved to the other world after, through his masculinity, absorbing a deadly substance during intercourse . What happened to the murderer is unknown. It is possible that she herself died as a result of poisoning ...
How do I get rid of my wife?
This unusual (at least in the context of poisoning) hole in the body was also used in the second half of the 18th century by a Dane. This is how his story is described in his work from 1786 by a certain Mangori:
The Copenhagen tenant's wife died suddenly in circumstances that raised some doubts as to the cause of her death. Six weeks after the death of his wife, the widower married his maid. A few weeks later he had affection for another maid and with her help he tried to poison his second wife.
First attempts failed, but finally one morning, just after intercourse, he managed to put a mixture of arsenic and flour into the woman's vagina with a finger . At noon the tenant's spouse became unwell and died the next day.
Later, the man tried to repeat his crime. The third partner (who in his time helped him get rid of his second wife), however, realized what was happening and made a statement in court. The serial husband was punished. However, it was too late for the woman - she died a day later with symptoms characteristic of arsenic poisoning (which was also to be confirmed by the section).
It turns out that the crime can also be planned in ... a bed!
Toxicological myth or truth?
Is there a grain of truth in this - admittedly improbable - story? As late as the 20th century, the pharmacologist at Johns Hopkins University, David I. Macht, reported that the vagina is essentially considered an organ that is unable to absorb chemicals. However, a study he carried out in 1917 (on dogs and cats!) Showed that this assumption was false and that many harmful alkaloids, morphine and cocaine could pass through the genital tract into the body.
Pathologist Philippe Charlier reports:
The administration of the poison by the vaginal route, if it is not true, then at least a toxicological myth ... in the treatise Quaestiones medico-legales (Medico-legal issues) cites some genuine anecdotes about this way of administering poison (at least that's what he thinks) .
So the vagina used as a murder weapon (by one side or the other), while highly unconventional, is not as absurd as it might seem. Interestingly, in 2013, a woman from Brazil tried to get rid of her husband in the same way. She placed the poison in the vagina and then persuaded the man to have oral sex. The latter, however, disturbed by the strange smell, took his wife to the hospital, and the whole plot ended in vain ...
Besides, history knows even more bizarre cases. The aforementioned Mangori also described the poisoning of the Sicilian king Conrad I by his half-brother Manfred in 1254. The power-hungry bastard (Manfred was illegitimate) was to murder a competitor with ... an arsenic enema.
Charlier describes:"With great precision, Mangori adds, and this physiological detail cannot be overlooked that administer the poison in this way, double the dose of the poison compared to the oral method ". Well, how much truth in this - it is not known. According to official sources, Konrad died of malaria.