[Sca-cooks] Re Request for info on period poisons

[Terry Decker]

Seems to me Amanita phalloides (death angel, death cap, death cup mushroom)
was used in at least one period murder.  And arsenic was described as an
element by Albertus Magnus in the 13th Century.  Socrates was executed with
an infusion of poison hemlock (Conium maculatum), so that was certainly
known in Shakespeare's time.  Snake venom, with or without the snake, is
another possibility, but other than Cleopatra's (apochryphal?) suicide, I
can't think of an occurence

Bear