P is for… Poison

/ historicallywoman

In 1945, Sherlock Holmes (played by Basil Rathbone) said, “Poison is a woman’s weapon”. Fifty-one years later, George R.R. Martin echoed the statement in A Game of Thrones, and he was far from the only one to do so, with poison being a woman’s weapon of choice in numerous works of fiction.

Is it true? Well… Kind of?

Statistically speaking, women commit 39.5% of murders by poison, with men committing the remaining 60.5%. Already, we’re seeing the myth beginning to crumble, but there is more. A glance at the numbers would make it seem that poison is, in fact, a woman’s weapon in that, if a woman did murder, then the most likely weapon for her to choose would be poison.

To illustrate, 7.9% of gun homicides are committed by women, 21.2% of arson cases, and 39.5% of poisonings. However, this only tells half the story. Poisonings are far less common generally than other types of murder, so, adjusting for scale, firearms are still 200 times more likely to be a woman’s weapon of choice than poison. 

All this is to say that poison has a more even split between the genders than other weapons (i.e. guns or brute force), and, even then, a poisoning is more likely to have been committed by a man than a woman.

So why the assertion?

Simply put, it makes sense. Historically, women’s access to poisons and their ability to use them has been greater than men’s. When cooking, cleaning, and other domestic chores are expected of women, and women only, then slipping a dosage into tea or onto fresh laundry is child’s play.

There is also undoubtedly a misogynistic streak to the perpetuation of poison as a woman’s weapon, particularly when it comes to fiction. We need to look no further than A Game of Thrones—the full quote lists ‘women, cravens and eunuchs’ all as users of poison. This is problematic in more than one way, but, as anyone who has read or watched the series can attest to, it is hardly surprising to encounter misogyny when it comes to Martin’s work.

But I’m getting off topic. 

There is a historical precedent, and, somewhat contradictory to what I’ve already written, the rest of this article is going to be spent taking a brief look at female poisoners from history. I want to know—why did they kill? Was it cold-blooded, or can any be redeemed? And why do (or don’t) we remember them?

Giulia Tofana

An advertisement for Aqua Tofana with a large picture of a bottle in the middle. It is captioned 'Le Poison Des Francs-Maçons'
Aqua Tofana

Tofana was a 17th century Italian woman who helped other women to do away with their husbands. Many of Tofana’s clients were trapped in loveless, abusive marriages—in Italy at the time, women had few rights and were sold into marriage as teenagers, most often to older men. If they were lucky, their husband would treat them well. Sadly, many women weren’t lucky.

Tofana quickly earned her reputation as a ‘friend to troubled women’. She concocted her own poison, named ‘Aqua Tofana’, which was disguised as a cosmetic so it could blend in with her clients’ other products. It was incredibly powerful—just five or six drops was enough to kill a man, but its beauty was in its subtlety. Aqua Tofana left no trace; the effects lasted for days and simulated an illness, and the post-mortem would reveal no hint of poison. It was odourless and tasteless, and Tofana could have gone undetected for many more years had one woman not had a change of heart at the last moment.

After serving her husband a bowl of soup laced with Aqua Tofana, the woman broke down and begged her husband not to eat it. Suspicious, he then proceeded to assault his wife until she confessed; further torture then had her revealing Tofana’s business. 

Giulia Tofana was executed for her crimes, ultimately confessing to killing around 600 men. Of course, murder is bad and I am not condoning it, but you have to admire—or, at least, respect—Tofana’s work. In a time when a woman’s options were to remain in an abusive marriage or take control of her life by killing her husband, can you blame her for choosing the latter?

A black and white photo of Baba Anujka. Her hands are crossed and she is wearing a scarf around her head.
Baba Anujka

Baba Anujka

The world’s oldest serial killer, Anujka poisoned up to 150 people in Yugoslavia during the 19th and 20th centuries, only being apprehended in 1928 at the age of 90. She had an interest in chemistry her entire life and pursued her studies after the death of her much older second husband. 

Anujka was not just a killer; she did make genuine medicines and was popular enough with farmers’ wives to earn a comfortable living for herself. She also produced mixtures that weren’t strong enough to kill, but would make a man ill enough to escape military service—an honourable task, if you ask me.

And, similarly to Tofana, she also used her skills to help women in abusive relationships. Her ‘magic water’ (otherwise known as a ‘love potion’) would kill a man in eight days; Anujka would calculate each dose individually by asking the client ‘How heavy is the problem?’, meaning how much did the victim weigh.

She was arrested after being implicated in two murders committed by the same client. She was sentenced to fifteen years imprisonment, but only served eight due to her age. She died in 1938, aged 100.

Mary Ann Cotton

A black and white photo of Mary Ann Cotton.
Mary Ann Cotton

Of course, we can’t pretend that all female murderers do what they do for even slightly justifiable reasons. Most don’t. Mary Ann Cotton, probably the most infamous name in this post, was one such lady; she is believed to be England’s most prolific female serial killer, poisoning up to twenty-one people before her execution in 1873.

The murder she was eventually caught and executed for was that of her young son, Charles Edward Cotton. This was the only charge she received, but Cotton was also the culprit in the deaths of three husbands, a lover, multiple children (including eight of hers), and even her own mother.

Why? Money. After killing her first husband (not her first murder—Cotton also poisoned some of her children before him), she was able to collect a small fortune in life insurance. She continued killing for profit, not even stopping when her third husband grew suspicious after four of his children (one by Cotton) died of ‘stomach fevers’ and Cotton kept asking him to change his insurance policy. Said husband kicked her out, thereby escaping her poisons, but in 1870, Cotton met her fourth and final husband.

By the end of the following year, her husband and several of his relatives, plus more children, were dead of the same ‘stomach fever’ that had claimed so many lives. She was arrested soon after, following yet more murders, and executed. Just two of her thirteen children, plus one husband, outlived her.

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