All these poisons were prepared from plants, particularly aconite, hemlock and poppy, or extracted from animal substances. Among those made from the latter, none is more remarkable than that supplied by the sea-hare, _lepus marinus_, with which, as Philostratus says[114], Titus was despatched by Domitian. Without here attempting to define the substances employed by the ancients to compose their poisons, I shall only observe, that the _lepus marinus_, the terrible effects of which are expressly mentioned by Dioscorides, Galen, Nicander, Aëtius, Ælian[115], Pliny[116], and others, is that animal called at present in the Linnæan system _Aplysia depilans_[117], as Rondelet conjectured, and has been since fully proved by Bohadsch[118]. This animal poison however seems to have been seldom used, as it easily betrays itself by some peculiar symptoms. It appears that it was not known to Aristotle, at least he makes no mention of it[119]. With the far stronger, and now common mineral poisons the ancients were not acquainted; for their arsenic was what we call orpiment, and not that pernicious metallic oxide which formed the principal ingredient of those secret poisons which in latter times were in France and Italy brought to a diabolical perfection[120]. No one was ever more infamous by this art than Tophania, or Toffana, a woman who resided first at Palermo, and afterwards at Naples. She sold those drops, which from her acquired the name of _aqua Tophania_, _aqua della Toffana_, and which were called also _acquetta di Napoli_, or only _acquetta_; but she distributed her preparation by way of charity to such wives as wished to have other husbands. From four to six drops were sufficient to destroy a man; and it was asserted that the dose could be so proportioned as to operate in a certain time. As she was watched by the government, she fled to an ecclesiastical asylum; and when Keysler was at Naples in 1730, she was then still living, because no one could, or was willing to take away her life, while under that protection. At that time she was visited by many strangers out of curiosity.