At all periods perfumes seem to have been more or less adopted as a luxury among the wealthy and fashionable. Tradition states that they were frequently rendered instrumental to sinister purposes, as the vehicle of poisonous substances. Historians relate that the Emperor Henri VI. and a prince of Savoy, were destroyed with perfumed gloves. Jeanne d'Albret, Queen of Navarre, and mother of Henri IV., died from the poisonous effect of gloves purchased from the noted Rene, perfumer and confidential agent of Catherine de Medicis. Lancelot, King of Naples, was destroyed by a scented handkerchief prepared by a Florentine lady. Pope Clement VII. sunk under the baneful effluvia of a torch that was carried before him; and Mathioli relates, that nosegays thus impregnated have been frequently known to prove fatal. It is certain that, without the aid of venenous substances, various flowers have caused serious accidents. Barton tells us that the _magnolia glauca_ occasioned a paroxysm of fever, and increased the severity of an attack of gout. Jacquin had seen the _lobelia longiflora_ producing a sense of suffocation; and the _nerium oleander_ in a close chamber, has caused death. The injurious effects of bulbous flowers in giving rise to violent headachs, giddiness, and even fainting, are generally known. The horror roses inspire to the Roman ladies is scarcely credible; and Cromer affirms that it was to the odour of that ornament of our gardens that the death of one of the daughters of Nicolas I., Count of Salm, and of a Polish bishop, was attributed. The sympathetic effect that this flower can create is illustrated by Capellini, who saw a lady fall into a syncope on perceiving a rose in a girl's bosom, although it turned out to be an artificial one. The partiality or antipathy to certain odours is equally unaccountable, for the Italian ladies, who dread the rose, delight in the disgusting aroma of rue, which they carry about as a salubrious plant, that, according to their notions, dispels the _cattiva aria_, although it is not impossible that they might fancy it possessed of those salutary qualities to which Ovid had alluded: Utilius summas acuentes lumina rutas, Et quidquid veneri corpora nostra negat. Rue, according to Serenus Samonicus, was one of the ingredients of the fabled antidote of Mithridates, which he thus describes: Antidotus vero multis Mithridatica fertur Consociata modis, sed magnus Scrinia regis Cum raperit victor, vilem deprendit in illis Synthesim, et vulgata satis medicamina risit. Bis denum _Rutae_ folium, salis et breve granum, Juglandesque duas, totidem cum corpore ficus; Haec oriente die, parco conspersa Lycaeo, Sumebat, metuens dederat quae pocula mater.