In those times no autopsy was possible: although the Alexandrian school, some 300 years before Christ, had dissected both the living and the dead, the work of Herophilus and Erasistratus had not been pursued, and the great Roman and Greek writers knew only the rudiments of human anatomy, while, as to pathological changes and their true interpretation, their knowledge may be said to have been absolutely _nil_. It was not, indeed, until the fifteenth century that the Popes, silencing ancient scruples, authorised dissections; and it was not until the sixteenth century that Vesalius, the first worthy of being considered a great anatomist, arose. In default of pathological knowledge, the ancients attached great importance to mere outward marks and discolorations. They noted with special attention spots and lividity, and supposed that poisons singled out the heart for some quite peculiar action, altering its substance in such a manner that it resisted the action of the funeral pyre, and remained unconsumed. It may, then, fairly be presumed that many people must have died from poison without suspicion, and still more from the sudden effects of latent disease, ascribed wrongfully to poison. For example, the death of Alexander was generally at that time ascribed to poison; but Littré has fairly proved that the great emperor, debilitated by his drinking habits, caught a malarious fever in the marshes around Babylon, and died after eleven days’ illness. If, added to sudden death, the body, from any cause, entered into rapid putrefaction, such signs were considered by the people absolutely conclusive of poisoning: this belief, indeed, prevailed up to the middle of the seventeenth century, and lingers still among the uneducated at the present day. Thus, when Britannicus died, an extraordinary lividity spread over the face of the corpse, which they attempted to conceal by painting the face. When Pope Alexander VI. died, probably enough from poison, his body (according to Guicciardini) became a frightful spectacle--it was livid, bloated, and deformed; the gorged tongue entirely filled the mouth; from the nose flowed putrid pus, and the stench was horrible in the extreme. All these effects of decomposition, we know, are apt to arise in coarse, obese bodies, and accompany both natural and unnatural deaths; indeed, if we look strictly at the matter, putting on one side the preservative effects of certain metallic poisons, it may be laid down that generally the corpses of those dying from poison are _less_ apt to decompose rapidly than those dying from disease--this for the simple reason that a majority of diseases cause changes in the fluids and tissues, which render putrefactive changes more active, while, as a rule, those who take poison are suddenly killed, with their fluids and tissues fairly healthy. When the Duke of Burgundy desired to raise a report that John, Dauphin of France, was poisoned (1457), he described the imaginary event as follows:--