The numerous attempts of the Italian and Venetian poisoners on the lives of monarchs and eminent persons cast for a long time a cloud over regal domestic peace. Bullets and daggers were not feared, but in their place the dish of meat, the savoury pasty, and the red wine were regarded as possible carriers of death. No better example of this dread can be found than, at so late a period as the reign of Henry VII.,[15] the extraordinary precautions thought necessary for preserving the infant Prince of Wales. [15] Henry VIII., at one time of his life, was (or pretended to be) apprehensive of being poisoned; it was, indeed, a common belief of his court that Anne Boleyn attempted to dose him. “The king, in an interview with young Prince Henry, burst into tears, saying that he and his sister (meaning the Princess Mary) might thank God for having escaped from the hands of that accursed and venomous harlot, who had intended to poison them.”--_A Chronicle of England during the Reign of the Tudors_, by W. J. Hamilton. Introduction, p. xxi. “No person, of whatsoever rank, except the regular attendants in the nursery, should approach the cradle, except with an order from the king’s hand. The food supplied to the child was to be largely ‘_assayed_,’ and his clothes were to be washed by his own servants, and no other hand might touch them. The material was to be submitted to all tests. The chamberlain and vice-chamberlain must be present, morning and evening, when the prince was washed and dressed, and nothing of any kind bought for the use of the nursery might be introduced until it was washed and perfumed. No person, not even the domestics of the palace, might have access to the prince’s rooms except those who were specially appointed to them, nor might any member of the household approach London, for fear of their catching and conveying infection.”[16] [16] Froude’s _History of England_, vol. iii. p. 262. However brief and imperfect the foregoing historical sketch of the part that poison has played may be, it is useful in showing the absolute necessity of a toxicological science--a science embracing many branches of knowledge. If it is impossible now for Toffanas, Locustas, and other specimens of a depraved humanity to carry on their crimes without detection; if poison is the very last form of death feared by eminent political persons; it is not so much owing to a different state of society, as to the more exact scientific knowledge which is applied during life to the discrimination of symptoms, distinguishing between those resulting from disease and those due to injurious substances, and after death to a highly developed pathology, which has learned, by multiplied observations, all the normal and abnormal signs in tissues and organs; and, finally, to an ever-advancing chemistry, which is able in many instances to separate and detect the hurtful and noxious thing, although hid for months deep in the ground.