A Ghostly Encounter with Poison

Abstract

Unlike in Chapter 2, there is nothing ‘apparent’ about the death of the king in Hamlet. His ghost describes it to his son, Hamlet Jnr, in great detail saying it was a homicide done by pouring the fictional poison "hebenon" into his ear. We will look at how plausible this route of poisoning is in this chapter, as well as considering which of the three poisonous candidates out of henbane, yew and hemlock it could have been. All three have long-standing associations with witchcraft and death and feature in literature starting from classical times. Although henbane was used to treat various ailments in the past, it has now fallen out of prescribed use. Accidental poisonings with henbane and hemlock are still common, particularly among children, but suicide attempts are most likely to bring forensic toxicologists into contact with yew.