COINS AND POISON

Coins and illness – Drinking your Good Health?

Continuing our series on coins and health I have been researching poisons, particularly arsenic. (I hope no-one looks at my search history on my computer!) That metal-like element is frequently found in detective stories and was a favourite of Agatha Christie. In Nineteenth Century Britain it was cheap and readily available as a rat killer and an ideal poison as had no smell and was tasteless. It was used widely in industry and some medicines.

Arsenic has also been widely used in coin manufacturing since ancient times. It is found in alloys and has been used officially and by counterfeiters to whiten coins and make copper coins look like silver. During the reign of Henry VIII the coinage was officially debased but then later the bullion content was restored. The workmen at the Mint melting down the debased coins fell ill with a condition called the "savour". It was probably the effects of arsenic poisoning, were advised by doctors to drink from skulls. The Mint obtained permission from the local authority to remove the severed heads from executions from London Bridge. This happened in 1560 and according to one source the mint workers were German and Dutch. [1] Some recovered but most died, not surprisingly. I wonder how the survivors felt about drinking from skulls?

There is another, similar story about a man called William Foxley. He was a potter at the Mint in the 1540s, earning £10 a year.  In April 1547 Foxley inexplicably fell asleep for 14 days and 15 nights.  King Henry VIII‘s doctors could neither diagnose nor rouse him, and the king himself even visited him. He eventually woke up as he continued to live and work for another 40 years in the Tower until 1587. It is possible that Foxley suffered from metal poisoning such as lead or arsenic. [2]

So if you are self-isolating raise a toast to mint workers everywhere and throughout history, but be careful what you drink and what you drink from!

[1] The story appears almost word for word in Smyth, William Henry, (1856), Descriptive catalogue of a cabinet of Roman family coins belonging to His Grace the Duke of Northumberland Bedford: James Webb; Unknown The Report by Select Commission on the Royal Mint 1849; Rogers Ruding, (1840), Annals of the coinage of Great Britain and its dependencies London: John Hearne

[2] https://www.hrp.org.uk/tower-of-london/whats-on/the-towers-mint/surprising-stories-of-the-mint/#gs.3upxws
accessed 12 04 2020

To read the earlier E-Sylum articles, see:
GERMS AND MONEY (https://www.coinbooks.org/v23/esylum_v23n14a35.html)
COINS AND HEALTH (https://www.coinbooks.org/v23/esylum_v23n15a39.html)

	NBS (coinbooks.org) Web