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Scopolamine and the Murder of King Hamlet
Basilio Aristidis Kotsias, MD, PhD
Arch Otolaryngol Head Neck Surg. 2002;128:847-849.
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The events narrated by Shakespeare in his tragedy Hamlet1 are the following: King Hamlet
of Denmark dies suddenly and his brother Claudius a few weeks later marries
the widow, his sister-in-law, Queen Gertrude; according to the official explanation,
a snakebite was the cause of his death. The ghost of the king appears before
his son, Prince Hamlet, and tells him that his own brother, now his converted
stepfather, has killed him, pouring into his ear the contents of an ampoule
of henbane (Act I, scene 5). I cite the ghost's account in full:
Sleeping within mine orchard, My custom always in the afternoon,
Upon my secure hour thy uncle stole, With juice of cursed hebona [henbane]
in a vial, And in the porches of mine ears did pour The leperous distilment;
whose effect Holds such as enmity with blood of man That swift as quicksilver
. . . [Full Text of this Article]
From the Instituto de Investigaciones Médicas A. Lanari, University
of Buenos Aires, Buenos Aires, Argentina.
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