Poisoned pearls

[Jens Nordlunde]

I dont know which poison they used, but if it is true that they used poison on the steel bearings it must have been becourse the poison should only be inflicted if the wound was deep, and not be course someone cut himself by accident, but Ariel has a good point.
It is seldom poisonous weapons are mentioned in the litterature, but now and againg one can read about it.

[Roland_M]

Originally Posted by Jens Nordlunde

I dont know which poison they used, but if it is true that they used poison on the steel bearings it must have been becourse the poison should only be inflicted if the wound was deep, and not be course someone cut himself by accident, but Ariel has a good point.
It is seldom poisonous weapons are mentioned in the litterature, but now and againg one can read about it.

I dont think, that the poison was applied to the blade to cause immediate death of the opponent but it can cause terrible aches, for example if someone uses stingray or box-jellyfish poison. And thats a major advantage, a game changer in a duell. A very light cut would be enough, to immobilise the opponent.

Archers are a different topic, they make their arrows dirty with mud or excrement to cause long lasting or deadly infections.


Roland

[Ibrahiim al Balooshi]

Poisoned blades are common in history. The usual mixture was from snakes. India and Persia are very much used to such and commonly you find poison on spears and arrows. In fact the Greek word for Bow was Toxon ! Another fatal substance deadly nightshade was called Strychnos... mainly the poison for spears.

Please see https://books.google.com.om/books?id...blades&f=false

In fact the Persian punishment for poisoning someone ...more formally with say a poisoned cup... was to take the offender and place their heads on a large flat stone and then to take another stone and pound their heads to pulp.

[Mercenary]

It remains to understand how deep the wounds must be in the case when the pearls or bearings in sabers were located at the base of the blade near the hilt

A bit more. Is it so easy to make grooves in wootz? To put the pearls (!) or bearings inside blade that they can roll there freely? Only to smear it all with poison?
The poison needed when the weapon only scratches, but does not penetrate into the body with the entire length and width of its blade

[Ibrahiim al Balooshi]

Part of the range of questions asks did India use poison on their weapons?

The answer is certainly yes since the reference https://books.google.com.om/books?id...&f=falsestates that Alexander encountered this when Indian troops fired poisoned arrows using viper and cobra poison. As alluded to by Jens the moral code at the time forbade the use of these toxins on weapons since Hindu Laws of Manu and the Brahmin and higher Castes prohibited it.

And certainly no; if consideration is given to the fact that a lot of myth and legend is built into the chronicles of his campaign.

[Roland_M]

We also should not forget the psvchological effect of a poisoned blade.

If the poison is clearly visible, because of its green or maybe orange color, this could have a tremendous negative effect on the bravery of the opponent.

Many things on historic battlefields were only made to scary the enemy.

[Jens Nordlunde]

It is interesting to see that using poison is very seldom mentioned in the books, so it is not easy to know how often it was used. Maybe this means that it was used often/seldom, so the authors did not think it was anything important to mention. I may add, that the same goes for spies, only very few books mention the use of spies, but when they do there seem to have been a lot of them.

[Ibrahiim al Balooshi]

Indeed Marco Polo reported that dead bodies were catapulted over battlement walls to spread disease amongst the defenders.

[Jens Nordlunde]

Yes, poisoneus snakes were also thrown over the walls, when a city were at siege.
However, something which surprices me is, that some writers mention that all the warriors were drugged before they went into battle. Some writers price the brave warriors, while others tell that they were heavely drugged - could have been a combination.