Dubious.
There is something about the sound of the word.
Doobie Brothers
Pass me that doobie.
Scooby Doobie Doo.
And the real thing. Dubious.
It is an adjective and can mean a couple of things.
1. hesitating or doubting.
2. not to be relied upon; suspect: extremely dubious assumptions.
— morally suspect
— of questionable value
When I think of the word, I usually associate it with the second meaning.
Someone who is questionable. Suspicious. Suspect.
People can be dubious. We have seen it all throughout history.
That man or woman who is up to no good. The person who schemes and slithers around secretly sprinkling their evil about, here and there.
One such person was a woman named Giulia Tofana. She lived a long time ago, back in the time of the Renaissance.
Who was Giulia Tofana? In many ways, she was one of history’s most prolific serial killers. And much of her life remains a mystery. There are no portraits of Giulia, and just a few written accounts.
But. You see. She sold cosmetics in southern Italy during the mid-1600s. And. One of her special recipes contained enough arsenic to kill without leaving a trace. Her goal was to keep her poison a secret so that she could continue to sell the potent concoction.
Pretty dubious, wouldn’t you say? Not only dubious, but mostly successful. She managed to fool the authorities for nearly 50 years.
Her special concoction, her signature poison, was marketed as Aqua Tofana. The stuff could kill a man in as little as four drops of poison. She would tell her customers how to use it. To mete it out over a matter of days or weeks to avoid suspicion. Aqua Tofana was completely tasteless, odorless, and colorless. As such, it made for the perfect poison to mix into a glass of wine or any other drink. The recipe was a mixture of arsenic, lead, and belladonna, which were all deadly substances.
In addition, Aqua Tofana was disguised as a typical woman’s cosmetic or even a religious healing oil so that no husband would suspect his wife’s intentions until it was too late.
But the truth behind it all? She saw a need. She saw women in unhappy marriages, often being mistreated.
Women were often forced into marriage by their families without having a say in the matter. Once married, their husbands had complete control over them. Women were often completely powerless. Husbands could beat their wives without facing any punishment. They could subject their wives to all kinds of cruel treatment.
Giulia Tofana’s poison offered women the power to kill their husbands and become widows.
So yes. They wanted out. They needed a way out, but were bound by law and by society. So Giulia provided a solution for them with a few easy drops.
She did this successfully for several years. But.
What goes up must come down.
In the 1650s, one of Giulia Tofana’s clients got cold feet. The client bought the Aqua Tofana from Giulia and took it home. She put the poison in her husband’s soup. But she got nervous. Scared. And with that, she stopped her husband from eating the soup.
The husband became suspicious and forced his wife to tell the truth. The woman pointed the finger at Giulia Tofana as the maker and seller of the poison.
Giulia fled to a church, asking for sanctuary. And it was granted.
But from there? Some say that the news spread through Rome that Giulia had poisoned the water, the church was stormed, and Giulia was handed over to Papal authorities.
The Papal authorities tortured Giulia Tofana until she confessed to poisoning over 600 men between the years 1633 and 1651. It’s possible that the real number might have been even higher. That’s a lot of dead husbands. It works out to about 33 per year. Almost three per month.
In July of 1659, Giulia Tofana was executed along with her daughter and three employees. They were killed in Rome’s Campo de’ Fiori, a popular location for execution.
She may have been dubious, but she was dubious with a noble cause, I think.
When I think about it, though, in most cases, dubious people have a sinister cause.
Maybe dubious can be both bad and good.
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Profit is sweet, even if it comes from deception.
— Sophocles
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The art of pleasing is the art of deception.
— Luc de Clapiers
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An offended heart is the breeding ground of deception.
— John Bevere
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A few drops and you are history, buddy.
