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A forensic hypothesis for the mystery of al-Hasan’s death in the 7th century: Mercury(I) chloride intoxication

The puzzle of a mysterious death in the Middle Ages has been hypothesized in terms of contemporary forensic legal and scientific methods. That al-Hasan ibn-‘Ali died in 669 aged just 45 has been forensically analyzed based on written sources that dictate eyewitness accounts of historical events. The...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Burke, Nicole, Golas, Mitchell, Raafat, Cyrus L., Mousavi, Aliyar
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: SAGE Publications 2015
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4923806/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26377933
http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0025802415601456
Descripción
Sumario:The puzzle of a mysterious death in the Middle Ages has been hypothesized in terms of contemporary forensic legal and scientific methods. That al-Hasan ibn-‘Ali died in 669 aged just 45 has been forensically analyzed based on written sources that dictate eyewitness accounts of historical events. The report of the contemporaneous poisoning of another individual who resided under the same household as al-Hasan’s and experienced similar, yet non-lethal, symptoms has served as the beginning of the analysis. In light of ancient (medieval) documents and through using mineralogical, medical, and chemical facts, it has been hypothesized that mineral calomel (mercury(I) chloride, Hg(2)Cl(2)) from a certain region in the Byzantine Empire (present-day western Turkey) was the substance primarily responsible for the murder of al-Hasan.