"ON POISON: ITS ROLES IN POLITICAL CULTURE AND THE NOBILITY OF VARIOUS WORLDS"
A thick book on the history of poisons, centered not around creating them, but how their use has shaped cultures and politics on several worlds. There are sections on food and drink tasters, ritual poisoning, suicide, assassination cults, and the relationship between poison alcohol. It describes how poison was occasionally part and parcel of high society, sometimes even viewed as a positive, rather than the tool of subterfuge and cowardice it is regarded as today.
Of particular note is a section on how one planet’s royal line, the Mithradians, imbibed small doses of poison on a regular basis to develop immunities, which were then passed down to future generations. One member of the family in particular was appointed to maintain familial records and brew potent poisons for the family’s use. In later stages of the Mithradian line, this individual’s touch itself was reputed to be deadly. The Mithradians themselves, however, were wiped out during the Great Sith Wars. The author of the work is quite distraught that he never got the chance to interview them or see their records for himself.
_