poison arrow

[duckwolf2]

Is there a medieval armies that use arrow poison on a large scale and why did Western European armies not used them?

 

[Kleidophoros]

Because killing you a year down the road isn't ideal. It's a war; you need to die right away; we all have places to be!

 

[duckwolf2]

I the poison arrow in asking about have viper venom or other venom snake dry on them could kill in 5 or 10 min. 

 

[Kleidophoros]

An arrow in the guts kills faster. And who has time to collect all that poison enough to coat thousands of arrows with?

 

[theAthenian]

Poisons who kill fast are expensive I assume. Thus common soldiers/armies can't afford it.

Poisonous arrows and bolts were used by nobles for assassinations when they couldn't eliminate their targets the Snow White way.

 

[FrisianDude]

For most of Europe there weren't enough suitable poisons is my guess. I mean, in the jungle you can squeeze any frog and have a 60% chance of contracting explosive buboes but in for example the Netherlands there aren't many poisonous (or venomous) animals. Yeah, the adder but even adder poison doesn't kill humans, does it?

 

[theAthenian]

What about plants and insects?

 

[FrisianDude]

Mostly stuff to kill you by eating it and I doubt most soldiers'd try to catch an arrow with their teeth. Also, I'd honestly never heard of anyone in the middle ages (assuming OP's question was focused on Western Europe mostly) trying to assassinate others using poisoned arrows. Usually a normal arrow - or a dirty one- would do the trick if you hit. And if you missed the poison would not help either.

 

[theAthenian]

Isn't the poison just to make sure the target does not survive whatever part you hit?

 

[wrc]

I assume that that kind of arrows could have been used in a short time after poisoning process, since venom can easily evaporate and its effect could easily decrease and become "harmless".

 

[NikeBG]

The early tribal Slavs are reported to have used poisoned arrows quite much. But that rather fits with their tactics - ambush the enemy in some hard terrain they know (marshes, forests etc), shoot them up, retreat and wait till attrition takes its toll. Rinse and repeat, if necessary. That's why the Byzantine commanders were advised (in the Strategikon, IIRC) to always carry good amounts of the so-called teriak antidote when campaigning against the Slavs.

 

[Archonsod]

For most of Europe there weren't enough suitable poisons is my guess.

There's plenty of pathogens. The real problem is that an arrow is a ****ing useless way of administering them. Think about it - in order to be effective, you have to get a lethal dose into the victims blood stream where it will be carried to the relevant organs to do it's work. As a general rule, when an arrowhead enters the blood stream you don't tend to find the blood pulling anything away from it. Quite the reverse in fact.

 

[theAthenian]

And that's why they most probably did it the Snow White way.

 

[Lord Burgess1]

The arrows had germs on them anyway, as they stuck them in the ground. Pretty much as effective as any poison, but easier to administer.

Not that it was intentional.

 

[xenoargh]

Various poisonous / biological agents were widely used, actually.  I'm skipping over things like the use of lime and other forms of chemical warfare; the idea that these things weren't used is, well, wrong.

The primary problem with using poisoned arrows was that procurement was difficult and expensive, at least in Europe and the Middle East.  People didn't know how to manufacture neurotoxins other than by procuring them from mainly animal sources, which was difficult and very expensive, and the understanding of chemistry was pretty poor, so purifying the toxins prevalent in their environments wasn't understood very well, nor were there good methods of keeping the poisons' organic compounds from breaking down into less-lethal substances.

In Asian and Native American cultures as well as certain portions of Africa, the picture was considerably different.  A lot of poisons were used there.

As for the arguments about an arrow being a poor delivery device, that's erroneous.  A lot of arrow wounds weren't going to be immediately fatal.  We can argue all day about the rate of infections and the deaths that dirty arrows must have caused, which would have been a considerable proportion of serious wounds; but with a potent poison, "just a scratch" becomes a shock-inducing, life-threatening event, a man would fall out of the line and into convulsions... and the effects on morale would have been considerable.

So, when it was practical and didn't cost too much, poison was used quite a bit in warfare all over the ancient world, along with all sorts of other nasty biological and environmental warfare, explosives and flame weapons, especially in sieges, where both sides had great incentives to make things as nasty as possible for the other side.

 

[Archonsod]

As for the arguments about an arrow being a poor delivery device, that's erroneous.  A lot of arrow wounds weren't going to be immediately fatal.  We can argue all day about the rate of infections and the deaths that dirty arrows must have caused, which would have been a considerable proportion of serious wounds; but with a potent poison, "just a scratch" becomes a shock-inducing, life-threatening event

Only if you're firing an arrow with a hypodermic needle for a head (funnily enough the South Americans didn't poison their arrows, they poisoned darts, which kinda rely on their payload to have any effect. Unless the target is willing to stand still for a really long time). Otherwise you're not going to deliver poison into the system in anything near sufficient quantities to kill anyone. In order to deliver a poison, you need to inject it into the blood. Arrows tend to be somewhat suboptimal at this due to their tendency to sever any part of the circulatory system they come into contact with.
The only real exception to this would be an anti-coagulant capable of working on contact, though this would be more chemical warfare than poison (you're not exactly poisoning them, simply preventing the wound sealing). Certainly it's likely Alexander faced Indian arrows coated in anti-coagulants from Daboia (although their effectiveness is likely close to nil given the nature of the snake's venom itself). Beyond that you only really see them mentioned by the likes of Herodotus, who's about as accurate as Grandpa Simpson in these matters (and tends to ramble off on tangents at the same frequency come to that).

The other problem is there's no naturally occurring poison that would work quickly enough to have an effect on the battlefield. The toxin secreted by the bacteria which cause botulism is the strongest natural toxin; and even that generally takes hours for symptoms to manifest. Even assuming you somehow delivered enough venom into the system via the arrow in the first place to prove lethal, it's still going to be a lot quicker to simply hit the guy with another arrow than wait around for a few hours while it goes to work on their system.

 

[Skot the Sanguine]

Usually a normal arrow - or a dirty one- would do the trick if you hit.

I remember reading this was one of the real dangers with arrows used by the English bowmen.  Ignoring the immediate damage, supposedly infection numerous deaths from otherwise non-fatal wounds (of course days or weeks later, which is good in a campaign or siege context).  Supposedly this was because the bowmen would stick the arrowheads into the ground to keep the arrows at ready, as it is faster to grab and reload than from a quiver.  Bacteria in the dirt would cause the infections.

 

[QuailLover]

Personally I think sticking your arrows in feces would be cheaper and maybe a bit more effective than actually poisoning your arrow.

 

[noosers]

Why should I poison an arrow with expensive venom if I could stick it into dirt or a bowl of ****? Ugly, festering wounds, blood poisoning and a lot of other unpleasant things like tetanus or other infections can, could and pretty likely have taken their heavy tool on those "just a scratch" wounds.

Especially if your best kind of treatment is to paste moulded bread, grease and squished garlic on it.

 

[Archonsod]

I remember reading this was one of the real dangers with arrows used by the English bowmen.  Ignoring the immediate damage, supposedly infection numerous deaths from otherwise non-fatal wounds (of course days or weeks later, which is good in a campaign or siege context).  Supposedly this was because the bowmen would stick the arrowheads into the ground to keep the arrows at ready, as it is faster to grab and reload than from a quiver.  Bacteria in the dirt would cause the infections.

Generally any wound had a high chance of infection irrespective of where the weapon had been. Bit of a problem with a lack of clean water sources (or indeed any understanding of how to clean a wound in the first place). Also similar to early bullets there's a good chance of the arrow depositing fibres from your clothing into the wound, which isn't good.