Public Fears Were Fanned Into a Panic With a Sick Prank
Milan’s health officials went to the cathedral, but found no signs of poison. The next day, the Milanese woke to find that all doors on the main streets had been marked with a mysterious daub. Health officials inspected the daubs, and decreed that they were not harmful. They concluded that it was a prank by some mischievous actors with a sick sense of humor, out to get some laughs out of the citizens’ fears. Official reassurances did not stem the panic, however. The Milanese took the mysterious daubs as a sign that the expected poison attack had finally arrived, and went into a citywide bout of mass hysteria. Before long, they began to accuse random people of acts of poisoning.
The accused varied widely. They ranged from passersby on the streets, to various nobles, to Cardinal Richelieu of France or General Wallenstein, commander of the armies of the Holy Roman Empire in the then-raging Thirty Years War. Among the early victims of the panic was an elderly man who was spotted wiping a bench in church before he sat down. A mob of crazed women accused him of poisoning the seat, and violently assailed him in church. They then dragged him to the magistrates, and continued to beat him on the way. They ended up killing him en route.
