The story of the poisoners known as the “Angel Makers of Nagyrev”
In a Hungarian village in the early 20th century, women offed their adversaries with arsenic
WHEN THE people of Nagyrev had a problem, they went to Auntie Suzy. Though she had no formal training, she was the Hungarian village’s appointed midwife and the closest thing it had to a resident doctor. Men used her homemade tinctures for relief from the aches and pains they sustained toiling in the fields. Women, too, turned to her for help, and not just with the delivery of their babies. Alongside rubs and salves, Auntie Suzy produced another concoction: arsenic, made from boiling flypaper in vinegar.
This article appeared in the Culture section of the print edition under the headline “Her cruel device”
From the March 18th 2023 edition
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