Potional

To the question, ‘What [is] the person killed?’ is written the reply: / It must be a person in rerum natura. If a woman quick with child take a potion to kill it, and accordingly it is destroyed without being born alive, a great misprision, but no felony; but if born alive, and after dies of that potion, it is murder. […] In contrast to cl. 1 it prohibited attempts to procure abortion before quickening, and its prohibition on potional abortion embraced ‘any medicines, drug, or other substance or thing whatsoever’. […] As early as 1810, Ellenborough’s Act was criticised by the Edinburgh Medical and Surgical Journal for failing to prohibit instrumental abortion after quickening, while punishing with death the use of potional means, which were less effective. […] Again, in 1846 Taylor’s Manual of Medical Jurisprudence, referring to potional abortion, stated that it could not be doubted that the crime was very frequent, adding: ‘Applications are continually made to druggists by the lower classes for drugs for this purpose.[…]’. […] Similarly, the words ‘or other noxious and destructive substance or thing’ in cl. 1 would appear to be confined to potional methods.

The hallmark of the archetypal love story of Tristan and Isolde has always been the magic potion which brings them together and binds them into a socially defiant love. […] But minimization if not negation of such potional power leads to dilution of the motif in the Tristan en prose and Malory’s Morte Darthur. In what follows, I want to examine a few examples of and to suggest reasons for this potional impotence in these works.

“[…] I’ve heard tell of a potion that can heal ordinarily fatal wounds if ingested in time. I know for a fact that a potional vaccine for tetanus is now available, and there is a rumor one has been made against bubonic plague.” […] “Say, is that the entire collection of The Comprehensive Guide to Medicinal and Potional Uses of the Flowers of the British Isles?”