Until well into the present century, and in the face of all existing statistics, there was a widely held belief reflected in scientific writings, literature, journalism and accepted folk knowledge that poison was a murder weapon almost excusively used by women (the 'weaker', 'gender determined' sex). The present study is discourse-theoretical and interdisciplinary in design. It draws on collections of causes célèbres , court records, scientific texts etc. pertaining to cases of killing by poison from various periods to show that (and how) such stereotypic ideas about women achieved currency, legitimation and self-perpetuation as a result of a constant, circular process of exchange and reference between the sources they stemmed from.