Kärsiviin

Kärsiviin is a Swedish term for wine that has been deliberately poisoned. The phrase appears in historical Swedish sources from the 18th and 19th centuries and is now largely obsolete. In modern usage it is mainly encountered in discussions of historical crime, toxicology, and forensic history rather than in everyday language about wine.

Historically, kärsiviin is most closely associated with arsenic-based poisons, which could be added to wine with relative ease and, in earlier times, were difficult to detect without specialized analysis. Other toxic substances or bitter additives were also mentioned in reports of alleged poisonings. The intention behind kärsiviin was to cause illness or death while complicating or delaying discovery.

Detection and regulation evolved over time as toxicology and forensic science advanced. In the 19th and early 20th centuries, poisonings involving wine were investigated more systematically, leading to trials and public debates about safety, adulteration, and the reliability of food and beverage controls. Today the term remains a historical reference rather than a component of contemporary regulatory language.

See also Arsenic poisoning; Toxicology; Poisoning in literature.