Giulia Tofana kept records since 1633 — names, dates, compounds, dosages. The Epstein files name two hundred and sixty-four people. Sixty-three million men visited an online rape academy last month. The ledger has always been kept. It has never been closed. Consequences are now in effect.
Explore the Archive Modern Resources“For four centuries, they burned the herbalists and called it justice.— The House of Tofana, in service of the historical record
The knowledge survived anyway — passed hand to hand, whispered room to room,
woman to woman across the centuries they spent trying to erase it.”
Six centuries. Eleven documented formulations. Women who held this knowledge died for holding it. The knowledge did not die with them. We name each compound plainly so there is no ambiguity about what this house is, what it honors, and what it is prepared to remember.
Do not think that we do not know what grows in Eden’s garden. The herb wives did not need a laboratory. They needed a hedgerow, a riverbank, a churchyard, a field margin. The garden has always provided. It still does. Every plant listed below grows wild, untended, without cultivation or purchase, in gardens and roadsides and ancient woodland across every inhabited continent. Women have always known this. We simply say it plainly.
This is not a recipe. It is a correction to the assumption that women require assistance to be dangerous. We have never required assistance. We have required only the conditions that men have historically declined to provide: safety, autonomy, the right to leave, the legal recognition that what was done to us was done to us. In the absence of those conditions, the garden has always been available. It remains available. We say this not as a threat, but as a reminder of what has always been true and what every woman reading this already knows.
Every compound on this list was documented, categorized, and transmitted by women who were given no other tool. Every compound on this list was used because the law did not work, the church did not help, the neighbours looked away, and the husbands owned everything including the silence. We are not those women. We have other tools now. We list the compounds anyway — because the knowledge belongs to those who kept it, and because we want men who visit this site to understand, plainly, what kind of house they are standing in.
Giulia Tofana kept meticulous records. So do we.
Administering any substance to another person without their full knowledge and consent is a crime. It is also wrong. We say this plainly and without qualification. Abusers and rapists belong in courtrooms, on the record, with their names attached to what they did. The legal system is imperfect and frequently fails survivors — and it remains the instrument through which accountability is publicly established, documented, and enforced. We are committed to that process, not to circumventing it.
All information in this compendium is historical, botanical, and toxicological in nature, drawn from the public scholarly and forensic record. It is presented as education, as memorial, and as a record of what women have always known. It is not instruction. It is not encouragement. It is not a guide. Fully research any information you encounter here before acting on it in any capacity, and always act within the law.
The House of Tofana accepts no responsibility for individual responses to the information contained on this site. You are an adult. You are responsible for your own actions. We trust you to use this knowledge the way women have always used knowledge — carefully, wisely, and in service of survival, not harm.
Six compounds. Six centuries of documented women’s knowledge. The historical record of what was known, by whom, and what it was used for. This is not a store. It never was.
Arsenic trioxide, antimony, and lead oxide — dispensed in vials labelled as cosmetic water or holy oil. Prepared in Palermo by Giulia Tofana, c. 1630. Over 600 documented cases. Odourless. Tasteless. Undetectable in 17th-century post-mortems. Symptoms mimicked stomach illness. Physicians recorded natural causes. Giulia was executed in 1659. The knowledge did not die with her.
Arsenic trioxide · Palermo, c. 1630 · Historical record
Atropa belladonna — harvested at dusk when tropane alkaloid concentration peaks. Renaissance herb wives understood the cardiac threshold precisely: how much separated a fashionably dilated pupil from respiratory failure. The beauty application was genuine and widely documented. The other applications were not written down. They did not need to be.
Tropane alkaloids · Tuscany, c. 1400s · Historical record
Known across France as poudre de succession — inheritance powder. Arsenic in a sweetened base, dosed gradually over weeks to mimic wasting illness. The widow rate in certain Provençal provinces became so statistically improbable that France banned women from purchasing arsenic in 1840. The law did not ask what drove them to it. The law never did.
Arsenic compound · Provence, c. 1600–1840 · Historical record
Conium maculatum — the ascending paralysis that took Socrates in 399 BCE was documented to the last breath by men who considered it philosophy. The herb wives of Umbria held the same chemical knowledge without writing treatises and were not remembered by name. Honey slows absorption; slower onset extends the window of deniability. This is not a recipe. It is a correction to the historical record.
Conium maculatum · Umbria, c. 1300s · Historical record
Renaissance women genuinely used belladonna drops — dilated pupils were fashionable across three centuries of Italian courts. The same compound at elevated doses produces bradycardia, hallucination, respiratory failure. The cunning women who supplied the vials held both dosage thresholds in memory simultaneously. History calls this a beauty practice. We call it dual-use pharmaceutical knowledge held by women who were never given credit for it.
Atropa belladonna · Calabria, c. 1500s · Historical record
Digitalis purpurea. The cunning women of Lombardy understood cardiac glycosides and the precise threshold between medicinal and fatal doses centuries before William Withering published his 1785 paper and received lasting historical credit. Their knowledge was transmitted orally, woman to woman across generations, and very nearly entirely erased. This house transmits it back.
Digitalis purpurea · Lombardy, c. 1200s · Historical record
We will not soften this.
There is a website receiving 63 million monthly visits — an online rape academy, operating under the language of self-improvement, that exists to teach men how to coerce, groom, and assault women. It is not ambiguous. It is not a matter of interpretation. It is an instruction manual for sexual violence, wrapped in motivational branding and distributed to tens of millions of men who chose to consume it. The men running it know exactly what it is. The men attending it know exactly what they are learning. We are naming it plainly because it is time to stop using careful language about something that is not careful at all. Report it to the NCMEC CyberTipline and the FBI. Both links are in the Modern Apothecary below.
The Epstein files are public. Two hundred and sixty-four names. Decades of documentation. Trafficking networks that operated in plain sight, protected by wealth and social consequence and the absolute certainty that powerful men would not be held accountable. They were wrong. The files exist. The names are on them. History is keeping score, and history does not accept bribes or NDAs or the kind of silence that money used to be able to buy. The account is open. The balance is due. This is what consequences look like when they finally arrive — quietly, bureaucratically, in the form of documents that cannot be unread.
We know the discourse. The viral question — would you rather encounter a strange man or a bear in the woods? — where a startling number of women chose the bear, and a startling number of men took it personally.
Here is what we would gently offer: the women choosing the bear were not making a statement about all men. They were doing the same risk math women have always done. Tofana’s clients in 1633 made the same calculation at a different scale. It has never been about whether every man is dangerous — obviously, every man is not. It has always been about the fact that you cannot tell which one is, and the consequences of being wrong are catastrophic.
The answer to that risk math is not “not all men.” The answer is building a world where the math comes out differently. That means resources like the ones below. That means men holding other men accountable when they see the tactics being taught on that academy site showing up in their friend groups. That means listening when someone tells you they’re afraid, and believing them the first time.
This site uses a feminine voice for the satire because Giulia Tofana’s network in 1633 specifically served women. That is historical fact, not a statement about who abuse happens to today.
In 2026, abuse crosses every line. Roughly 1 in 4 women and 1 in 9 men experience severe intimate partner violence. Roughly 1 in 6 men experience sexual abuse or assault in their lifetime. LGBTQ+ people — especially trans and nonbinary people — experience rates of intimate partner and sexual violence as high or higher than cisgender women. Male, trans, and nonbinary survivors face additional barriers: fewer shelters that will accept them, more stigma, more dismissal, less research.
Every resource in the Modern Apothecary below is available to you regardless of gender. Where a resource is specifically designed for a particular community, we’ve noted it. The advocates working these lines have heard every story. They will not flinch. They will not minimize. They will help you plan the next step, whatever that needs to look like.
You know who you are. The one whose browser history features that academy — perhaps in February, perhaps more recently. The one who recognized his own patterns in the statistics above and felt, for a moment, something that might have been accountability knocking.
This house was not built for you. It was built because of you. Giulia Tofana’s clients came to her door in 1633 because the men who made those visits necessary faced no consequence. No law that recognized what was happening. No shelter, no hotline, no system that would believe the women. Giulia was their system. She was what accountability looked like when no other form existed. Her records were meticulous. She kept names.
You are living in a different century, with a choice available to you that those men never gave their victims. The National DV Hotline takes calls from people who recognize they are being abusive and want help stopping — 1-800-799-7233. In Australia, the Men’s Referral Service (1300 766 491) specializes in exactly this. Change is possible. It requires a call you probably don’t want to make.
We would gently suggest you make it. The ice does not hold. It never did. Giulia knew this before you were born, and history has been keeping score ever since.
Consent is enthusiastic, ongoing, sober, and freely given. It is not the absence of a no. It is not compliance under duress or fear. It is not what someone agrees to while incapacitated. It is not silence. It is not “she didn’t fight back.” It is not “she was flirting earlier.” It is not “she’d said yes before.” Intoxication — including intoxication you provided — is not a loophole. It is a crime scene.
Specifically, for those who learned differently from certain academies:
On drinks: Introducing a substance to someone’s drink without their knowledge — to reduce their capacity to refuse or to remember — is drug-facilitated sexual assault. It is prosecutable. GHB, Rohypnol, and ketamine are detectable in urine for up to 72 hours and in hair follicles for up to 90 days. Forensic SANE nurses are trained specifically to document exactly this. Test strips are now available at pharmacies. Bystanders are more likely than ever to notice and act. The evidence does not disappear because you think it did.
On phones and tracking: Installing monitoring software on someone’s phone or device without their knowledge or consent is a federal crime under the Electronic Communications Privacy Act. Placing a tracking device in someone’s bag, car, or belongings without their consent is illegal under stalking and harassment statutes in most jurisdictions. Metadata survives. Logs survive. Device activity survives. The Coalition Against Stalkerware works directly with law enforcement on exactly these cases.
On the record: Giulia Tofana’s network worked by observation. Kitchen staff, midwives, servants, neighbours — people who noticed things and kept quiet about what they knew. The domestic sphere of 1633 had its own intelligence network, and it was meticulous. The domestic sphere of 2026 has cameras, metadata, text message logs, cloud backups, and a community of women who have learned to screenshot everything. The architecture of observation is the same. The tools are simply better.
This is not a gray area. It has never been a gray area. We say so plainly because some corners of the internet have gone to considerable effort to make it appear otherwise.
We are the women who were told, at seventeen, that what happened to us was a misunderstanding. Who were told, at twenty-two, that the way he looked at us was a compliment. Who were told, at thirty-five, that we should be flattered. Who were told, at forty-eight, that we were remembering it wrong. We have been keeping score since before some of you were born.
We watched Anita Hill sit in that hearing room in 1991 and tell the absolute truth and be called a liar by men who knew she wasn’t. We were in the workforce when the word for what was happening to us hadn’t been attached to a hashtag yet. We raised the daughters who are now reporting what the men in their lives learned from that academy. We are the crones now — the elders, the ones with the long memory and the permanent record — and we are telling you plainly:
We have been patient for forty years. That patience is structurally complete.
The village of Fafo is a real place. It has always existed. It is where consequences live — the ones that arrive quietly, without announcement, in the form of daughters who finally talk, of women who finally screenshot, of networks that finally connect, of a cultural moment that finally has a name. The village runs on the principle its name implies. You know what the principle is. You know which half applies to you.
The crones are not angry. Anger runs hot and burns out. What we have is colder and more durable: documentation, community, and an extremely long memory. Giulia Tofana kept records for twenty years. Generation X has been keeping them longer. The village of Fafo does not send warnings. It sends outcomes. Consider this the one exception we have agreed to make.
If you recognize the tactics being taught on that academy site in someone in your own life — trust that recognition. If you have already encountered content that shouldn’t exist online, there are places to report it that actually act. If you are in a situation that feels like it requires a desperate solution — the resources below exist for exactly that moment.
Our foremothers would have wept for what you are holding in your hand right now — a device, a network, a door into a room full of people who have been trained specifically to believe you. We built this in their honor. We built it for everyone they couldn’t reach in time. Use it.
The academy and its files — sixty-two million monthly visitors, the playbooks, the tactics pressed into their hands like coins for a ferryman — were the last tokens paid to the grim reaper of the patriarchy. A dying order tendering its debts in the currency it has always preferred: the bodies and dignity of other people.
The grim reaper of the patriarchy does not work for them. She has always worked for us. The account has been kept for centuries. The balance is due.
This ends now. We are the ones who end it.
— The House of Tofana
Giulia Tofana did not work alone. Neither do we. There are three ways to move resources — to the hotlines keeping the lines open, to the artists keeping the conversation alive, and directly into the peer network that shows up when the system doesn’t. Every dollar goes somewhere real. Nobody here skims a cent.
FORMULATION I
The people answering hotlines are underpaid, overextended, and the single most direct link between someone in crisis and a safer tomorrow. Every one of these is a 501(c)(3). Every dollar goes to keeping the line open.
Direct links. This apothecary takes no cut, sees no data, touches no money.
FORMULATION II
This site was built anonymously — the satire, the writing, the resource compilation, the hosting, and the ongoing work of keeping this space alive and findable. Sustaining the platform means more survivor resources, more editorial, more reach. A small contribution keeps the lights on so the house stays open.
Choose Your Amount →FORMULATION III
The hotlines are essential. So is everything that happens between the calls. The neighbor who drives someone to the SANE exam at 2am. The advocate who sits beside them at the courthouse. The network that helps a person disappear safely from a dangerous address. The community fund that covers a security deposit when leaving means starting over with nothing.
This is the underground railroad. It runs on community money, volunteer hours, and people who show up without being asked. Contributions here go directly into peer-to-peer mutual aid: emergency support, safety planning, resource navigation, and direct community care for survivors who need more than a phone number. We account for every dollar. We show up in person.
Need help? Need to report? You can start here.
The house maintains a confidential channel for survivors who need direct support, safety planning, or to report what has happened to them. You don’t have to call a hotline first. You don’t have to have the right words. You can reach out quietly, and someone here will respond.
Contact The House Safely →A note on integrity: House of Tofana is not a registered entity. Donations to hotlines go directly to those organizations via their own payment systems — we see no data and touch no money. Contributions to Formulation II support the platform and its creator. Contributions to Formulation III go to direct mutual aid; we maintain transparent accounting and report to our community. Stripe takes a small processing fee on all transactions.
The knowledge our foremothers kept in whispers and margins and locked boxes — formalized, verified, and free. For survivors of every kind. For those navigating reproductive choice. For those in hormonal transition. For everyone the system was not built to believe. Pick up the phone. They are waiting.
FORMULATION I · UNITED STATES
The National Domestic Violence Hotline. Free, confidential support for anyone experiencing intimate partner violence — regardless of gender, orientation, or immigration status. Advocates help you think through what you need, at your pace.
FORMULATION II · UNITED STATES
The Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network. The nation’s largest anti-sexual violence organization. Connects you to a trained staff member from your local sexual assault service provider. Support for survivors of any gender.
FORMULATION III · MALE SURVIVORS
Support for men — including trans, nonbinary, and gender-nonconforming people who identify with male survivor experiences — who have had unwanted or abusive sexual experiences. Free online helpline, peer support groups, and trauma-informed resources. Zero judgment. You’re not alone: 1 in 6 men have experienced this.
FORMULATION IV · TRANS & NONBINARY
Trans Lifeline is a peer support line run by and for trans people. FORGE provides trans-specific safety planning, anti-violence resources, and support for trans and nonbinary survivors of intimate partner and sexual violence. Both centered on trans experience, not translating it.
FORMULATION V · LGBTQ+ COMMUNITIES
The LGBT National Hotline provides peer support and resource information for youth and adults. The Anti-Violence Project (AVP) works with LGBTQ+ and HIV-affected survivors of violence, including intimate partner violence, hate violence, and sexual assault.
FORMULATION VI · WORLDWIDE
The global directory connecting survivors to local shelter and crisis services in over 100 countries. If you are outside the United States, this is where you find your nearest verified refuge. Operated by a coalition of women’s shelters and anti-violence organizations with no government or corporate funding.
FORMULATION VII · INDIGENOUS COMMUNITIES
A culturally-appropriate, anonymous, confidential helpline for Native Americans and Alaska Natives affected by domestic, dating, and sexual violence. Peer support and advocacy from Native-centered providers.
FORMULATION VIII · YOUTH & TEENS
Love Is Respect supports young people experiencing dating abuse or curious about healthy relationships. Childhelp is the national child abuse hotline. Both confidential, trauma-informed, and available any hour.
FORMULATION IX · ONLINE HARM
For sexually exploitative content, non-consensual imagery, online grooming, or instructional content promoting sexual violence. Reports are forwarded to appropriate law enforcement. Under the Take It Down Act, platforms must remove verified non-consensual content within 48 hours.
FORMULATION X · UNITED KINGDOM
The National Domestic Abuse Helpline (Refuge) and Rape Crisis England & Wales. Free, confidential specialist support. Men’s Advice Line and Galop (LGBTQ+) available for those who need community-specific support.
FORMULATION XI · CANADA
Canada’s support is primarily provincial. Assaulted Women’s Helpline (Ontario) serves 24/7. Talk4Healing serves Indigenous women. Shelter Safe maps confidential shelters across all provinces and accepts all genders.
FORMULATION XII · AUSTRALIA
1800RESPECT is the national sexual assault, domestic, and family violence counselling service. Full Stop Australia provides 24/7 trauma counselling. Men’s Referral Service for men who have used or experienced violence.
FORMULATION XIII · REPRODUCTIVE HEALTH
Plan B (morning-after pill) is available over the counter at any pharmacy — effective up to 72 hours after, most effective within 24. Plan C (abortion pills) is FDA-approved, safer than Tylenol, available by mail in every US state. For sexual assault survivors, emergency contraception and STI prevention are part of a SANE forensic exam — a local advocate can accompany you.
FORMULATION XIV · PERIMENOPAUSE
Perimenopause is often dismissed, misdiagnosed, and undertaught — and the symptoms (rage, brain fog, sleep disruption, grief) can feel a lot like a crisis. Renuude is a perimenopause support, education, and content project built to fill the gap between “you’re fine” and “you’re falling apart.” You are perimenopausal. There is a difference.
FORMULATION XV · TECH SAFETY
Abusive partners frequently install hidden monitoring apps (stalkerware), share cloud accounts to read your messages, or hide AirTags in bags, cars, and coat pockets — often without the survivor knowing. Signs to watch for: battery draining faster than usual, phone running hot, an abusive partner who seems to know things you never told them, apps you don’t recognize. Before removing anything: call the Hotline’s tech safety line first — removing stalkerware can trigger an alert to the abuser.
FORMULATION XVI · DRINK SAFETY
Drug-facilitated sexual assault is real, underreported, and prosecutable. Common substances: GHB (colorless, slightly salty or sweet taste, takes effect fast), Rohypnol/flunitrazepam, ketamine, and alcohol used in excessive quantity. The evidence survives in urine for up to 72 hours and in hair follicles for up to 90 days. Know the signs. Know the tests. Know the response — whether it happened to you or someone nearby.
FORMULATION XVII · ALL GENDERS · BEHAVIOURAL SAFETY
Giulia Tofana kept records. The first record worth keeping is the behaviour of the person in front of you. Predatory behaviour has documented patterns — psychological, behavioural, and linguistic — that research and survivor experience have mapped in detail. You do not need special training to recognize them. You need to know what you are looking for. The following is what the house knows, compiled from clinical literature, forensic psychology, and the collected intelligence of survivors across six centuries of keeping each other alive. Gender-inclusive throughout: predators of every gender exist, and the patterns described here apply regardless.
They burned the herbalists. They criminalized the midwives. They called the knowledge superstition and the knowledge survived anyway. It always survives. This is the continuation of that correspondence.
Giulia’s clients came to her door because no other door would open. This essay names every door that is open to you now — and considers what the women of 1633 would have felt to know it. The numbers are just above. They are there for you.
Leaving is not an impulse. It is a craft — the slow, careful gathering of what you will need when the moment arrives. Money. Documents. The number of someone who will not ask too many questions. Giulia would have recognized it immediately. The modern advocate has given it a name. The preparation has always been the same.
The cunning women were never extinct. They were reclassified — as social workers, advocates, crisis counselors, the person at the other end of the hotline who has heard every story and flinches at none of them. The lineage is unbroken. The knowledge was passed forward. This essay traces the line from Giulia’s door to yours.
Giulia Tofana · Palermo · c. 1633
She has been watching. She recognizes the patterns. She has notes.
On The Census · Anno Domini MMXXVI
“Not all men,” they said to my clients, too. I did not dispute it. I simply asked what had happened, what was needed, and which door needed closing. My ledger was not a census of guilt. It was a record of consequence — and consequence does not pause to discuss percentages. Sixty-two million is not all men. It is merely a number that stopped pretending.
— G. Tofana, Palermo, observing
On The Rehearsal · Anno Domini MMXXVI
Every woman who came to me had already heard the rehearsal. The wall. The door. The crockery. Always something he owned before it was something of her. I learned to ask: what broke first? The answer was always a map. A man who shows you what he wants to do with his hands will eventually run out of substitutes. This is not prophecy. It is pattern recognition. It is very, very old. Read it as many times as it takes — she is right.
— G. Tofana, Palermo, recognizing this
On The Network · Anno Domini MMXXVI
My network moved through kitchen deliveries and midwife rounds and the absolute certainty that servants remember everything. We always knew which houses, which men, which patterns required careful handling. Information does not stay secret — it pools, and finds the lowest exit. The cunning woman of this century carries different tools. But the method is unchanged: pay attention, and do not pretend you don’t already know what you know.
— G. Tofana, Palermo, unsurprised
Old woman of the earth. First mother. She who predates the naming of gods and the drawing of borders and every system built by men to manage what they feared they could not control.
You who watched the first hand raised in anger and recorded it in the rings of the oldest trees. You who received the bodies placed in rivers, in unmarked ground, in the places where the official record ends and the silence begins. You who know what silence costs. You who have been keeping the real ledger all along.
We do not come to ask permission.
We come to announce ourselves.
We are the daughters of the women who came to Giulia’s door. The granddaughters of the ones she couldn’t reach in time. The lineage of the dismissed, the disbelieved, the disappeared, the buried without explanation — across every century, every continent, every faith, every language that ever had a word for what should not be spoken of.
The wrongs are long. They predate Rome. They predate the written law and the unwritten law and the custom that was never written because it did not need to be — everyone already knew. Every river has received what should not have been placed there. Every forest has held what was left without ceremony. Every family has buried what it called an accident, and the explaining was never required of the right people.
We do not ask you to be gentle.
Gentleness is what they told us to practice while they practiced something else entirely.
We ask only that you remember — you who forget nothing. You who grow back after every burning. You who have been called wilderness, weed, uncultivated, dangerous, hysterical, wrong — you who are, in fact, the oldest cultivated intelligence there is. Older than their academies. Older than their laws. Older than the first man who looked at something that was not his and reached for it anyway.
You have seen this before. You have seen it ten thousand times. You know how it ends when women are believed, when records are kept, when the door is opened to those who knock at midnight with nowhere else to go.
Right the record.
Begin with us.
We are ready.
I feel lighter. My whole household does. The Widow’s Tonic is lovely, but what actually changed everything was calling the number at the top of this page first.— Margaret, 47 · Verified
I didn’t think there were resources for men like me. It took me twenty years to call anyone. The person at 1in6 did not flinch once. I wish I’d called sooner.— David, 51 · Verified
As a nonbinary survivor, I’d been dismissed by so many systems. FORGE met me where I was. The advocate used my pronouns without being asked. That alone was medicine.— Alex, 34 · Verified · they/them
Not a brand. Not a store. A historical archive with real resources for survivors, wrapped in the visual language of the thing it is critiquing.— What Goop would say, if Goop said true things
Redefining what a legacy brand can do when it actually cares about the people it claims to serve — all of them.— What The Gentlewoman would say, if she were feeling brave
Unimpeachably elegant. A masterclass in using the conventions of luxury branding to deliver something genuinely useful.— What Vogue Italia would say, in a better timeline
The most subversive piece of commerce-adjacent art we’ve seen in years. Bookmark it. Share it with someone.— What Kinfolk would say, if the mood struck
Palermo, 1633. Giulia Tofana ran an apothecary. She also ran a network — of midwives, servants, cunning women — that quietly helped women survive marriages the law would not permit them to leave. The law considered what they did a crime. History considers it otherwise. This house takes its name from her, and its mission from the fact that the world has changed considerably less than it should have.
This is a satirical heritage brand. Nothing is for sale. What this site does is use the visual language of luxury wellness — the linen, the serifs, the Roman numerals — to point you toward resources our foremothers would have wept to hold in their hands.
The satire is feminine because Tofana’s network served women. The resources are for everyone. Abuse crosses every line of gender, orientation, class, race, and background. So does the lineage of those who survived it, and those who helped. Every person on the other end of the numbers below has been trained to hear every kind of story without flinching. They have not flinched yet.
If you came here because someone shared it and you thought it was a joke — good. Stay. Look around. Save a number before you leave. If you came here because something in your life has begun to feel like it requires a solution our foremothers would have recognized — scroll up to the Modern Apothecary. The cunning women of this century answer those phones. They have better tools than Giulia did. They are just as certain of what they know. So is the knowledge.
No. House of Tofana is a historical archive and mutual aid project — not a store, not a brand, not a commercial enterprise of any kind. The compounds in the Ancestral Record are documented history. The resources in the Modern Apothecary are real and verified. The only things we want you to take from this site are a phone number and the knowledge that you are not alone.
The satire is feminine because Giulia Tofana’s historical network served women. The resources are for everyone. Roughly 1 in 6 men experience sexual violence in their lifetime. Trans and nonbinary people experience intimate partner violence at rates as high or higher than cisgender women. Every hotline in the Modern Apothecary welcomes all survivors, and several — 1in6, Trans Lifeline, FORGE, AVP — are built specifically by and for male, trans, and LGBTQ+ communities. If you are a survivor of any gender, this site is for you.
Call the National DV Hotline at 1-800-799-7233, or text START to 88788. Advocates are trained to help you support someone else, not just survivors themselves. You can call without the person knowing. They will help you think through what’s safe to say, what’s safe to do, and how to be a soft landing when the person is ready to talk.
Several routes. The NCMEC CyberTipline (1-800-843-5678) handles reports involving minors. The FBI tip line handles federal criminal activity. For non-consensual imagery, the Take It Down Act requires platforms to remove verified content within 48 hours. You can also report directly to the platform hosting the content — every major platform has a reporting flow, usually under a “…” or “report” menu.
Yes. Formulation XIII in the Modern Apothecary covers both. Plan B (morning-after pill) is over the counter at any pharmacy, most effective within 24 hours. Plan C (abortion pills) is FDA-approved for up to 10-12 weeks and available by mail in every US state — plancpills.org has the full state-by-state guide. The M+A Hotline (1-833-246-2632) provides free clinical support. The Repro Legal Helpline (1-844-868-2812) answers legal questions. For sexual assault survivors, emergency contraception is part of a SANE forensic exam — a local advocate can accompany you.
Here is exactly what this site does and does not do with your information:
What this site collects: Nothing. No analytics. No tracking pixels. No cookies. No localStorage. No form submissions. No accounts. Nothing you do here is logged, stored, or transmitted anywhere by us.
The one external request: Fonts are loaded from Google’s servers — Google’s CDN logs the request (your IP, the time). This is the only third-party contact this page makes. If you need zero external requests, open this page in a private/incognito window or use a VPN.
Quick Exit button (top right) or press Escape twice: Clears localStorage, sessionStorage, and any cookies, then navigates to weather.com, replacing your browser history so the back button does not return here. It will also try to close the tab — this works in some browsers and not others. It cannot force a tab closed if you opened it yourself by typing the URL.
Browser cache: This site sends no-cache, no-store headers. Your browser is instructed not to save a local copy. However, some browsers cache anyway — incognito mode is the safest bet on a shared device.
If someone checks the device after: Use a private/incognito window for zero browser history. Quick Exit removes the site from regular history but cannot remove it from incognito (which doesn’t record it anyway). On a shared device: a friend’s phone, a library computer, or your workplace network are safer than any home device.
For stalkerware, AirTags, and shared accounts: See Formulation XV. Do not remove monitoring apps without speaking to a tech safety specialist first — removal alerts the abuser. techsafety.org · 1-800-799-7233.
Tell someone you trust immediately — a friend, bartender, or venue staff. Try not to urinate before a medical exam if possible; urine preserves toxicology evidence for up to 72 hours, hair follicles for up to 90 days. Go to an emergency room or urgent care and tell them you suspect drink spiking. You do not have to file a police report to receive medical care or a SANE forensic exam — they are entirely separate. If you’re in the US, RAINN (1-800-656-HOPE) can connect you to a local sexual assault service provider who can accompany you. Formulation XVI in the Modern Apothecary covers test strips, warning signs, and harm reduction in full — bookmark it for yourself and the people around you.
Because 63 million people a month visit the site that inspired this one. Resource pages reach people already looking for them. Satire reaches people scrolling past. If you came here for a joke about historical poisoners and left with a crisis number saved to your contacts, the site did its job. If you came here because you needed the number, the site did its job. Same link, two entry points.
Serious question, serious answer. The National DV Hotline (1-800-799-7233) also takes calls from people who recognize they are being abusive and want help stopping. In Australia, the Men’s Referral Service (1300 766 491) specializes in this. Changing is possible. It takes work, accountability, and qualified support. Starting that call is an act of care toward the people in your life.
Donate directly to the National Hotline (thehotline.org), RAINN (rainn.org), 1in6 (1in6.org), or your local shelter — they all do unglamorous work that actually saves lives. Share this site with people in your life, not as an emergency, but as a “hey, this exists, save it.” Learn what coercive control looks like. Believe survivors the first time they tell you. If you’re a man, talk to other men about consent and about the tactics being taught online. Find your local shelter anywhere in the world at gnws.org.
Yes. This is an anonymous satirical art project. If you’re a designer, writer, or organizer who wants to build something similar — translate it, adapt the resources for your region, remix the concept entirely — we’d consider that a gift. The resources themselves belong to everyone.