Medical Jurisprudence Vol. II by J. A. Paris and J. S. M. Fonblanque.

193. This appearance is particularly mentioned by Juvenal as an effect of poison.

“Per famam et populum nigros efferre maritos.”—Sat. i, v. 72.

The reader will remember, that we have already stated our opinion, that the poisons of the ancients were of a vegetable origin.

194. Dissertatio Inauguralis de effectibus Arsenici in varios Organismos, nec non de Indicus quibusdam Veneficii ab Arsenicoillati. Quam præside C. F. Kielmayer publicé defendet, Jan. 1808, Auctor Georg: Fred: Jäeger, Stuttgardianus. A very full analysis of this Essay was published by Dr. Siegwart in Gehlen’s Chemical and Physical Journal; and which afterwards found its way into the Edinburgh Medical and Surgical Journal, no. xxv, Jan. 1811.

195. Edinburgh Med. and Surg. Journal, no. XX.

197. Patrick Ogilvy and Catharine Nairne were indicted for incest, and the murder, by Arsenic, of Thomas Ogilvy, brother of the said Patrick, and husband of the said Nairne. This celebrated Scotch trial commenced at Edinburgh, on Monday the 12th of August at seven in the morning, and the court continued setting until about two on Tuesday morning, when the Jury being inclosed, it adjourned until Wednesday at four o’clock in the afternoon. They were both found guilty. After several respites Ogilvy was executed. Nairne escaped from prison, and was never afterwards heard of.

199. Edinb. Med. and Surg. Journ. no. xvii.

200. Ibid. no. xxvi.

201. Ibid. no. lxxi, for April, 1822.

202. Mr. Marshall, in his account of the symptoms of Mr. Robert Turner, who was poisoned by Eliza Fenning, states, “On examination I discovered a very remarkable irregularity of surface, occasioned by the spasmodic contractions of the muscles of the abdomen, and even of the viscera; this unevenness extended from the epigastric region to the pubes, and to the right and left hypochondrium.”

203. Nothing can be more strikingly illustrative of the characteristic appearances which distinguish the effects of violence during life, from those which result from putrefaction as described at page 181.

204. The author refers the reader to the first volume of his Pharmacologia, page 124, note. In addition to what he has there observed it may be stated, that many fallacies have arisen in pharmacology, from deducing conclusions respecting the effects of remedies upon inferior animals. One example will suffice.—Several substances have gained the reputation of Styptics, from the effects which have followed their application to the wounded and bleeding vessels in the extremities of the horse and ass; whereas the fact is that the blood-vessels of these animals possess a power of contraction which does not exist in those of man, and to which the cessation of the hemorrhage, fallaciously attributed to the styptic, is to be wholly attributed.

205. See Appendix, page 272.

206. Toxocologie Générale considérée, sous les Rapports de la Physiologie, de la Pathologie, et de la Medicine légale. Paris, 1815. This work has been faithfully translated into English by John Walker, in two volumes. London, 1817.

207. De Sed. et Caus. Morb. per Anat. indag. Epist. 59, 18.

208. See the interesting trial of Michael Whiting, for administering poison to George and Joseph Langman, of Downham, in the Isle of Ely, at the Assizes holden at Ely on Wednesday, March 4th, 1822, before Edward Christian, Esq. Chief Justice of the Isle. The prisoner was convicted and executed.

209. M. R. S. T. iv, P. iii, p. 278.

210. “Nous adoptons la division suivante, en six classes, de tous les poisons connus, et de toutes les manières possibles par lesquelles les substances vénéneuses peuvent nuire au corps humain: Poisons Septiques—Poisons Stupefians, ou Narcotiques—Poisons Narcotico-Acres—Poisons Acres, ou Rubefians—Poisons Corrosifs, ou Escarotiques—Poisons Astringens.”

211. Belloc surmises that where acrid poisons have been administered, narcotics may have been taken to relieve pain; and thus that a sort of combination of the symptoms of both classes may be produced.

212. Pharmacologia. Edit. 5th, vol. i, page 225, c. Antidotes.

213. Journal de Physiologie Experimentale, (1er numero Janvier 1821.)

214. The adoption of this term led to a very extraordinary error in medicine—the application of Arsenic in the form of vapour, together with the fumes of frankincense, myrrh, and other gums, in a paroxysm of Asthma! This frightful practice arose from confounding the gum Juniper, or Vernix of the Arabians, which by their medical writers was prescribed in fumigations, under the name of Sandarach, for the Σανδαρακη of the Greeks.

215. Orfila. Toxicolog. General.

216. Pharmacologia, edit. v, vol. 2, art. Arsenici Oxydum.

217. A very large quantity is annually prepared from the sublimate which collects in the chimneys and flues of the smelting works and burning houses in Cornwall. We have examined samples prepared according to the improved process of Dr. Edwards, and found them to be perfectly free from foreign admixture: a fact of much greater importance than the reader may at first imagine. Those who require farther information upon this subject may consult a paper in the first volume of the Transactions of the Royal Geological Society of Cornwall, by J. H. Vivian, Esq. entitled “Observations on the processes for making the different preparations of Arsenic, which are practised in Saxony.”

218. Bergman ii, 286. We are, however, upon the authority of Mr. Richard Phillips, inclined to consider this statement of its specific gravity incorrect. He found that when transparent it did not exceed 3·715, and, when opaque, 3·260.

219. Vol. ii, p. 86.

220. The chemist may satisfy himself of this fact by heating some arsenious acid on a piece of platina foil, and then alternately raising and depressing it into the blue flame of the spirit, when corresponding changes in odour will take place in the fumes.

221. See page 184, Note.

222. See Mr. Marshall’s Remarks, &c.

223. See the case reported by Dr. Yelloly, in the 5th volume of the Edinburgh Med. and Surg. Journal.

225. De Pest. Hist. 99. Annot.

226. De Peste Lond. p. 239.

227. Recueil Periodique de la Societé de Med. de Paris, tom. vi. p. 22.

228. Nouveaux Elemens de Med. operat. par J. P. Roux.

229. Nouvelles Experiences sur les Contre-Poisons de l’Arsenic. Par Casimir Renault. A. Paris. A. 9, pp. 119.

230. A belief in this mode of poisoning appears to be of very ancient origin. Calpurnius Bestia was said by Pliny (Hist. Nat. Lib. 27. Cap. 2.) to have been particularly skilled in such a process, and to have murdered many of his wives when asleep, by bathing the parts of generation with the juice of Aconite; and Dr. Gordon Smith, in his work on Forensic Medicine, relates, on the authority of Schenckius, the tragical death of Ladislas, or Lancelot, surnamed the Victorious and the Liberal, who succeeded to the contested throne of Naples in 1386, and died at the age of thirty-eight in great pain, in consequence of having been poisoned by the daughter of a physician, of whom he was passionately fond, per concubitum. Sir Thomas Brown, in his Vulgar Errors, alludes to an ancient story of an “Indian king that sent unto Alexander a fair woman, fed with Aconites, and other poisons, with the intent that she either by converse or copulation might destroy him.”

232. Philosophical Transactions. 1811.

233. M. Orfila observes that there are many cases of poisoning by arsenious acid introduced into the stomach, in which we are unable to discover the slightest appearance of erosion or inflammation in the alimentary canal; such cases are recorded by Chaussier, Etmuller, Marc, Sallin, and Renault.

234. We well remember performing some experiments at Cambridge, many years ago, upon mildew, which as far as they went corroborate this assertion of Jaegar, for its propagation was not prevented by arsenic. See also “The effects of Arsenical fumes,” vol. I, p. 332.

235. See Edinburgh Med. and Surg. Journ. for January 1, 1811.

236. Elements of Juridical Medicine, p. 76.

237. Prestwich on Poisons.

238. Pharmacologia, Edit. 5. vol. ii. p. 89.

239. Medical Transactions, vol. vi, p. 414.

240. See Appendix, page 277.

241. This substance may be said to consist of Charcoal, in a state of extremely minute division, and the sub-carbonate of Potass. It is prepared by deflagrating, in a crucible, two parts of Super-tartrate of Potass with one part of Nitrate of Potass.

242. In order to close the end of the tube, where a blow-pipe is not to be procured, (which, says Dr. Bostock, we may suppose upon these occasions will often be the case) the end is to be placed in a common fire until it is completely softened, and a pair of small tongs being at the same time made red hot, the tube is to be withdrawn from the fire, and the heated end pinched by the tongs, and at the same time bent up at an acute angle, so as to be brought parallel to the body of the tube. The tube is then to be heated a second time, and being again firmly pinched by the hot tongs, the end will be found to be completely impervious.

243. Dr. Bostock states that the best proportions for this coating are, one part of common pipe clay, to three parts of fine sand; which are to be well kneeded together, and reduced to such a state of tenacity, that the lute will readily adhere to the tube, and its different parts unite without forming a visible seam. “Observations on the different methods recommended for detecting minute portions of Arsenic, by J. Bostock, M.D.” Read before the Liverpool Medical Society, and published in the Edinburgh Med. and Surg. Journ. April, 1809.

244. See the paper above quoted.

245. Black’s Lectures, v. ii, p. 430.

246. Foderé recommends this process, Traité de Med. Leg. t. iv, p. 153; and Dr. Jaeger, in his Thesis, before quoted, observes that he has been enabled to recognise the tenth of a grain of arsenious acid, although mixed with sugar, by its odour, when thrown upon burning coals! We must be allowed to question this fact; Dr. Jaeger, no doubt, believed that he recognised the alliaceous odour, but it must have been the sole effect of the imagination. Dr. Bostock states that such a test is not to be depended upon; for, unless the arsenic be in considerable quantity, the odour is not sufficiently perceptible; and if it be mixed with either an animal or a vegetable substance, the smoke and smell arising from these bodies, when heated, will altogether prevent our recognising the peculiar odour of the arsenic. When a quantity of arsenic is mixed with an equal weight of flour, and placed upon iron at a low red heat, so as not to cause the flour to inflame, the suffocating smoke that arises from the latter can be alone perceived; nor is it possible to discover that any thing has been mixed with it. Edinb. Med. Journ. l. c. This last objection of Dr. Bostock is true in fact, although it admits of a different explanation, for at a low temperature the arsenious acid will be volatilized without decomposition; in which case no alliaceous odour can be developed.

247. The paper was read before the Liverpool Medical Society.

248. London Dispensatory. Edit. 3, p. 176.

249. See a letter from Mr. Hume on the subject, to the Editors of the Medical and Physical Journal. July, 1810.

250. On the detection of very minute quantities of Arsenic and Mercury. By James Smithson, Esq. F.R.S. Annals of Philosophy, August, 1822.

251. If any trifling opacity occur in a simple solution of arsenic, when assayed by the nitrate of silver, it may be considered as the effects of some casual impurity; this may be farther demonstrated by bringing over the surface of the arsenical liquid, a piece of blotting paper, or a stopper moistened with a solution of ammonia, when there will instantly form a copious yellow precipitate of arsenite of silver. If this experiment be performed by spreading the mixed solutions of arsenious acid and nitrate of silver over a surface of glass, laid upon white paper, the result will be most striking and beautiful, for on slowly bringing the ammoniacal test over it, the yellow cloud will gradually diffuse itself over the surface.

252. Pharmacologia. Edit. 5, vol. ii, p. 96.

253. London Medical and Physical Journal, January, 1818.

254. The following is the formula for its preparation. Dissolve ten grains of lunar caustic, in ten times its weight of distilled water; to this add, guttatim, liquid ammonia, until a precipitate is formed; continue cautiously to add the ammonia, repeatedly agitating the mixture until the precipitate is nearly redissolved. The object of allowing a small portion to remain undissolved is, to guard against an excess of ammonia. Wherever the test is used, the liquid to which it is added ought to be quite cold.

255. This is very important, for an excess of ammonia redissolves the yellow precipitate, and therefore defeats the object of the test. The fixed alkalies, in excess, have not such a property.

256. The great impression made upon the public mind in Cornwall by the above trial, produced a disposition to regard every sudden death with more than usual jealousy. In consequence, therefore, of a report having arisen that a young woman had died after an illness of forty-eight hours, and been hastily buried at Madron, near Penzance, the magistrates of that district issued their warrant for the disinterment of the body, and requested the author’s attendance at the examination. The dissection was accordingly conducted in the church, when it appeared that the immediate cause of death had been an inflammation of the intestines; the stomach was found to contain a considerable portion of liquid, which was carefully collected and examined; no solid matter could be discovered in it, nor were any particles found to be adhering to the coats of the stomach. The fluid appeared to consist principally of the remains of a quantity of pennyroyal tea, which had been the last thing administered to the deceased. This was divided into several distinct portions, and placed in separate wine glasses, and submitted, in the presence of the High Sheriff, and some other gentlemen whose curiosity had been excited by the late trial of Donnall, to a series of experiments, amongst which the following may be particularized, as bearing upon the present question, and as affording an important elucidation of it.

A few drops of a solution of sub-carbonate of potass were added to the liquid, in one of the glasses, when its colour, which was originally of a light hazel, was instantly deepened into a reddish yellow; the sulphate of copper was then applied, when a precipitate fell down, which every one present simultaneously pronounced to be of a “vivid grass green” hue; but, on pouring off the supernatant liquid, and transferring the precipitate upon a sheet of white paper, it assumed the blue colour which is so characteristic of the carbonate of copper. The explanation of the phenomenon, and the fallacy to which it gave rise, became obvious; the yellow colour imparted to the liquid by the alkali, was the effect of the latter body upon the vegetable extractive matter of the infusion. The other portions were then strictly examined, but no indications of arsenic or any other metallic poison were discovered.

257. This explanation applies equally to the objection lately advanced by Dr. Porter, of the University of South Carolina, who, in his observations on the tests of arsenic, remarks, that an appearance similar to “Scheele’s Green,” is produced by the carbonate of potass, when added to a solution of the sulphate of copper in coffee, but without arsenic, more striking than if even a weak solution of arsenic were used. Silliman’s Journal, iii. 865.

Fodere reports a case, in which an erroneous conclusion respecting the presence of arsenic was drawn, evidently owing to the same source of fallacy. The Society of Medicine at Marseilles, in consequence of a girl having been poisoned by a quack medicine, appointed a scientific person to examine the composition of the Nostrum; this person, strongly prepossessed with the opinion that it contained arsenic, applied the copper test above described, and having obtained by means of it, a green precipitate, reported, without any further inquiry, that the medicine in question was an arsenical solution. Foderé, however, suspected the correctness of the conclusion, in consequence of the residue not yielding by combustion, any alliaceous odour; a new analysis was therefore made, which proved the nostrum to be nothing more than a very strong alcoholic tincture of colocynth. Médecine Légale, tom. iv. p. 137.

258. It is hardly necessary to observe that neither the carbonate of ammonia or of potass, or sulphuric or muriatic acid, produce any effect whatever in a pure solution of white arsenic.

259. Corrosive sublimate, however, produces both these effects, from causes which we have fully explained under the consideration of that poison.

260. Toxicologie Générale, supra citat.

261. See Leçons de Médecine Légale, a Paris, 1821. “Experiences chimiques propres à decouvrir les poisons minéraux qui ont été mêlés avec du thé, du café, du vin, ete.” Trente-unieme Leçon. p. 415.

262. Chirurg. Med. p. 185.

263. The arsenite of potass, which has been long known under the name of the “arsenical salt of Macquer” has been used in medicine, and the Dublin Pharmacopœia contains a process for the preparation of “arsenias kali.”

264. Nouvelles Experiences, &c., op. sup. cit.

265. Opera Omnia de Venenis, 1761.

266. Υδραργυρος of the Greeks from its fluidity and colour. Quicksilver. Quick, in the old Saxon tongue signified living: an epithet derived from its mobility.

268. Hassenfratz Ann. de Chim. xxviii, 12.

269. Hence it was called by the alchymists the Dragon.

270. Mead on Poisons, edit. 4, p. 196.

271. Second edition, p. 89.

272. For the report of the above satisfactory case we are indebted to Dr. Gordon Smith, who has related it in his work on Forensic Medicine, p. 114.

273. Edit. 5, vol. 1, p. 260.

274. “Further experiments and observations on the action of Poisons on the animal system.” Phil. Trans. 1812.

275. For a history of the different quack medicines which contain mercury, see Pharmacologia, vol. ii, p. 239.

276. Opera Medica. Epist. i, p. 200.

277. Contre-poisons de l’Arsenic, du sublimé corrosif, &c.

278. Proposed by M. Duval, “Dissertation sur la Toxicologie.”

279. M. Chausarel. “Observations sur diverses substances Vénéneuses,” p. 47.

280. We find in an ancient epigram of Ausonius, that a woman gave to her husband some metallic mercury, with the design of increasing the energy of a certain poison, which she administered to him. But instead of producing this effect, the mercury, on the contrary, entirely re-established the health of the person poisoned. The celebrated Goethe upon asking the Professor Doebereiner of Jena, his opinion upon the above case, received in reply, that the poison must have been corrosive sublimate, since, of all the known poisons, it was the only one whose power was weakened by mercury.

This story induced Orfila to ascertain the truth by experiment, and he has shewn THAT METALLIC MERCURY IS NOT AN ANTIDOTE TO CORROSIVE SUBLIMATE.

281. Mr. Hart. “What did you do with the flour and pork?

C. Carter. I made it into four dumplings, two with pork, and two without, and tied the two largest, with pork in them, up in bags.

---- With what did you mix the flour?

---- With milk.

---- When you were making these dumplings, did you observe any thing?

---- They made different to any thing which I had ever made before.

---- Explain that difference?

---- They broke and crumbled all into little bits. I had to knock them in a stant like when we make butter. They would not hold together.

---- Had you more or less difficulty than usual?

---- More trouble than I ever had before.”

Extract from the trial.

282. We have been informed that, by this simple and beautiful test, Mr. Archdeacon Wollaston identified the presence of corrosive sublimate in the dumplings by which Michael Whiting attempted to poison his brothers-in-law, at Ely, as stated in the preceding page, as well as at 197. Although in the report of the trial in our possession, the professor does not appear to have furnished the court with any account of the process by which he discovered the poison.

283. Trial of Mary Bateman for the wilful murder of Rebecca Perigo, at the York Assizes, 1809. As we have on several occasions alluded to this trial, it may perhaps be satisfactory to give a short sketch of the case in this place.

This diabolical woman, under the pretext of possessing the art of witchcraft, committed numerous frauds, and worked with so much success upon the credulity of her victims, as to obtain considerable sums of money, and reduce them to the extremes of poverty; while, in order to conceal the frauds, she consigned whole families to the grave by her poisons. Her detection was brought about by the robbery of a family of the name of Perigo, from whom she obtained the sum of seventy pounds, besides cloathes and furniture, under the pretence of engaging a Miss Blythe to relieve Perigo’s wife from the effects of an “evil wish,” under which she was supposed to labour; when the appointed time arrived for the restoration of the property, and the promised cure of the wife, Mary Bateman sent a powder (Arsenic) which she directed them to add to their pudding, and advised them, should they be ill after eating it, to take a spoonful of prepared honey with which she supplied them. The wife ate the pudding, and soon afterwards died; the husband, however, very narrowly escaped: for this murder she was tried and convicted; and thus was a system of robbery and murder, scarcely equalled in the annals of crime, happily exposed and ended.

284. In the Philosophical Magazine for December, 1821, a communication is to be found from a Mr. Murray, which would have been too ridiculous to require notice, had it not involved a question connected with the habitudes of corrosive sublimate and iron, which might possibly occasion error. After stating that certain metallic solutions may be decomposed through the agency of magnetism, he says, a solution of corrosive sublimate may be thus made to yield metallic mercury, by introducing into it a bar of magnetised iron! He had not the wit to inquire whether unmagnetised iron might not prove equally powerful as a decomposing agent.

285. Orfila, l. c.

286. Orfila, l. c.

287. Edinburgh Med. & Surg. Journal, v.

288. Ann. de Chimie et Phys. iv. 334.

289. Tartarized Antimony, administered as an emetic, may decompose the salt in the stomach.

290. Consultation Medico-legale sur une Accusation de l’empoisonnement par le Muriate de Mercure sur-oxydé. p. 146.

292. The above passage is quoted from Waller’s translation of Orfila’s Treatise on Poisons, vol. i, p. 73.

293. Comment: Med. in Processus Criminales.

294. Principles of Forensic Medicine, p. 113.

295. Accum on culinary poisons, or “Death in the Pot.” As this is the last occasion which we shall have to mention the above work, we may observe by the way, that this ad captandum title is not original with Mr. Accum, for there is a dissertation by Mauchart, entitled “Mors in Olla.”

296. Many of the preparations lately presented by Dr. Baillie to the College of Physicians have become black, in consequence of the vermilion, with which they are injected, having been adulterated with red lead.

297. Upon this subject, the reader may consult the Historical Introduction to the Pharmacologia, page 87.

298. Annal. de Chem. xxxii. 255.

299. We have upon this, as well as on similar occasions, preferred adopting the name by which the substance is known in common parlance, to that which might more strictly accord with our scientific views of its composition.

300. Pharmacologia, Edit. v. vol. 2. p. 65.

301. F. Hoffmanni Op. om. T. 1. par. ii. c. v. p. 219.

302. This subject is treated very copiously in the first volume of the Pharmacologia, page 152. To this work the author must refer the reader, for the limits of the present volume will not allow more than a mere enunciation of the fact.

303. Elements of Juridical Medicine, edit. 2, p. 96.

304. “Further experiments and observations on the Action of Poisons on the Animal system, by B. C. Brodie, Esq. F. R. S. Communicated to the Society for the improvement of Animal Chemistry, and by them to the Royal Society.” Phil. Trans. for 1812, vol. 102, p. 205.