Please see [Transcriber’s Notes] at the end of this document.

POISONS:
THEIR EFFECTS AND DETECTION.

BY THE SAME AUTHOR.

Fourth Edition. At Press.

FOODS:

THEIR COMPOSITION AND ANALYSIS.

With numerous Tables and Illustrations.

General Contents.

History of Adulteration—Legislation, Past and Present—Apparatus useful to the Food Analyst—“Ash”—Sugar—Confectionery—Honey—Treacle—Jams and Preserved Fruits—Starches—Wheaten-Flour—Bread—Oats—Barley—Rye—Rice—Maize—Millet—Potato—Peas—Chinese Peas—Lentils—Beans—Milk—Cream—Butter—Cheese—Tea—Coffee—Cocoa and Chocolate—Alcohol—Brandy—Rum—Whisky—Gin—Arrack—Liqueurs—Beer—Wine—Vinegar—Lemon and Lime Juice—Mustard—Pepper—Sweet and Bitter Almond—Annatto—Olive Oil—Water. Appendix: Text of English and American Adulteration Acts.

“Will be used by every Analyst.”—Lancet.

“Stands Unrivalled for completeness of information. . . . A really ‘practical’ work for the guidance of practical men.”—Sanitary Record.

“An ADMIRABLE DIGEST of the most recent state of knowledge. . . . Interesting even to lay-readers.”—Chemical News.

In Large 8vo, Handsome Cloth. 21s.

FORENSIC MEDICINE
AND
TOXICOLOGY.

By J. DIXON MANN, M.D., F.R.C.P.,
Professor of Medical Jurisprudence and Toxicology in Owens College, Manchester; Examiner in Forensic Medicine in the University of London, and in the Victoria University; Physician to the Salford Royal Hospital.

Part I.—Forensic Medicine. Part II.—Insanity in its Medico-legal Bearings. Part III.—Toxicology.

“By far the MOST RELIABLE, MOST SCIENTIFIC, and MOST MODERN book on Medical Jurisprudence with which we are acquainted.”—Dublin Medical Journal.

“A most useful work of reference. . . . Of value to all those who, as medical men or lawyers, are engaged in cases where the testimony of medical experts forms a part of the evidence.”—The Law Journal.

London: Charles Griffin & Co., Ltd., Exeter St., Strand.

POISONS:
THEIR EFFECTS AND DETECTION.
A MANUAL FOR THE USE OF ANALYTICAL
CHEMISTS AND EXPERTS.

WITH AN INTRODUCTORY ESSAY ON THE GROWTH OF MODERN TOXICOLOGY.

BY
ALEXANDER WYNTER BLYTH,
M.R.C.S., F.I.C., F.C.S., &c.,
BARRISTER-AT-LAW; PUBLIC ANALYST FOR THE COUNTY OF DEVON; AND MEDICAL OFFICER OF HEALTH AND PUBLIC ANALYST FOR ST. MARYLEBONE.

THIRD EDITION, REVISED AND ENLARGED.

With Tables and Illustrations.

LONDON:
CHARLES GRIFFIN AND COMPANY, LIMITED,
EXETER STREET, STRAND.
1895.

(All Rights Reserved.)
D. VAN NOSTRAND COMPANY,
NEW YORK.

PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION.

The present edition, which appears on the same general plan as before, will yet be found to have been in great part re-written, enlarged, and corrected.

Analytical methods which experience has shown to be faulty have been omitted, and replaced by newer and more accurate processes.

The intimate connection which recent research has shown to exist between the arrangement of the constituent parts of an organic molecule and physiological action, has been considered at some length in a separate chapter.

The cadaveric alkaloids or ptomaines, bodies playing so great a part in food-poisoning and in the manifestations of disease, are in this edition treated of as fully as the limits of the book will allow.

The author, therefore, trusts that these various improvements, modifications, and corrections will enable “Poisons” to maintain the position which it has for so many years held in the esteem of toxicologists and of the medical profession generally.

The Court House, St. Marylebone, W.
June, 1895.

CONTENTS.

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

POISONS:
THEIR EFFECTS AND DETECTION.

PART I.—INTRODUCTORY.

I.—The Old Poison-Lore.

§ 1. It is significant that the root “tox” of the modern word toxicology can be traced back to a very ancient word meaning “bow” or “arrow,” or, in its broadest sense, some “tool” used for slaying: hence it is no far-fetched supposition that the first poison-knowledge was that of the septic poisons. Perchance the savage found that weapons soiled with the blood of former victims made wounds fatal; from this observation the next step naturally would be that of experiment—the arrow or spear would be steeped in all manner of offensive pastes, and smeared with the vegetable juices of those plants which were deemed noxious; and as the effects were mysterious, they would be ascribed to the supernatural powers, and covered with a veil of superstition.

The history of the poison-lehre, like all history, begins in the region of the myths: there was a dark saga prevailing in Greece, that in the far north existed a land ruled by sorcerers—all children of the sun—and named Aeëtes, Perses, Hecate, Medea, and Circe. Later on, the enchanted land was localised at Colchis, and Aeëtes and Perses were said to be brothers. Hecate was the daughter of Perses; she was married to Aeëtes, and their daughters were Medea and Circe. Hecate was the discoverer of poisonous herbs, and learned in remedies both evil and good. Her knowledge passed to Medea, who narcotised the dragon, the guardian of the golden fleece, and incited Jason to great undertakings.

In the expedition of the Argonauts, the poets loved to describe Hecate’s garden, with its lofty walls. Thrice-folding doors of ebony barred the entrance, which was guarded by terrible forms: only the initiated few, only they who bore the leavened rod of expiation, and the concealed conciliatory offering of the Medea, could enter into the sanctuary. Towering above all was the temple of the dread Hecate, whose priestesses offered to the gods ghastly sacrifices.

§ 2. The oldest Egyptian king, Menes, and Attalus Phylometer, the last king of Pergamus, were both famous for their knowledge of plants. Attalus Phylometer was acquainted with hyoscyamus, aconite, conium, veratrum, and others; he experimented on the preparation of poisons, and occupied himself in compounding medicines. Mithradetes Eupator stood yet higher: the receipt for the famous theriaca, prepared in later years at an enormous price, and composed of fifty-four different ingredients, is ascribed to him. The wonderful skill shown by the Egyptians in embalming and technical works is sufficient to render it fairly certain that their chemical knowledge was considerable; and the frequent operations of one caste upon the dead must have laid the foundations of a pathological and anatomical culture, of which only traces remain.

The Egyptians knew prussic acid as extracted in a dilute state from certain plants, among the chief of which was certainly the peach; on a papyrus preserved at the Louvre, M. Duteil read, “Pronounce not the name of I. A. O. under the penalty of the peach!” in which dark threat, without doubt, lurks the meaning that those who revealed the religious mysteries of the priests were put to death by waters distilled from the peach. That the priests actually distilled the peach-leaves has been doubted by those who consider the art of distillation a modern invention; but this process was well known to adepts of the third and fourth centuries, and there is no inherent improbability in the supposition that the Egyptians practised it.

§ 3. From the Egyptians the knowledge of the deadly drink appears to have passed to the Romans. At the trial of Antipater,[1] Verus brought a potion derived from Egypt, which had been intended to destroy Herod; this was essayed on a criminal, he died at once. In the reign of Tiberius, a Roman knight, accused of high treason, swallowed a poison, and fell dead at the feet of the senators: in both cases the rapidity of action appears to point to prussic acid.

[1] Jos. Ant., B. xvii. c. 5.

The use of poison by the Greeks, as a means of capital punishment, without doubt favoured suicide by the same means; the easy, painless death of the state prisoner would be often preferred to the sword by one tired of life. The ancients looked indeed upon suicide, in certain instances, as something noble, and it was occasionally formally sanctioned. Thus, Valerius Maximus tells us that he saw a woman of quality, in the island of Ceos, who, having lived happily for ninety years, obtained leave to take a poisonous draught, lest, by living longer, she should happen to have a change in her good fortune; and, curiously enough, this sanctioning of self-destruction seems to have been copied in Europe. Mead relates that the people of Marseilles of old had a poison, kept by the public authorities, in which cicuta was an ingredient: a dose was allowed to any one who could show why he should desire death. Whatever use or abuse might be made of a few violent poisons, Greek and Roman knowledge of poisons, their effects and methods of detection, was stationary, primitive, and incomplete.

Nicander of Colophon (204-138 B.C.) wrote two treatises, the most ancient works on this subject extant, the one describing the effects of snake venom; the other, the properties of opium, henbane, certain fungi, colchicum, aconite, and conium. He divided poisons into those which kill quickly, and those which act slowly. As antidotes, those medicines are recommended which excite vomiting—e.g., lukewarm oil, warm water, mallow, linseed tea, &c.

Apollodorus lived at the commencement of the third century B.C.: he wrote a work on poisonous animals, and one on deleterious medicines; these works of Apollodorus were the sources from which Pliny, Heraclitus, and several of the later writers derived most of their knowledge of poisons.

Dioscorides (40-90 A.D.) well detailed the effects of cantharides, sulphate of copper, mercury, lead, and arsenic. By arsenic he would appear sometimes to mean the sulphides, sometimes the white oxide. Dioscorides divided poisons, according to their origin, into three classes, viz.:—

1. Animal Poisons.—Under this head were classed cantharides and allied beetles, toads, salamanders, poisonous snakes, a particular variety of honey, and the blood of the ox, probably the latter in a putrid state. He also speaks of the “sea-hare.” The sea-hare was considered by the ancients very poisonous, and Domitian is said to have murdered Titus with it. It is supposed by naturalists to have been one of the genus Aplysia, among the gasteropods. Both Pliny and Dioscorides depict the animal as something very formidable: it was not to be looked at, far less touched. The aplysiæ exhale a very nauseous and fœtid odour when they are approached: the best known of the species resembles, when in a state of repose, a mass of unformed flesh; when in motion, it is like a common slug; its colour is reddish-brown; it has four horns on its head; and the eyes, which are very small, are situated between the two hinder ones. This aplysia has an ink reservoir, like the sepia, and ejects it in order to escape from its enemies; it inhabits the muddy bottom of the water, and lives on small crabs, mollusca, &c.

2. Poisons from Plants.—Dioscorides enumerates opium, black and white hyoscyamus (especially recognising the activity of the seeds), mandragora, which was probably a mixture of various solanaceæ, conium (used to poison the condemned by the people of Athens and the dwellers of ancient Massilia), elaterin, and the juices of a species of euphorbia and apocyneæ. He also makes a special mention of aconite, the name of which is derived from Akon, a small city in Heraclea. The Greeks were well aware of the deadly nature of aconite, and gave to it a mythical origin, from the foam of the dog Cerberus. Colchicum was also known to Dioscorides: its first use was ascribed to Medea. Veratrum album and nigrum were famous medicines of the Romans, and a constituent of their “rat and mice powders;” they were also used as insecticides. According to Pliny, the Gauls dipped their arrows in a preparation of veratrum.[2] Daphne mezereon, called by the Romans also smilax and taxus, appears to have been used by Cativolcus, the king of the Eburones, for the purpose of suicide, or possibly by “taxus” the yew-tree is meant.[3]

[2] Pliny, xxv. 5.

[3] De Bello Gallico, vi. 31.

The poisonous properties of certain fungi were also known. Nicander calls the venomous mushrooms the “evil fermentation of the earth,” and prescribes the identical antidotes which we would perhaps give at the present time—viz., vinegar and alkaline carbonates.

3. Mineral Poisons.—Arsenic has been already alluded to. The ancients used it as a caustic and depilatory. Copper was known as sulphate and oxide; mercury only as cinnabar: lead oxides were used, and milk and olive-oil prescribed as an antidote for their poisonous properties. The poison-lehre for many ages was considered as something forbidden. Galen, in his treatise “On Antidotes,” remarks that the only authors who dared to treat of poisons were Orpheus, Theologus, Morus, Mendesius the younger, Heliodorus of Athens, Aratus, and a few others; but none of these treatises have come down to us. From the close similarity of the amount of information in the treatises of Nicander, Dioscorides, Pliny, Galen, and Paulus Ægineta, it is probable that all were derived from a common source.

§ 4. If we turn our attention to early Asiatic history, a very cursory glance at the sacred writings of the East will prove how soon the art of poisoning, especially in India, was used for the purpose of suicide, revenge, or robbery.

The ancient practice of the Hindoo widow—self-immolation on the burning pile of her husband—is ascribed to the necessity which the Brahmins were under of putting a stop to the crime of domestic poisoning. Every little conjugal quarrel was liable to be settled by this form of secret assassination, but such a law, as might be expected, checked the practice.

Poison was not used to remove human beings alone, for there has been from time immemorial in India much cattle-poisoning. In the Institutes of Menu, it is ordained that when cattle die the herdsman shall carry to his master their ears, their hides, their tails, the skin below their navels, their tendons, and the liquor oozing from their foreheads. Without doubt these regulations were directed against cattle-poisoners.

The poisons known to the Asiatics were arsenic, aconite, opium, and various solanaceous plants. There has been a myth floating through the ages that a poison exists which will slay a long time after its introduction. All modern authors have treated the matter as an exaggerated legend, but, for my own part, I see no reason why it should not, in reality, be founded on fact. There is little doubt that the Asiatic poisoners were well acquainted with the infectious qualities of certain fevers and malignant diseases. Now, these very malignant diseases answer precisely to the description of a poison which has no immediate effects. Plant small-pox in the body of a man, and for a whole fortnight he walks about, well and hearty. Clothe a person with a garment soaked in typhus, and the same thing occurs—for many days there will be no sign of failure. Again, the gipsies, speaking a tongue which is essentially a deformed prakrit, and therefore Indian in origin, have long possessed a knowledge of the properties of the curious “mucor phycomyces.” This was considered an alga by Agaron, but Berkeley referred it to the fungi. The gipsies are said to have administered the spores of this fungi in warm water. In this way they rapidly attach themselves to the mucous membrane of the throat, all the symptoms of a phthisis follow, and death takes place in from two to three weeks. Mr Berkeley informed me that he has seen specimens growing on broth which had been rejected from the stomach, and that it develops in enormous quantities on oil-casks and walls impregnated with grease. The filaments are long, from 12 to 18 inches, and it is capable of very rapid development.

There is also a modern poison, which, in certain doses, dooms the unfortunate individual to a terrible malady, simulating, to a considerable extent, natural disease,—that is phosphorus. This poison was, however, unknown until some time in the eleventh century, when Alchid Becher, blindly experimenting on the distillation of urine and carbon, obtained his “escarboucle,” and passed away without knowing the importance of his discovery, which, like so many others, had to be rediscovered at a later period.

§ 5. The Hebrews were acquainted with certain poisons, the exact nature of which is not quite clear. The words “rosch” and “chema” seem to be used occasionally as a generic term for poison, and sometimes to mean a specific thing; “rosch,” especially, is used to signify some poisonous parasitic plant. They knew yellow arsenic under the name of “sam,” aconite under the name of “boschka,” and possibly “son” means ergot.[4] In the later period of their history, when they were dispersed through various nations, they would naturally acquire the knowledge of those nations, without losing their own.

[4] R. J. Wunderbar, Biblisch-talmudische Medicin. Leipzig, 1850-60.

§ 6. The part that poison has played in history is considerable. The pharmaceutical knowledge of the ancients is more graphically and terribly shown in the deaths of Socrates, Demosthenes, Hannibal, and Cleopatra, than in the pages of the older writers on poisons.

In the reign of Artaxerxes II. (Memnon), (B.C. 405-359), Phrysa poisoned the queen Statira by cutting food with a knife poisoned on one side only. Although this has been treated as an idle tale, yet two poisons, aconite and arsenic, were at least well known; either of these could have been in the way mentioned introduced in sufficient quantity into food to destroy life.

In the early part of the Christian era professional poisoners arose, and for a long time exercised their trade with impunity. Poisoning was so much in use as a political engine that Agrippina (A.D. 26) refused to eat of some apples offered to her at table by her father-in-law, Tiberius.

It was at this time that the infamous Locusta flourished. She is said to have supplied, with suitable directions, the poison by which Agrippina got rid of Claudius; and the same woman was the principal agent in the preparation of the poison that was administered to Britannicus, by order of his brother Nero. The details of this interesting case have been recorded with some minuteness.

It was the custom of the Romans to drink hot water, a draught nauseous enough to us, but, from fashion or habit, considered by them a luxury; and, as no two men’s tastes are alike, great skill was shown by the slaves in bringing the water to exactly that degree of heat which their respective masters found agreeable.[5]

[5] Tacitus, lib. xii., xiii. Mentioned also by Juvenal and Suetonius.

The children of the Imperial house, with others of the great Roman families, sat at the banquets at a smaller side table, while their parents reclined at the larger. A slave brings hot water to Britannicus; it is too hot; Britannicus refuses it. The slave adds cold water; and it is this cold water that is supposed to have been poisoned; in any case, Britannicus had no sooner drunk of it than he lost voice and respiration. Agrippina, his mother, was struck with terror, as well as Octavia, his sister. Nero, the author of the crime, looks coldly on, saying that such fits often happened to him in infancy without evil result; and after a few moments’ silence the banquet goes on as before. If this were not sudden death from heart or brain disease, the poison must have been either a cyanide or prussic acid.

In those times no autopsy was possible: although the Alexandrian school, some 300 years before Christ, had dissected both the living and the dead, the work of Herophilus and Erasistratus had not been pursued, and the great Roman and Greek writers knew only the rudiments of human anatomy, while, as to pathological changes and their true interpretation, their knowledge may be said to have been absolutely nil. It was not, indeed, until the fifteenth century that the Popes, silencing ancient scruples, authorised dissections; and it was not until the sixteenth century that Vesalius, the first worthy of being considered a great anatomist, arose. In default of pathological knowledge, the ancients attached great importance to mere outward marks and discolorations. They noted with special attention spots and lividity, and supposed that poisons singled out the heart for some quite peculiar action, altering its substance in such a manner that it resisted the action of the funeral pyre, and remained unconsumed. It may, then, fairly be presumed that many people must have died from poison without suspicion, and still more from the sudden effects of latent disease, ascribed wrongfully to poison. For example, the death of Alexander was generally at that time ascribed to poison; but Littré has fairly proved that the great emperor, debilitated by his drinking habits, caught a malarious fever in the marshes around Babylon, and died after eleven days’ illness. If, added to sudden death, the body, from any cause, entered into rapid putrefaction, such signs were considered by the people absolutely conclusive of poisoning: this belief, indeed, prevailed up to the middle of the seventeenth century, and lingers still among the uneducated at the present day. Thus, when Britannicus died, an extraordinary lividity spread over the face of the corpse, which they attempted to conceal by painting the face. When Pope Alexander VI. died, probably enough from poison, his body (according to Guicciardini) became a frightful spectacle—it was livid, bloated, and deformed; the gorged tongue entirely filled the mouth; from the nose flowed putrid pus, and the stench was horrible in the extreme.

All these effects of decomposition, we know, are apt to arise in coarse, obese bodies, and accompany both natural and unnatural deaths; indeed, if we look strictly at the matter, putting on one side the preservative effects of certain metallic poisons, it may be laid down that generally the corpses of those dying from poison are less apt to decompose rapidly than those dying from disease—this for the simple reason that a majority of diseases cause changes in the fluids and tissues, which render putrefactive changes more active, while, as a rule, those who take poison are suddenly killed, with their fluids and tissues fairly healthy.

When the Duke of Burgundy desired to raise a report that John, Dauphin of France, was poisoned (1457), he described the imaginary event as follows:—

“One evening our most redoubtable lord and nephew fell so grievously sick that he died forthwith. His lips, tongue, and face were swollen; his eyes started out of his head. It was a horrible sight to see—for so look people that are poisoned.”

The favourite powder of the professional poisoner, arsenic, was known to crowned heads in the fourteenth century; and there has come down to us a curious document, drawn out by Charles le Mauvais, King of Navarre. It is a commission of murder, given to a certain Woudreton, to poison Charles VI., the Duke of Valois, brother of the king, and his uncles, the Dukes of Berry, Burgundy, and Bourbon:—

“Go thou to Paris; thou canst do great service if thou wilt: do what I tell thee; I will reward thee well. Thou shalt do thus: There is a thing which is called sublimed arsenic; if a man eat a bit the size of a pea he will never survive. Thou wilt find it in Pampeluna, Bordeaux, Bayonne, and in all the good towns through which thou wilt pass, at the apothecaries’ shops. Take it and powder it; and when thou shalt be in the house of the king, of the Count de Valois, his brother, the Dukes of Berry, Burgundy, and Bourbon, draw near, and betake thyself to the kitchen, to the larder, to the cellar, or any other place where thy point can be best gained, and put the powder in the soups, meats, or wines, provided that thou canst do it secretly. Otherwise, do it not.” Woudreton was detected, and executed in 1384.[6]

[6] Trésor de Chartes. Charles de Navarre. P. Mortonval, vol. ii. p. 384.

A chapter might be written entitled “royal poisoners.” King Charles IX. even figures as an experimentalist.[7] An unfortunate cook has stolen two silver spoons, and, since there was a question whether “Bezoar” was an antidote or not, the king administers to the cook a lethal dose of corrosive sublimate, and follows it up with the antidote; but the man dies in seven hours, although Paré also gives him oil. Truly a grim business!

[7] Œuvres de Paré, 2nd ed., liv. xx. Des Vennes, chap. xliv. p. 507.

The subtle method of removing troublesome subjects has been more often practised on the Continent than in England, yet the English throne in olden time is not quite free from this stain.[8] The use of poison is wholly opposed to the Anglo-Saxon method of thought. To what anger the people were wrought on detecting poisoners, is seen in the fact that, in 1542, a young woman was boiled alive in Smithfield for poisoning three households.[9]

[8] For example, King John is believed to have poisoned Maud Fitzwalter by “a poisoned egg.”

“In the reign of King John, the White Tower received one of the first and fairest of a long line of female victims in that Maud Fitzwalter who was known to the singers of her time as Maud the Fair. The father of this beautiful girl was Robert, Lord Fitzwalter, of Castle Baynard, on the Thames, one of John’s greatest barons. Yet the king, during a fit of violence with the queen, fell madly in love with this young girl. As neither the lady herself nor her powerful sire would listen to his disgraceful suit, the king is said to have seized her by force at Dunmow, and brought her to the Tower. Fitzwalter raised an outcry, on which the king sent troops into Castle Baynard and his other houses; and when the baron protested against these wrongs, his master banished him from the realm. Fitzwalter fled to France with his wife and his other children, leaving his daughter Maud in the Tower, where she suffered a daily insult in the king’s unlawful suit. On her proud and scornful answer to his passion being heard, John carried her up to the roof, and locked her in the round turret, standing on the north-east angle of the keep. Maud’s cage was the highest, chilliest den in the Tower; but neither cold, nor solitude, nor hunger could break her strength. In the rage of his disappointed love, the king sent one of his minions to her room with a poisoned egg, of which the brave girl ate and died.”—Her Majesty’s Tower, by Hepworth Dixon. Lond., 1869; i. p. 46.

[9] “This yeare, the 17th of March, was boyled in Smithfield one Margaret Davie, a mayden, which had pouysoned 3 householdes that she dwelled in. One being her mistress, which dyed of the same, and one Darington and his wyfe, which she also dwelled with in Coleman Street, which dyed of the same, and also one Tinleys, which dyed also of the same.”—Wriotherley’s Chronicle, A.D. 1542.

§ 7. Two great criminal schools arose from the fifteenth to the seventeenth centuries in Venice and Italy. The Venetian poisoners are of earlier date than the Italian, and flourished chiefly in the fifteenth century. Here we have the strange spectacle, not of the depravity of individuals, but of the government of the State formally recognising secret assassination by poison, and proposals to remove this or that prince, duke, or emperor, as a routine part of their deliberations. Still more curious and unique, the dark communings of “the council of ten” were recorded in writing, and the number of those who voted for and who voted against the proposed crime, the reason for the assassination, and the sum to be paid, still exist in shameless black and white. Those who desire to study this branch of secret history may be referred to a small work by Carl Hoff, which gives a brief account of what is known of the proceedings of the council. One example will here suffice. On the 15th of December 1513 a Franciscan brother, John of Ragubo, offered a selection of poisons, and declared himself ready to remove any objectionable person out of the way. For the first successful case he required a pension of 1500 ducats yearly, which was to be increased on the execution of future services. The presidents, Girolando Duoda and Pietro Guiarina, placed the matter before the “ten” on the 4th of January 1514, and on a division (10 against 5) it was resolved to accept so patriotic an offer, and to experiment first on the Emperor Maximilian. The bond laid before the “ten” contained a regular tariff—for the great Sultan 500 ducats, for the King of Spain 150 ducats, but the journey and other expenses were in each case to be defrayed; the Duke of Milan was rated at 60, the Marquis of Mantua at 50, the Pope could be removed at 100 ducats. The curious offer thus concludes:—“The farther the journey, the more eminent the man, the more it is necessary to reward the toil and hardships undertaken, and the heavier must be the payment.” The council appear to have quietly arranged thus to take away the lives of many public men, but their efforts were only in a few cases successful. When the deed was done, it was registered by a single marginal note, “factum.”

What drugs the Venetian poisoners used is uncertain. The Italians became notorious in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries for their knowledge of poisons, partly from the deeds of Toffana and others, and partly from the works of J. Baptista Porta, who wrote a very comprehensive treatise, under the title of Natural Magic,[10] and managed to slide into the text, in the sections on cooking (De Re Coquinaria, lib. xiv.), a mass of knowledge as to the preparation of poisons. There are prescriptions that little accord with the title, unless indeed the trades of cook and poisoner were the same. He gives a method of drugging wine with belladonna root, for the purpose of making the loaded guest loathe drink; he also gives a list of solanaceous plants, and makes special mention of nux vomica, aconite, veratrum, and mezereon. Again, in the section (De Ancupio, lib. xv.) he gives a recipe for a very strong poison which he calls “venenum lupinum;” it is to be made of the powdered leaves of Aconitum lycoctonum, Taxus baccata, powdered glass, caustic lime, sulphide of arsenic, and bitter almonds, the whole to be mixed with honey, and made into pills the size of a hazel-nut.

[10] J. Bapt. Porta, born 1537, died 1615. Neapolitani Magiæ Naturalis. Neapoli, 1589.

In the section De Medicis Experimentis he gives a process to poison a sleeping person: the recipe is curious, and would certainly not have the intended effect. A mixture of hemlock juice, bruised datura, stramonium, belladonna, and opium is placed in a leaden box with a perfectly fitting cover, and fermented for several days; it is then opened under the nose of the sleeper. Possibly Porta had experimented on small animals, and had found that such matters, when fermented, exhaled enough carbonic acid gas to kill them, and imagined, therefore, that the same thing would happen if applied to the human subject. However this may be, the account which Porta gives of the effects of the solanaceous plants, and the general tone of the work, amply prove that he was no theorist, but had studied practically the actions of poisons.

The iniquitous Toffana (or Tophana) made solutions of arsenious acid of varying strength, and sold these solutions in phials under the name of “Acquetta di Napoli” for many years. She is supposed to have poisoned more than 600 persons, among whom were two Popes—viz., Pius III. and Clement XIV. The composition of the Naples water was long a profound secret, but is said to have been known by the reigning Pope and by the Emperor Charles VI. The latter told the secret to Dr Garelli, his physician, who, again, imparted the knowledge to the famous Friedrich Hoffman in a letter still extant. Toffana was brought to justice in 1709, but, availing herself of the immunity afforded by convents, escaped punishment, and continued to sell her wares for twenty years afterwards. When Kepfer[11] was in Italy he found her in a prison at Naples, and many people visited her, as a sort of lion (1730). With the Acqua Toffana, the “Acquetta di Perugia” played at the same time its part. It is said to have been prepared by killing a hog, disjointing the same, strewing the pieces with white arsenic, which was well rubbed in, and then collecting the juice which dropped from the meat; this juice was considered far more poisonous than an ordinary solution of arsenic. The researches of Selmi on compounds containing arsenic, produced when animal bodies decompose in arsenical fluids, lend reason and support to this view; and probably the juice would not only be very poisonous, but act in a different manner, and exhibit symptoms different from those of ordinary arsenical poisoning. Toffana had disciples; she taught the art to Hieronyma Spara, who formed an association of young married women during the popedom of Alexander VII.; these were detected on their own confession.[12]

[11] Kepfer’s Travels. Lond., 1758.

[12] Le Bret’s Magazin zu Gebrauche der Staat u. Kirchen-Geschichte, Theil 4. Frankfort and Leipzig, 1774.

Contemporaneously with Toffana, another Italian, Keli, devoted himself to similar crimes. This man had expended much as an adept searching for the philosopher’s stone, and sought to indemnify himself by entering upon what must have been a profitable business. He it was who instructed M. de St. Croix in the properties of arsenic; and St. Croix, in his turn, imparted the secret to his paramour, Madame de Brinvilliers. This woman appears to have been as cold-blooded as Toffana; she is said to have experimented on the patients at the Hôtel Dieu, in order to ascertain the strength of her powders, and to have invented “les poudres de succession.” She poisoned her father, brothers, sister, and others of her family; but a terrible fate overtook both her and St. Croix. The latter was suffocated by some poisonous matters he was preparing, and Madame de Brinvilliers’ practices having become known, she was obliged to take refuge in a convent. Here she was courted by a police officer disguised as an abbé, lured out of the convent, and, in this way brought to justice, was beheaded[13] and burnt near Nôtre Dame, in the middle of the reign of Louis XIV.[14]

[13] The Marchioness was imprisoned in the Conciergerie and tortured. Victor Hugo, describing the rack in that prison, says, “The Marchioness de Brinvilliers was stretched upon it stark naked, fastened down, so to speak, quartered by four chains attached to the four limbs, and there suffered the frightful extraordinary torture by water,” which caused her to ask “How are you going to contrive to put that great barrel of water in this little body?”—Things seen by Victor Hugo, vol. i.

The water torture was this:—a huge funnel-like vessel was fitted on to the neck, the edge of the funnel coming up to the eyes; on now pouring water into the funnel so that the fluid rises above the nose and mouth, the poor wretch is bound to swallow the fluid or die of suffocation; if indeed the sufferer resolve to be choked, in the first few moments of unconsciousness the fluid is swallowed automatically, and air again admitted to the lungs; it is therefore obvious that in this way prodigious quantities of fluid might be taken.

[14] For the court of poisoners (chambre ardente) and the histories of St. Croix, De Brinvilliers, the priest Le Sage, the women La Voisin, and La Vigoureux, the reader may be referred to Voltaire’s Siècle de Louis XIV., Madame de Sévigné’s Lettres, Martinière’s Hist. de la Règne de Louis XIV., Strutzel, De Venenis, &c.

The numerous attempts of the Italian and Venetian poisoners on the lives of monarchs and eminent persons cast for a long time a cloud over regal domestic peace. Bullets and daggers were not feared, but in their place the dish of meat, the savoury pasty, and the red wine were regarded as possible carriers of death. No better example of this dread can be found than, at so late a period as the reign of Henry VII.,[15] the extraordinary precautions thought necessary for preserving the infant Prince of Wales.

[15] Henry VIII., at one time of his life, was (or pretended to be) apprehensive of being poisoned; it was, indeed, a common belief of his court that Anne Boleyn attempted to dose him. “The king, in an interview with young Prince Henry, burst into tears, saying that he and his sister (meaning the Princess Mary) might thank God for having escaped from the hands of that accursed and venomous harlot, who had intended to poison them.”—A Chronicle of England during the Reign of the Tudors, by W. J. Hamilton. Introduction, p. xxi.

“No person, of whatsoever rank, except the regular attendants in the nursery, should approach the cradle, except with an order from the king’s hand. The food supplied to the child was to be largely ‘assayed,’ and his clothes were to be washed by his own servants, and no other hand might touch them. The material was to be submitted to all tests. The chamberlain and vice-chamberlain must be present, morning and evening, when the prince was washed and dressed, and nothing of any kind bought for the use of the nursery might be introduced until it was washed and perfumed. No person, not even the domestics of the palace, might have access to the prince’s rooms except those who were specially appointed to them, nor might any member of the household approach London, for fear of their catching and conveying infection.”[16]

[16] Froude’s History of England, vol. iii. p. 262.

However brief and imperfect the foregoing historical sketch of the part that poison has played may be, it is useful in showing the absolute necessity of a toxicological science—a science embracing many branches of knowledge. If it is impossible now for Toffanas, Locustas, and other specimens of a depraved humanity to carry on their crimes without detection; if poison is the very last form of death feared by eminent political persons; it is not so much owing to a different state of society, as to the more exact scientific knowledge which is applied during life to the discrimination of symptoms, distinguishing between those resulting from disease and those due to injurious substances, and after death to a highly developed pathology, which has learned, by multiplied observations, all the normal and abnormal signs in tissues and organs; and, finally, to an ever-advancing chemistry, which is able in many instances to separate and detect the hurtful and noxious thing, although hid for months deep in the ground.

II.—Growth and Development of the Modern Methods of Chemically Detecting Poisons.

§ 8. The history of the detection of poisons has gone through several phases. The first phase has already been incidentally touched upon—i.e., detection by antecedent and surrounding circumstances, aided sometimes by experiments on animals. If the death was sudden, if the post-mortem decomposition was rapid, poison was indicated: sometimes a portion of the food last eaten, or the suspected thing, would be given to an animal; if the animal also died, such accumulation of proof would render the matter beyond doubt. The modern toxicologists are more sceptical, for even the last test is not of itself satisfactory. It is now known that meat may become filled with bacilli and produce rapid death, and yet no poison, as such, has been added.

In the next phase, the doctors were permitted to dissect, and to familiarise themselves with pathological appearances. This was a great step gained: the apoplexies, heart diseases, perforations of the stomach, and fatal internal hæmorrhages could no longer be ascribed to poison. If popular clamour made a false accusation, there was more chance of a correct judgment. It was not until the end of the eighteenth and the beginning of the present century, however, that chemistry was far enough advanced to test for the more common mineral poisons; the modern phase was then entered on, and toxicology took a new departure.

§ 9. From the treatise of Barthélémy d’Anglais[17] in the thirteenth century (in which he noticed the poisonous properties of quicksilver vapour), up to the end of the fifteenth century, there are numerous treatises upon poison, most of which are mere learned compilations, and scarcely repay perusal. In the sixteenth century, there are a few works, such, for example, as Porta, which partook of the general advancement of science, and left behind the stereotyped doctrine of the old classical schools.[18]

[17] De Rerum Proprietaribus.

[18] In the sixteenth century it was not considered proper to write upon poisons. Jerôme Cardan declared a poisoner worse than a brigand, “and that is why I have refused not only to teach or experiment on such things, but even to know them.”—J. Cardan: De Subtilitate. Basel, 1558.

In the seventeenth century the Honourable Robert Boyle made some shrewd observations, bearing on toxicology, in his work on “The usefulness of Natural Philosophy,” &c.: Oxford, 1664. Nicolas L’Emery also wrote a Cours de Chimie,—quite an epitome of the chemical science of the time.[19]

[19] Cours de Chimie, contenant la manière de faire les opérations qui sont en usage dans la Médecine. Paris, 1675.

In the eighteenth century still further advances were made. Richard Mead published his ingenious Mechanical Theory of Poisons. Great chemists arose—Stahl, Marggraf, Brandt, Bergmann, Scheele, Berthollet, Priestley, and lastly, Lavoisier—and chemistry, as a science, was born. Of the chemists quoted, Scheele, in relation to toxicology, stands chief. It was Scheele who discovered prussic acid,[20] without, however, noting its poisonous properties; the same chemist separated oxalic acid from sorrel,[21] and made the important discovery that arsenic united with hydrogen, forming a fœtid gas, and, moreover, that this gas could be decomposed by heat.[22] From this observation, a delicate test for arsenic was afterwards elaborated, which for the first time rendered the most tasteless and easily administered poison in the whole world at once the easiest of detection. The further history of what is now called “Marsh’s Test” is as follows:—

[20] Opuscula Chemica, vol. ii. pp. 148-174.

[21] De Terra Rhubarbi et Acido Acetosellæ. Nova Acta Acad. Veg. Sued. Anni, 1784. Opuscula Chemica, vol. ii. pp. 187-195.

Bergmann first described oxalic acid as obtained by the oxidation of saccharine bodies; but Scheele recognised its identity with the acid contained in sorrel.

[22] Mémoires de Scheele, t. i., 1775.

§ 10. Proust[23] observed that a very fœtid hydrogen gas was disengaged when arsenical tin was dissolved in hydrochloric acid, and that arsenic was deposited from the inflamed gas on cold surfaces which the flame touched. Trommsdorff next announced, in 1803, that when arsenical zinc was introduced into an ordinary flask with water and sulphuric acid, an arsenical hydrogen was disengaged; and if the tube was sufficiently long, arsenic was deposited on its walls.[24] Stromeyer, Gay-Lussac, Thénard, Gehlen, and Davy later studied this gas, and Serullas in 1821 proposed this reaction as a toxicological test. Lastly, in 1836, Marsh published his Memoir.[25] He elaborated a special apparatus of great simplicity, developed hydrogen by means of zinc and sulphuric acid, inflamed the issuing gas, and obtained any arsenic present as a metal, which could be afterwards converted into arsenious acid, &c.

[23] Proust, Annales de Chimie, t. xxviii., 1798.

[24] Nicholson’s Journal, vol. vi.

[25] “Description of a New Process of Separating Small Quantities of Arsenic from Substances with which it is mixed.” Ed. New. Phil. Journal, 1836.

This brief history of the so-called “Marsh’s Test” amply shows that Marsh was not the discoverer of the test. Like many other useful processes, it seems to have been evolved by a combination of many minds. It may, however, be truly said that Marsh was the first who perfected the test and brought it prominently forward.

§ 11. Matthieu Joseph Bonaventura Orfila must be considered the father of modern toxicology. His great work, Traité de Toxicologie, was first published in 1814, and went through many editions. Orfila’s chief merit was the discovery that poisons were absorbed and accumulated in certain tissues—a discovery which bore immediate fruit, and greatly extended the means of seeking poisons. Before the time of Orfila, a chemist not finding anything in the stomach would not have troubled to examine the liver, the kidney, the brain, or the blood. The immense number of experiments which Orfila undertook is simply marvellous. Some are of little value, and teach nothing accurately as to the action of poisons—as, for example, many of those in which he tied the gullet in order to prevent vomiting, for such are experiments under entirely unnatural conditions; but there are still a large number which form the very basis of our pathological knowledge.

Orfila’s method of experiment was usually to take weighed or measured quantities of poison, to administer them to animals, and then after death—first carefully noting the changes in the tissues and organs—to attempt to recover by chemical means the poison administered. In this way he detected and recovered nearly all the organic and inorganic poisons then known; and most of his processes are, with modifications and improvements, in use at the present time.[26]

[26] Orfila’s chief works are as follows:—
Traité de Toxicologie. 2 vols. 8vo. Paris, 1814.
Leçons de Chimie, appliquées à la Méd. Pratique. 16mo. Brussels, 1836.
Mémoire sur la Nicotine et la Conicine. Paris, 1851.
Leçons de la Méd. Légale. 8vo. Paris, 1821.
Traité des Exhumations Juridiques, et Considérations sur les Changemens Physiques que les Cadavres éprouvent en se pourrissant. 2 tom. Paris, 1831.

§ 12. The discovery of the alkaloids at the commencement of this century certainly gave the poisoner new weapons; yet the same processes (slightly modified) which separated the alkaloids from plants also served to separate them from the human body. In 1803 Derosne discovered narcotine and morphine, but he neither recognised the difference between these two substances, nor their basic properties. Sertürner from 1805 devoted himself to the study of opium, and made a series of discoveries. Robiquet, in 1807, recognised the basic characters of narcotine. In 1818 Pelletier and Caventou separated strychnine; in 1819 brucine; and in the same year delphinine was discovered simultaneously by Brande, Lassaigne, and Feneuille. Coniine was recognised by Giesecke in 1827, and in the following year, 1828, nicotine was separated by Reimann and Posselt. In 1832 Robiquet discovered codeine; and in 1833 atropine, aconitine, and hyoscyamine were distinguished by Geiger and Hesse. Since then, every year has been marked by the separation of some new alkaloid, from either animal or vegetable substances. So many workers in different countries now began to study and improve toxicology, that it would exceed the limits and be foreign to the scope of this treatise to give even a brief résumé of their labours. It may, notwithstanding, be useful to append a short bibliography of the chief works on toxicology of the present century.

§ 13.—BIBLIOGRAPHY OF THE CHIEF WORKS ON TOXICOLOGY (NINETEENTH CENTURY).

Anglada, Jos.—“Traité de Toxicologie Générale, &c.” Montpellier et Paris, 1835.

Autenrieth.—“Kurze Anleitung zur Auffindung der Gifte.” Freiburg, 1892.

Bandlin, O.—“Die Gifte.” Basel, 1869-1873.

Baumert, G.—“Lehrbuch der gerichtl. Chemie.” Braunschweig, 1889-92.

Bayard, Henri.—“Manuel Pratique de Médecine Légale.” Paris, 1843.

Bellini, Ranieri.—“Manuel de Tossicologia.” Pisa, 1878.

Berlin, N. J.—“Nachricht, die gewöhnlichen Gifte chemisch zu entdecken.” Stockholm, 1845.

Bernard, C.—“Leçons sur les Effets des Substances Toxiques et Médicamenteuses.” Paris, 1857.

Bertrand, C. A. R. A.—“Manuel Médico-Légale des Poisons introduits dans l’Estomac, et les Moyens Thérapeutiques qui leur conviennent: suivi d’un Plan d’Organisation Médico-Judiciaire, et d’un Tableau de la Classification Générale des Empoisonnemens.” Paris, 1818.

Binz, C.—“Intoxicationen” in Gerhardt’s “Handbuch der Kinderkrankheiten.” iii. Heft. Tübingen, 1878.

Blyth, A. Wynter.—“A Manual of Practical Chemistry: The Analysis of Foods and the Detection of Poisons.” London, 1879.

Bocker, Frieder. Wilhelm.—“Die Vergiftungen in forensischer u. klinischer Beziehung.” Iserlohn, 1857.

Böhm, R., Naunyn, B., und Von Boeck, H.—“Handbuch der Intoxicationen.” (Bd. 15 of the German edition of Ziemssen’s Cyclopædia.)

Brandt, Phöbus, und Ratzeburg.—“Deutschlands Giftgewächse.” Berlin, 1834-38 (2 vols. with 56 coloured plates).

Briand, J., et Chaude, Ern.—“Manuel Complet de Médecine Légale.” (The latest edition, 1879.) The chemical portion is by J. Bouis.

Buchner, E.—“Lehrbuch der gerichtlichen Medicin für Aerzte u. Juristen.” 3rd ed. München, 1872.

Casper, J. L.—“Handbuch der gerichtlichen Medicin.” 7th ed. Berlin, 1881.

Chevallier, A.—“Traité de Toxicologie et de Chimie Judiciaire.” Paris, 1868.

Chiaje, Stef.—“Enchiridis di Tossicologia teorico-pratica.” 3rd ed. Napoli, 1858.

Christison, Robert.—“A Treatise on Poisons.” Edinburgh, 1830. (A third edition appeared in 1836.)

Cornevin, C.—“Des Plantes Vénéneuses.” Paris, 1887.

Devergie, Alphonse.—“Médecine Légale, Théorique, et Pratique.” 3rd ed. Paris, 1852.

Dragendorff, Jean Georges.—“Die gerichtlich-chemische Ermittelung von Giften in Nahrungsmitteln, Luftgemischen, Speiseresten, Körpertheilen.” &c. St. Petersburg, 1868. 3rd ed. Göttingen, 1888.

—— “Untersuchungen aus dem Pharmaceutischen Institute in Dorpat. Beiträge zur gerichtlichen Chemie einzelner organischer Gifte.” Erstes Heft. St. Petersburg, 1871.

—— “Jahresbericht über die Fortschritte der Pharmacognosie, Pharmacie, und Toxicologie.” Herausgegeben von Dr. Dragendorff. 1876.

Duflos, A.—“Handbuch der angewandten gerichtlich-chemischen Analyse der chemischen Gifte, ihre Erkennung in reinem Zustande u. in Gemengen betreffend.” Breslau u. Leipzig, 1873.

Eulenberg, Dr. Hermann.—“Handbuch der Gewerbe-Hygiene.” Berlin, 1876.

Falck, C. Ph.—“Die Klinischwichtigen Intoxicationen.” (Handbuch der spec. Pathologie u. Therapie red. von R. Virchow, Bd. 2.) Erlangen, 1854.

Falck, Ferd. Aug.—“Lehrbuch der praktischen Toxicologie.” Stuttgart, 1880.

Flandin, C.—“Traité des Poisons, ou Toxicologie appliquée à la Médecine Légale, à la Physiologie, et à la Thérapeutique.” Paris, 1847, 1853.

Fröhner, Eug.—“Lehrbuch der Toxicologie für Thierärzte.” Stuttgart, 1890.

Galtier, C. P.—“Traité de Toxicologie Médico-Légale et de la Falsification des Aliments,” &c. Paris, 1845.

—— “Traité de Toxicologie Médicale, Chimique et Légale,” &c. Paris, 1855. A later edition of the same work.

Greene, Will. H.—“A Practical Handbook of Medical Chemistry, applied to Clinical Research and the Detection of Poisons.” Philadelphia, 1880.

Guérin, G.—“Traité Pratique d’Analyse Chimique et de Recherches Toxicologiques.” Paris, 1893.

Guy, W. A., and Ferrier, David.—“Principles of Forensic Medicine.” London, 1874.

Harnack, Erich.—“Lehrbuch der Arzneimittellehre,” &c. Hamburg, 1883.

Hasselt, van, A. W. M.—“Handbuch der Giftlehre für Chemiker, Aerzte, Apotheker, u. Richtspersonen.” (A German translation of the original Dutch edition, edited by J. B. Henkel. Braunschweig, 1862. Supplemental vol. by N. Husemann, Berlin, 1867.)

Helwig, A.—“Das Mikroskop in der Toxicologie.” 64 photographs, roy. 8vo, Mainz, 1865.

Hemming, W. D.—“Aids to Forensic Medicine and Toxicology.” London, 1877.

Hermann, L.—“Lehrbuch der experimentellen Toxicologie.” 8vo. Berlin, 1874.

Hoffmann, E. R.—“Lehrbuch der gerichtlichen Medicin.” 5th ed. Wien, 1890-91.

Husemann and A. Hilger.—“Die Pflanzenstoffe in chemischer, pharmakologischer, u. toxicologischer Hinsicht.” 2nd ed. Berlin, 1882.

Husemann, Th., and Husemann, A.—“Handbuch der Toxicologie.” Berlin, 1862. (Suppl. Berlin, 1867.)

Kobert, Rud.—“Lehrbuch der Intoxicationen.” Stuttgart, 1893.

Koehler, R.—“Handbuch der speciellen Therapie, einschliesslich der Behandlung der Vergiftungen.” 3rd ed. 2 vols. roy. 8vo. Tübingen, 1869.

Lesser, Adolf.—“Atlas der gerichtlichen Medicin.” Berlin, 1883.

Loew, Oscar.—“Ein natürliches System der Gift-Wirkungen.” München, 1893.

Ludwig, E.—“Medicinische Chemie in Anwendung auf gerichtliche Untersuchungen.”

Mahon, A.—“Médecine Légale et Police Médicale.” Paris, 1807.

Marx, K. F. H.—“Die Lehre von den Giften.” Göttingen, 1827-29.

Maschka, J.—“Handbuch der gerichtlichen Medicin.” Tübingen, 1881-82. This work is under the editorship of Dr. Maschka, and contains separate articles on medico-legal and toxicological questions by various eminent toxicologists, somewhat after the manner of Ziemssen’s Cyclopædia.

Mende, Lud. Jul. Casp.—“Ausführliches Handbuch der gerichtlichen Medicin.” 1819-32.

Mohr, Fried.—“Chemische Toxicologie.” Braunschweig, 1874.

Montgarny, H. de.—“Essai de Toxicologie, et spécialement avec la Jurisprudence Médicale.” Paris, 1878.

Montmahon, E. S. de.—“Manuel Médico-Légale des Poisons,” &c. Paris, 1824.

Mutel, D. Ph.—“Des Poisons, considérés sous le rapport de la Médecine Pratique,” &c. Montpellier et Paris, 1835.

Nacquet, A.—“Legal Chemistry: A guide to the detection of Poisons, Examination of Stains, &c., as applied to Chemical Jurisprudence.” New York, 1876.

A translation from the French; see “Foods, their Composition and Analysis,” page 43.

Nicolai, Joh. Ant. Heinr.—“Handbuch der gerichtlichen Medicin.” Berlin, 1841.

The chemical portion is by F. R. Simon.

Ogston, F.—“Lectures on Medical Jurisprudence.” London, 1878.

Orfila, Matthieu Jos. Bonaventura.—“Traité des Poisons, ou Toxicologie Générale.” Paris, 1st ed., 1814; 5th ed., 1852.

Orfila et Lesueur.—“Traité de Médecine légale.” Paris, 1821; 4th ed., Paris, 1848.

Otto, F. G.—“Anleitung zur Ausmittelung der Gifte.” Braunschweig, 1856; 5th ed., 1875. 6th ed. by Robert Otto, Braunschweig, 1884.

Praag van, Leonides, u. Opwyrda, R. J.—“Leerboek voor practische giftleer.” In Zwei Theilen. Utrecht, 1871.

Rabuteau, A.—“Élémens de Toxicologie et de Médecine Légale, appliquées à l’Empoisonnement.” Paris, 1873. 2nd ed. by Ed. Bourgoing. Paris, 1888.

Reese, John J.—“Manual of Toxicology, including the consideration of the Nature, Properties, Effects, and Means of Detection of Poisons, more especially in their Medico-legal relations.” Philadelphia, 1874.

Remer, W. H. G.—“Lehrbuch der polizeilich-gerichtlichen Chemie.” Bd. 1 u. 2. 3. Auflage, Helmstadt, 1824.

Schneider, F. C.—“Die gerichtliche Chemie für Gerichtsärzte u. Juristen.” Wien, 1852.

Schneider, P. J.—“Ueber die Gifte in medicinisch-gerichtlicher u. gerichtlich-polizeilicher Rücksicht.” 2nd ed., 1821.

Selmi, F.—“Studi di Tossicologia Chimica.” Bologna, 1871.

Sobernheim, Jos. Fr. u. Simon, J. F.—“Handbuch der praktischen Toxicologie,” &c. Berlin, 1838.

Sonnenschein, L.—“Handbuch der gerichtlichen Medicin.” Berlin, 1860. A new edition by Dr. A. Classen. Berlin, 1881.

Tardieu, A.—“Étude Médico-Légale et Clinique sur l’Empoisonnement, avec la Collaboration de M. T. Roussin pour la partie de l’expertise relative à la Recherche Chimique des Poisons.” Paris, 1867.

Taylor, Alfred Swaine.—“On Poisons in relation to Medical Jurisprudence and Medicine.” 3rd ed. 1875. Manual, 1879.

—— “Principles and Practice of Medical Jurisprudence.” 3 vols. London, 1873.

Werber, Ant.—“Lehrbuch der praktischen Toxicologie.” Erlangen, 1869.

Wood, Horatio C.—“Therapeutics, Materia Medica, and Toxicology.” Philadelphia, 1874.

Woodmann, W. Bathurst, and Tidy, Ch.—“A Handy-Book of Forensic Medicine and Toxicology.” London, 1877.

Wormley, Theodore G.—“Micro-Chemistry of Poisons, including their Physiological, Pathological, and Legal Relations.” New York, 1857.

Wurtz, A.—“Traité Elémentaire de Chimie Médicale, comprenant quelques notions de Toxicologie,” &c. 2nd ed. Paris, 1875.

PART II.

I.—Definition of Poison.

§ 14. The term “Poison” may be considered first in its legal, as distinct from its scientific, aspect.

The legal definition of “poison” is to be gathered from the various statute-books of civilised nations.

The English law enacts that: “Whoever shall administer, or cause to be administered to, or taken by any person, any poison or other destructive thing, with intent to commit murder, shall be guilty of felony.”

Further, by the Criminal Consolidation Act, 1861: “Whosoever shall, by any other means other than those specified in any of the preceding sections of this Act, attempt to commit murder, shall be guilty of felony.”

It is therefore evident that, by implication, the English law defines a poison to be a destructive thing administered to, or taken by, a person, and it must necessarily include, not only poisons which act on account of their inherent chemical and other properties after absorption into the blood, but mechanical irritants, and also specifically-tainted fluids. Should, for example, a person give to another milk, or other fluid, knowing, at the same time, that such fluid is contaminated by the specific poison of scarlet fever, typhoid, or any serious malady capable of being thus conveyed, I believe that such an offence could be brought under the first of the sections quoted. In fine, the words “destructive thing” are widely applicable, and may be extended to any substance, gaseous, liquid, or solid, living or dead, which, if capable at all of being taken within the body, may injure or destroy life. According to this view, the legal idea of “poison” would include such matters as boiling water, molten lead, specifically-infected fluids, the flesh of animals dying of diseases which may be communicable to man, powdered glass, diamond dust, &c. Evidence must, however, be given of guilty intent.

The words, “administered to or taken by,” imply obviously that the framers of the older statute considered the mouth as the only portal of entrance for criminal poisoning, but the present law effectually guards against any attempt to commit murder, no matter by what means. There is thus ample provision for all the strange ways by which poison has been introduced into the system, whether it be by the ear, nose, brain, rectum, vagina, or any other conceivable way, so that, to borrow the words of Mr. Greaves (Notes on Criminal Law Consolidation), “the malicious may rest satisfied that every attempt to murder which their perverted ingenuity may devise, or their fiendish malignity suggest, will fall within some clause of this Act, and may be visited with penal servitude for life.”

Since poison is often exhibited, not for the purpose of taking life, but from various motives, and to accomplish various ends—as, for example, to narcotise the robber’s victim (this especially in the East), to quiet children, to create love in the opposite sex (love philters), to detect the secret sipper by suitably preparing the wine, to expel the inconvenient fruit of illicit affection, to cure inebriety by polluting the drunkard’s drink with antimony, and, finally, to satisfy an aimless spirit of mere wantonness and wickedness, the English law enacts “that whosoever shall unlawfully or maliciously administer to, or cause to be taken by, any other person, any poison or other destructive or noxious thing, so as thereby to endanger the life of such person, or so as thereby to inflict upon such person any grievous bodily harm, shall be guilty of felony.”

There is also a special provision, framed, evidently, with reference to volatile and stupefying poisons, such as chloroform, tetrachloride of carbon, &c.:—

“Whoever shall unlawfully apply, or administer to, or cause to be taken by any person, any chloroform, laudanum, or other stupefying or overpowering drug, matter, or thing, with intent, in any such case, thereby to enable himself or any other person to commit, or with intent, &c., to assist any other person in committing, any indictable offence, shall be guilty of felony.”

§ 15. The German statute, as with successive amendments it now stands, enacts as follows:[27]—

[27] “Wer vorsätzlich einem Andern, um dessen Gesundheit zu beschädigen, Gift oder andere Stoffe beibringt, welche die Gesundheit zu zerstören geeignet sind, wird mit Zuchthaus von zwei bis zu zehn Jahren bestraft.

“Ist durch die Handlung eine schwere Körperverletzung verursacht worden, so ist auf Zuchthaus nicht unter fünf Jahren, und wenn durch die Handlung der Tod verursacht worden, auf Zuchthaus nicht unter zehn Jahren oder auf lebenslängliches Zuchthaus zu erkennen.

“Ist die vorsätzliche rechtswidrige Handlung des Gift—&c.,—Beibringens auf das ‘Tödten’ gerichtet, soll also durch dieselbe gewollter Weise der Tod eines Anderen herbeigeführt werden, so kommt in betracht: Wer vorsätzlich einen Menschen tödtet, wird, wenn er die Tödtung mit Ueberlegung ausgeführt hat, wegen Mordes mit dem Tode bestraft.”

“Whoever wilfully administers (beibringt) to a person, for the purpose of injuring health, poison, or any other substance having the property of injuring health, will be punished by from two to ten years’ imprisonment.

“If by such act a serious bodily injury is caused, the imprisonment is not to be less than five years; if death is the result, the imprisonment is to be not under ten years or for life.

“If the death is wilfully caused by poison, it comes under the general law: ‘Whoever wilfully kills a man, and if the killing is premeditated, is on account of murder punishable with death.’”

The French law runs thus (Art. 301, Penal Code):—“Every attempt on the life of a person, by the effect of substances which may cause death, more or less suddenly, in whatever manner these substances may have been employed or administered, and whatever may have been the results, is called poisoning.”[28]

[28] “Est qualifié empoisonnement—tout attentat à la vie d’une personne par l’effet de substances qui peuvent donner la mort plus ou moins promptement, de quelque manière que ces substances aient été employées ou administrées, et quelles qu’en aient été les suites.”—Art. 301, Penal Code.

There is also a penalty provided against any one who “shall have occasioned the illness or incapacity for personal work of another, by the voluntary administration, in any manner whatever, of substances which, without being of a nature to cause death, are injurious to health.”[29]

[29] “Celui qui aura occasionné à autrui une maladie ou incapacité de travail personnel en lui administrant volontairement, de quelque manière que ce soit, des substances qui, sans être de nature à donner la mort, sont nuisibles à la santé.”—Art. 317, Penal Code.

§ 16. Scientific Definition of a Poison.—A true scientific definition of a poison must exclude all those substances which act mechanically,—the physical influences of heat, light, and electricity; and parasitic diseases, whether caused by the growth of fungus, or the invasion of an organism by animal parasites, as, for example, “trichinosis,” which are not, so far as we know, associated with any poisonous product excreted by the parasite;—on the other hand, it is now recognised that pathogenic micro-organisms develop poisons, and the symptoms of all true infections are but the effects of “toxines.” The definition of poison, in a scientific sense, should be broad enough to comprehend not only the human race, but the dual world of life, both animal and vegetable.

Husemann and Kobert are almost the only writers on poisons who have attempted, with more or less success, to define poison by a generalisation, keeping in view the exclusion of the matters enumerated. Husemann says—“We define poisons as such inorganic, or organic substances as are in part capable of artificial preparation, in part existing, ready-formed, in the animal or vegetable kingdom, which, without being able to reproduce themselves, through the chemical nature of their molecules under certain conditions, change in the healthy organism the form and general relationship of the organic parts, and, through annihilation of organs, or destruction of their functions, injure health, or, under certain conditions, destroy life.” Kobert says:—“Poisons are organic or inorganic unorganised substances originating in the organism itself, or introduced into the organism, either artificially prepared, or ready formed in nature, which through their chemical properties, under certain conditions, so influence the organs of living beings, that the health of these beings is seriously influenced temporarily or permanently.”

In the first edition of this work I made an attempt to define a poison thus:—A substance of definite chemical composition, whether mineral or organic, may be called a poison, if it is capable of being taken into any living organism, and causes, by its own inherent chemical nature, impairment or destruction of function. I prefer this definition to Kobert’s, and believe that it fairly agrees with what we know of poisons.

II.—Classification of Poisons.

§ 17. At some future time, with a more intimate knowledge of the way in which each poison acts upon the various forms of animal and vegetable life, it may be possible to give a truly scientific and philosophical classification of poisons—one based neither upon symptoms, upon local effects, nor upon chemical structure, but upon a collation and comparison of all the properties of a poison, whether chemical, physical, or physiological. No perfect systematic arrangement is at present attainable: we are either compelled to omit all classification, or else to arrange poisons with a view to practical utility merely.

From the latter point of view, an arrangement simply according to the most prominent symptoms is a good one, and, without doubt, an assistance to the medical man summoned in haste to a case of real or suspected poisoning. Indeed, under such circumstances, a scheme somewhat similar to the following, probably occurs to every one versed in toxicology:—

A. Poisons causing Death immediately, or in a few minutes.

There are but few poisons which destroy life in a few minutes. Omitting the strong mineral acids, carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, with the irrespirable gases,—Prussic acid, the cyanides, oxalic acid, and occasionally strychnine, are the chief poisons coming under this head.