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DISCOVERY OF POISON IN FOOD.

In this instance it will be perceived that symptoms resemblin irritant poison appeared suddenly in several individuals in perf and shortly after a meal. We hereby learn that the utility of for investigating cases of poisoning depends entirely on the jud discretion with which they are applied to particular cases.

It is well to bear in mind, in conducting these inquiries, that resembling those produced by irritant poison may be sometime food. Meat rendered unwholesome by disease, decay, or mi isms, pork, bacon, sausages, cheese and bread, as well as m other kinds of shell-fish, may give rise to symptoms of poiso even cause death. Such cases may be regarded as poisoning or vegetable irritants. All the characters above described, as of poisoning, may be observed, and the difficulty of forming a is often increased by the fact that some of the persons attacked previously partaken of the same kind of food without inconveni

5. The discovery of the poison in the food taken or in th vomited. One of the strongest proofs of poisoning in the livi is the detection of poison by chemical analysis; or, if of a vegetal by a microscopical examination, either in the food taken by t laboring under its effects, and the matters vomited, or in the u evidence is, of course, more satisfactory when the poison is d the matters vomited or in the urine, than in the food, because show that it has really been taken, and it will readily accou symptoms. If the vomited matters have been thrown away examine the food of which the patient may have partaken. S results in both cases be negative, and no trace of poison be fou urine, it is probable that the symptoms were due to disease.

In investigating a case of poisoning in a living subject, a med must remember that poisoning is sometimes feigned, and at puted. It is easy for an artful person to put poison into food, to introduce it into the matters vomited or discharged from th and to accuse another of having administered it. There are few accusers who go so far as to swallow poison under such circu as there is a great dread of poisonous substances among thi criminals; and it will be at once apparent that it would requir well versed in toxicology to feign such a series of symptoms impose upon a practitioner at all acquainted with the subject. the difficulty reduces itself to this: What inference can be drawn detection of poison in food? All that a medical man can say is poison is or is not present in a particular article of food: he m it to the authorities of the law to develop the alleged attempt at tration. If the poison has been actually administered or taken should expect to find that the person had suffered from the us toms. The absence of these symptoms would be a strong fact ag alleged administration. The detection of poison in the matters affords no decisive proof that it has been swallowed, except u circumstances: 1. When the accuser has previously labored usual symptoms of poisoning, in which case there will be no feig the question of imputation is a matter to be established by ge dence. 2. When the matters are actually vomited into a clean the presence of the medical attendant himself, or of some person testimony perfect reliance can be placed. The detection of absorb in the urine, passed in the presence of the medical attendant, fu clear proof that poison has been taken, that it has passed into t and has been subsequently eliminated.

When a medical man is called to a case of suspected poison

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Lecessary that he should know to what points he ought to give his attentin. Every effort should be made by him to save life when the individual is living; but, while engaged in one duty, it is also in his power to perform another, supposing the case to be one of suspected criminal poisoning, namely, to note down any circumstances which may tend to detect the perpetrator of a crime. There is no person so well fitted to observe these plats as a medical man; but it unfortunately happens that many facts portant as evidence are often overlooked. The necessity for observing and recording them is not, perhaps, generally known. A medical man tould not make himself officious on such occasions, but he would be unmindful of his duty as a member of society if he did not aid the cause of stice by extending his scientific knowledge to the detection of crime. It much to the credit of the medical profession that the crime of murder iy poisoning a form of death from which no caution or foresight can pect a person-is so frequently brought to light by the announcement f suspicious facts of a medical nature to magistrates and coroners.

The following are the principal points which demand the attention of a medical jurist in all cases of suspected poisoning: 1. The time of the rearrence of symptoms, and their nature. 2. The exact period at which they were observed to take place after a meal, or after food or medicine had been taken. 3. The order of their occurrence. 4. Whether there was any remission or intermission in their progress; or, whether they ontinued to become more and more aggravated until death. 5. Whether the patient had labored under any previous illness. 6. Whether the symptoms were observed to recur more violently after a particular meal, or after any particular kind of food or medicine. 7. Whether the patient Es vomited. The vomited matters, if any (especially those first ejected), should be procured; their odor, color, and acid or alkaline reaction noted, as well as their quantity. 8. If none be procurable, and the vomiting has asen place on the dress, furniture, or floor of a room, then a portion of The clothing, sheet, or carpet may be cut out and reserved for analysis; if the vomiting has occurred on a deal floor, a portion of the wood may be scraped or cut out; or if on a stone pavement, then a clean sponge soaked in water may be used to remove any traces of the substance. The vessel which vomited matters have been contained will often furnish valuable evidence, since heavy mineral poisons fall to the bottom, or adhere to the

9. Endeavor to ascertain the probable nature of the food or mediee last taken, and the exact time at which it was taken. 10. Ascertain the nature of all the different articles of food used at a meal. 11. Any spected articles of food, as well as the vomited matters, should be sealed up as soon as possible in clean glass vessels, labelled (the labels being attached by seals), and reserved for analysis. 12. Note down, in their wn words, all explanations voluntarily made by persons present, or who are supposed to be concerned in the suspected poisoning. 13. Note whether more than one person partook of the food or medicine; and, if whether all these persons were affected, and how. 14. Note whether the same kind of food or medicine had been taken before or since by the patient or other persons without ill effects following.

Prof. Reese asserts that it is not possible from the symptoms alone to do more than merely infer the probability of a poison, because there is no poison that possesses absolutely characteristic symptoms. The great unceranty on this point should suggest extreme caution to "experts" in estifying to the presence of poisons from the symptoms alone, and cites be Wharton-Vanness case at Annapolis in 1873, where medical witnesses attempted to locate tartar emetic merely from symptoms, on the second trial, which was shown to be absurd.]

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EVIDENCE OF POISONING IN THE DEAD BODY

CHAPTER VI.

EVIDENCE OF POISONING IN THE DEAD BODY.-PERIOD AT WHICH POISONS PRO CHRONIC POISONING.-APPEARANCES PRODUCED BY THE DIFFERENT CLASSES O REDNESS OF THE MUCOUS MEMBRANE MISTAKEN FOR INFLAMMATION.—ULC) CORROSION.-SOFTENING.-PERFORATION OF THE STOMACH FROM POISON AND

SUPPOSING that the person is dead, and we are required to whether the case is one of poisoning or not, we must, in the fir endeavor to ascertain all the particulars which have been con the last chapter as indicative of poisoning in the living body. deceased have died from poison, the circumstances of the attac symptoms preceding death, ought to correspond with the charact described; and in these investigations it is well to bear in mind ing rule: There is no one symptom of pathological condition peculiar to poisoning; but at the same time there is probably which presents all those characters which are met with in an of poisoning. The points which require to be specially noticed u circumstances in the living are described at pp. 21 and 22, ante. tional evidence to be derived from the death of a person may be under the following heads :—

1. The time at which death takes place after the first occu symptoms. This question requires examination, because the mor poisons, when taken in fatal doses, generally cause death with periods of time. By an attention to this point we may, in some be enabled to negative a charge of poisoning, and in others t opinion of the kind of poison which has been taken. In a court medical practitioner is often required to state the usual perio within which poisons prove fatal. It is to be observed that no poisons differ from each other in this respect, but the same according to the form or quantity in which it has been taken, in the rapidity of its action. A large dose of the ordinary s prussic acid, i. e. from half an ounce to an ounce, may destroy than two minutes. In ordinary cases of poisoning by this su person dies, i. e. all signs of life have commonly ceased, in fr twenty minutes; and if he survives half an hour, there is som recovery. In the cases of seven epileptics, accidentally poiso similar dose of this acid in one of the Parisian hospitals, the fir about twenty minutes; the seventh survived three quarters of Oxalic acid, one of the most energetic of the common poiso taken in a dose of from half an ounce to an ounce, may destr from ten minutes to an hour; but if the poison is not completely when swallowed, it is a longer time in proving fatal. The stron acids, in poisonous doses, destroy life in about eighteen or tw hours. White arsenic operates fatally in from eight hours to th days. It has, however, in more than one instance, killed a pers hours. Opium, either as a solid or in the form of laudanum, proves fatal in from six to twelve hours; but it has been known, instances, to destroy life in less than three hours: they who su effects of this poison for twelve hours are considered to have a f

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recovery. This must be understood to be merely a statement of the average results, as nearly as we are warranted in giving an opinion; but the medical jurist will, of course, be aware that the fatal period may be protracted or shortened, according to all those circumstances which have ben elsewhere stated to affect the action of poisons.

There are various forms which this question may assume. It may be said that the death of a person, alleged to have taken poison, has occurred either too rapidly or too slowly to justify a suspicion of poisoning. The llowing case will serve as an illustration: A woman was tried and convicted (Reg. v. Russell, Lewes Sum. Ass., 1826) of the murder of ter husband by arsenic. The poison was detected in the stomach; but the fact of poisoning was disputed by some medical witnesses, for this, among other reasons, that the deceased had died three hours after the only meal at which the poison could have been administered to him. Authorities were cited to show that, according to their experience, they had never known a case of poisoning by arsenic to have proved fatal in less than seven hours. This may be admitted; but, at the same time, there was sufficient authority on the other side to establish that some cases had actually proved fatal in three or four hours. So far as this objection was concerned, the prisoner was properly convicted. In refereace to the medical question raised at this trial, it may be observed that two distinct cases have since occurred in which the persons died certainly within two hours after taking arsenic; and several instances have been reported in which death has taken place in from three to four hours after the administration of this poison. It seems extraordinary that any attempt hould have been made by a professional man to negative a charge of criminal poisoning upon so weak a ground as this; but this opinion was expressed many years ago, when the facts connected with the poisoning were but little known. It is obvious that there is nothing, so far as we know, to prevent arsenic from destroying life in an hour, or even within a shorter period. These matters can be settled only by a careful observation of numerous cases, and not by any à priori reasoning, or by a limited individual experience.

In all instances of sudden death there is generally a strong tendency on the part of the public to suspect poisoning. They never can be brought to consider that persons may die a natural death suddenly, as well as slowly; or, as we shall presently see, that death may really take place slowly, and yet be due to poison. This prejudice continually gives rise to the most unfounded suspicions of poisoning, and, at the same time, leads to cases of chronic or slow poisoning being frequently mistaken for natural disease. One of the means recommended for distinguishing narcotic poisoning from apoplexy or disease of the heart, is the difference in the rapidity with which death takes place. Thus, apoplexy or disease of the heart may prove fatal either instantly or within an hour. The only poison likely to operate with such fatal rapidity are prussic, carbolic, and oxalic acids, strychnine and nicotine. Poison by opium is commonly protracted for five or six hours. This poison has never been known to destroy life instantaneously, or within a few minutes. Thus, then, it may happen that death will occur with such rapidity as to render it impossible, under the circumstances, to attribute it to narcotic poison.

Chronic poisoning.-When a poison destroys life rapidly, it is called a case of acute poisoning, to distinguish it from the chronic form, i. e. in which death takes place slowly. Chronic poisoning is a subject which bas frequently required medico-legal investigation. Most poisons, when their effects are not rapidly manifested, owing either to the smallness of

88

SLOW OR CHRONIC POISONING.

I

the dose or to timely treatment, are capable of slowly under powers of life, and killing the patient by producing emaciati haustion. This is sometimes observed in the action of arsenic sublimate, and tartarated antimony; but it has been remar cases of poisoning by the mineral acids and caustic alkalies. here an indirect consequence: in poisoning by the acids or alka stricture of the gullet is induced, or the lining membrane of th is destroyed, and the process of digestion impaired-a condi leads to exhaustion and death. The time at which these indi may prove fatal is, of course, liable to vary. A person has b to die from a stricture of the gullet, brought on by sulphuric a months after the poison was swallowed; and there is no reaso that instances may occur of a still more protracted nature. chronic poisoning, there is sometimes great difficulty in assign exclusively to the original action of the poison, since the habit the person, a tendency to disease, and other circumstances, concurred either to accelerate or produce a fatal result. To stricture of the gullet, proving fatal, with the effects of poiso mineral acid, it would be necessary to show that there was no to this disease before the acid was administered; that the appeared soon after the first effects of the poison went off; that toms continued to become aggravated until the time of death; a that there was no other cause to which death could with any pro referred. These remarks apply equally to the secondary fatal any poison-such, for instance, as the salivation occasionally i corrosive sublimate, and the exhaustion and depression which a by tartarated antimony, when the acute symptoms of poisoning substances have passed away.

The characters of chronic poisoning have acquired a special in the medical jurist. There is a difficulty about them which no a observation or judgment can surmount. The poison or p found in the dead body at all, must usually exist in minute only. This alone will be sufficient to create a doubt whether been caused by the poison, although it is quite consistent wit experience that a person may die from chronic poisoning, and none of the poison be found in the body after death. In the cas James (Reg. v. Winslow), not more than the tenth part of a antimony was found in the whole of the tissues of the body: in of Isabella Banks (Reg. v. Smethurst, C. C. C., Aug., 1859), the was greater than this, but less than a grain altogether; while in of Mrs. Peters, none was found in the body, although a chemis tracted a quantity of antimony as sulphide from the urine of the within less than nine days before her death. In this case antin also been found in the evacuations during life, and to the secre this mineral had been referred the intermittent irritation of the and bowels, from which deceased had suffered. The jury re verdict that the deceased had died from disease, and that death w rated by some irritant: Lancet, 1860, ii. p. 119. On some t poisoning (Reg. v. Palmer, C. C. C., 1856; Reg. v. Chantrelle, 1 of Just. Edin., May, 1878) it has been a contested scientific whether a person can die from poisoning and no trace of poison r the body. The evidence in Mrs. Peters's case not only proves th tive, but goes to show that antimony may act fatally and be eliminated from the system in about a week: Med. Times ar 1860, ii. pp. 190, 271, 317.