TOBACCO LORE
Few, perchance, of the millions who gather comfort from the "herb of fragrance" are aware that it is to Don Hernandez de Toledo we are indebted for the introduction of tobacco into Western Europe, which he first brought to Spain and Portugal in 1559. Jean Nicot was at this time Ambassador at the Court of Lisbon from Frances II, and it was he who transmitted or carried, either the seed or the plant to Catherine de Medicis, and who gave it the nameNicotiana. Like other great personages of the time, Catherine encouraged the homage of travellers and artists. It was considered to be one of the wonders of the New World, and reported to possess most extraordinary medicinal properties and virtues. Thirty years later the Cardinal Santa Croce, returning from his nunciature in Spain and Portugal to Italy, took with him some tobacco leaves, and we may form some idea of the enthusiasm with which its production was hailed, from a perusal of the poetry which the subject inspired, such as the following:
Herb of immortal fame!Which hither first with Santa Croce came,When he, his time of nunciature expired,Back from the Court of Portugal retired;Even as his predecessor, great and good,Brought home the cross.
Herb of immortal fame!Which hither first with Santa Croce came,When he, his time of nunciature expired,Back from the Court of Portugal retired;Even as his predecessor, great and good,Brought home the cross.
Herb of immortal fame!Which hither first with Santa Croce came,When he, his time of nunciature expired,Back from the Court of Portugal retired;Even as his predecessor, great and good,Brought home the cross.
Herb of immortal fame!
Which hither first with Santa Croce came,
When he, his time of nunciature expired,
Back from the Court of Portugal retired;
Even as his predecessor, great and good,
Brought home the cross.
The poet compares the exploit of the cardinal with that of his progenitor, who brought home the wood of the true cross.
The first exact description of the plant is that given by Gonzalo Fernandez de Oviedo-y-Valdés, Governor of St. Domingo, in hisHistoria General de las Indias, printed at Seville in 1535. In this work, the leaf is said to be smoked through a branched tube of the shape of the letterY, which the natives calledtobaco.
After the introduction of tobacco into England by Sir Walter Raleigh on his return from America, the custom of smoking the leaf became very general, and it truly seems to have supplied a common want. It was mostly sold by the apothecaries in their dark little shops, and here the gallants would congregate to smoke their pipes and gossip, while the realTimidado, nicotine cane and pudding, was cut off with a silver knife on a maple block and retailed to the customers. The pipes used in the time of Queen Elizabeth were chiefly made of silver. The commoner kinds consisted of a walnut shell, in which a straw was inserted, and the tobacco was sold in the shops for its weight in silver.
The celebratedCounterblaste to Tobacco, by King James I, describes smoking as "a custom loathsome to the eye, hatefull to the nose, harmfull to the brain, dangerous to the lungs; and in the black, stinking fume thereof, nearest resembling the horrible Stygian smoake of the pit that is bottomlesse." In 1604 this monarch endeavoured, by means of heavy imposts, to abolish its use in this country, and in 1619 he commanded that no planter in Virginia should cultivate more than one hundred pounds.
It is said, some spent as much as £500 a year in the purchase of tobacco in those days. In 1624 Pope Urban VIII published a decree of excommunication against all who took snuff in the church. Ten years after this, smoking was forbidden in Russia under pain of having the nose cut off; and in 1653 the Council of the Canton of Appenzell cited smokers before them, whom they punished, ordering all innkeepers to inform against such as were found smoking in their houses. The police regulations made in Berne in 1661 were divided according to the Ten Commandments, in which the prohibition of smoking stands after the command against adultery. This prohibition was renewed in 1675, and the tribunal instituted to put it into execution—viz., Chambreau Tabac—continued to the middle of the eighteenth century. Pope Innocent XII, in 1690, excommunicated all those who were found taking snuff or tobacco in the Church of St. Peter at Rome; and even so late as 1719 the Senate of Strasburg prohibited the cultivation of tobacco, from an apprehension that it would diminish the growth of corn. Amurath IV published an edict which made smoking tobacco a capital offence; but, notwithstanding all opposition, its fascinating power has held its own.
It is believed that the tobacco plantNicotiana Tabacumis a native of tropical America, and it was found by the Spaniards when they landed in Cuba in 1492. There seems little doubt that the practice of smoking theleaf has been common among the natives of South America from time immemorial. It is now cultivated all over the world, but nowhere more abundantly or with better results than in the United States. Virginia is perhaps most celebrated for its culture. The young shoots produced from seeds thickly sown in beds, are transplanted into the fields during the month of May, and set in rows, with an interval of three or four feet between the plants. Through the whole period of its growth, the crop requires constant attention till the harvest time, in the month of August. The ripe plants having been cut off above their roots, are dried under cover, and then stripped of their leaves, which are tied in bundles and packed in hogsheads. While hung up in the drying-houses, they undergo a curing process, consisting of exposure to a considerable degree of heat, through which they become moist, after which they are dried for packing. In Persia and Turkey a form of tobacco is sold under the name of Tumbeki for use in the water-pipes or narghileh, which is said to be the product of theNicotiana Persica.
The active principleNicotinewas first isolated in 1828, by Posselt and Reimann, and is an almost colourless, oily liquid of a highly poisonous nature. It soon becomes brown on exposure to air or light. The amount present in tobacco leaves varies considerably, but it is usually about six per cent. It has not been met with in tobacco smoke, according to Vohl, but the tobacco oils contain minute proportion of nicotine. One drop of pure nicotine is sufficient to kill a dog, while a very little more will destroy life in a human being. It is said to possess the property of resisting decomposition amid the decaying tissues of the body, and was detected by Orfila two or three months after death. Vohl and Eulenberg have made an interesting investigation of tobacco smoke. The smoke analysed was from a tobacco containing four per cent. of nicotine, but none of the alkaloid was found in the smoke. In the smoke of cigars certain gases were given off, and an oily body collected, which, on distillation, yielded aromatic acids. Distilled at a temperature above boiling water, tobacco gives an empyreumatic oil of a poisonous nature. It exactly resembles that which collects in the stems of tobacco pipes, and contains a small percentage of nicotine. The actual amount of nicotine absorbedinto the blood while smoking a pipe is very minute, at least fifty per cent. of the entire alkaloid being destroyed by decomposition, and escaping from the bowl of the pipe. The habitual inhalation of tobacco smoke is undoubtedly harmful, but unless the smoke be intentionally inhaled, very little makes its way into the lungs. A great deal of misconception exists in the mind of the average individual as to the power of the alkaloid of tobacco. The amount of nicotine actually absorbed from a fair-sized pipe is about one-fortieth of a grain, in a cigar rather less. Death has resulted after smoking eighteen pipes, and from twenty cigars smoked continuously.
Tobacco is a powerful sedative poison; used in large quantities it causes vertigo, stupor, faintness, and general depression of the nervous system. It will sometimes cause excessive nausea and retching, with feebleness of pulse, coolness of the skin, and occasionally convulsions. But there seems very little known as to how these symptoms are produced. Employed to excess, it enfeebles digestion, produces emaciation and general debility, and is often the beginning of serious nervous disorders. Be this as it may, the moderate smoking of tobacco has, in most cases, even beneficial results, and there appears little doubt that it acts as a solace and comfort to the poor as well as the rich. It soothes the restless, calms mental and corporeal inquietude, and produces a condition of repose without a corresponding reaction or after-effect. In adults, especially those liable to mental worry, and all brain workers, its action is often a boon, the only danger being in overstepping the boundary of moderation to excess. It is not suitable to every constitution, and those who can trace to it evil effects should not continue its use.
POISON HABITS
Thereis a very peculiar property attached to poisons, especially those possessing anodyne properties—that is, they are capable of forming the most enslaving habits known to mankind. Thousands of people to-day are enchained in the slavery of the poison habit in one form or another, and very few are ever successful in wresting them selves free when once it has been contracted. The habit is formed in the most insidious manner. Often, in the first instance, some narcotic drug is recommended to relieve pain or induce sleep. In a short time the original dose fails to produce the desired effect, it has to be increased, and afterwards still further increased, until the victim finds he cannot do without it, and a terrible craving for the drug is created. By-and-by the stupefying action affects the brain, the moral character suffers, and the unfortunate being is at last ready to do anything to obtain a supply of the drug that is now his master.
This is not an overdrawn picture, but one of which instances are constantly to be met with. The enslaving habit of alcohol, when once contracted, is too well known to need description. Opium comes next in the point of influence it exerts over its victims, and a very small percentage ever free themselves from the habit when it is once contracted. In most instances it is taken in the first place to relieve some severe pain, as in De Quincey's case. He says, in hisConfessions of an Opium Eater, "It was not for the purpose of creating pleasure, but of mitigating pain in the severest degree, that I first began to use opium as an article of daily diet." Like others, he was compelled to increase the dose gradually, until at last he consumed the enormous quantity of 320 grains of the drug a day. He graphically describes the struggle he first had to reduce the daily dose, and found that to a certain point it could be reduced with ease, but after that point, further reduction caused intense suffering. However, a crisis arrived, and he writes, "I saw that I must die if I continued the opium. Idetermined, therefore, if that should be required, to die in throwing it off. I apprehend at this time I was taking from 50 or 60 grains to 150 grains a day. My first task was to reduce it to 40, to 30, and as fast as I could to 12 grains. I triumphed; but think not my sufferings were ended. Think of me, as one, even when four months had passed, still agitated, writhing, throbbing, palpitating, shattered; and much perhaps in the situation of him who has been racked." Other cases are commonly met with in this country, where opium eaters take on an average from 60 to 80 grains of the drug a day. The smallest quantity which has proved fatal in the adult is 4½ grains; in other cases enormous quantities have been taken with impunity; and Guy states recovery once took place after no less than eight ounces of solid opium had been swallowed.
Morphine, the chief alkaloid of opium, is also abused by many, and is swallowed as well as used by injection under the skin. Its action is very similar to that of opium. It has been recently given on good authority, that in Chicago—that city of hurrying men and restless women—over thirty-five thousand persons habitually take subcutaneous injections of morphine to save themselves from the pains and terrors of neuralgia, insomnia, and nervousness, etc. To a delicate woman one grain of this drug has proved fatal, yet, under the influence of habit, a young lady has been known to take from 15 to 20 grains daily. A man in a good position, and head of a large commercial house, contracted the habit of taking morphine from a prescription he had had given to him containing 4 grains of the drug. As the habit grew, he would have the medicine prepared by four different chemists daily, and swallow the contents of each bottle for a dose, until he took on an average over 24 grains a day. This being put a stop to by his friends, he commenced to take chloroform, which he would purchase in small quantities until he had collected a bottleful, and then he would drink it, usually mixed with whisky. He eventually had to be placed under restraint.
Chloroform is not often taken habitually, but several instances have been met with where as much as two ounces have been swallowed by a man. The effects, when taken by the mouth, are similar to those which follow its inhalation. Chlorodyne,which generally contains both morphine and prussic acid in its composition, is also much abused, especially by women. Some women have been known to consume two ounces a week of this preparation. Cocaine, an active principle of theErythroxylum coca, is capable of exciting a powerful craving, which apparently holds its victims in a grip of iron until they are willing to spend any amount of money in obtaining the drug. Arsenic eating is a habit fortunately rare in this country, although cases have been met with in which women have gradually become addicted to taking large quantities for improving their complexions. The peasants in some parts of Styria and Hungary have long been known to eat arsenic, taking, it is said, from two to five grains daily; the men doing so in order that they may gain strength and be able to endure fatigue, and the women that they may improve their complexions. Dr. Maclagan, of Edinburgh, states he saw a Styrian eat a piece of arsenious acid weighing over four grains.
Sleeplessness is a frequent cause of the formation of a poison habit, and for this purpose chloral hydrate, perhaps, is capable of producing more serious results than any other drug of its class. The fact that it accumulates in the system, and that the dose needs constantly to be increased, always renders its use dangerous in unskilled hands. Many gifted men have fallen victims to the habit, among others Dante Rossetti, who seldom was without a bottle of the narcotic near him. Latterly, sulphonal, a drug derived from coal tar, possessing hypnotic properties, has been largely taken; and antipyrine, now a popular remedy for headache, is capable of forming a pernicious and dangerous habit. The practice of self-dosing with drugs of this description cannot be too strongly deprecated.
Some people form a curious habit of taking one drug till at last they become imbued with the idea that that only and nothing else, will have any effect on them. The only remedy Carlyle would ever take, according to the late Sir Richard Quain who was his medical adviser, was Grey powder. "Grey powder was his favourite remedy when he had that wretched dyspepsia from which he suffered, and which was fully accounted for by the fact that he was particularly fond of very nasty gingerbread. Many times I have seen him, sitting in the chimney corner, smoking a claypipe and eating this gingerbread." Oliver Goldsmith also laboured under the confirmed belief that the only medicine that would have any effect on him was "James' Powder." He doctored himself with this favourite nostrum whenever he felt unwell, and believed it to be a cure for all ills.
According to a West End physician quite a new and most reprehensible vice has recently become fashionable—viz., a craze that has arisen among women for smoking green tea, in the form of cigarettes. Though adopted by some fair ladies merely as a pastime, not a few of its votaries are women of high education and mental attainments. "Among my patients," he states, "suffering from extreme nervousness and insomnia, is a young lady, highly distinguished, at Girton. Another is a lady novelist, whose books are widely read, and who habitually smoked twenty or thirty of these cigarettes nightly when writing, for their stimulating effect." Though tea does not contain a trace of any poisonous principle, it can, when thus misused, exert a most harmful influence. Doubtless, the high pressure at which most of the dwellers in our great cities now live, and the worry of too much brain work on one hand, or the lack of occupation on the other, is one of the chief causes of taking up habits of this kind.
One of the best remedies, and one which it is to be hoped will eventually come to pass is, that the Legislature should render poisons less easy of purchase, by restricting the sale of every drug or compound in the nature of a poison to the properly qualified chemist, who, by his training and special knowledge, is alone competent to sell these substances. Incalculable harm is done by habits such as we have alluded to, and it is better often to endure pain and torment, than to fly constantly to what in the end will only inflict worse punishment.
POISONS IN FICTION
Froma very early period poisoning mysteries have been woven into romance and story, and in later times have been a favourite theme for both novelist and dramatist. But unfortunately, the scientific knowledge of writers of fiction, as a rule, is of a very limited description, and the effects attributed by them to certain drugs are usually as fabulous as the romances of the olden times. They tell us of mysterious poisons of untold power, an infinitesimal quantity of which will cause instantaneous death without leaving a trace behind. They describe anæsthetics so powerful, that a whiff from a bottle is sufficient to produce immediate insensibility for any period desired. In fact, the novelist has a pharmacopœia of his own. After all, why should we question or cavil, and wish to analyse it in the prosaic test tube of modern science; for take away the marvels and mysteries and you kill the romance. The novel performs its mission if it succeeds in interesting and amusing us, and the story-teller has accomplished the object of his art when he is successful in weaving the possible with the impossible, so that we can scarce perceive it.
That master of fiction, Dumas, gives us an instance of this, in his wonderfully fascinating adventures of the Count Monte Christo. Nothing seems impossible to this extraordinary individual, and incident after incident of the most romantic and exciting nature crowd one upon another throughout the story; yet so beautifully blended by the wonderful imagination of the author, that it enthrals us to the end. The Count, who is supposed to have studied the art of medicine in the East, has always a remedy at hand for every emergency, from hashish, in which he is a profound believer, to his mysterious stimulating elixir, described as "of the colour of blood, preserved in a phial of Bohemian glass." A single drop of this marvellous fluid, if allowed to fall on the lips, will, almost before it reaches them, restore the marble andinanimate form to life. His pill boxes were composed of emeralds and precious stones of huge size, and their contents consisted of drugs, whose effects were beyond conception. His knowledge of chemistry and toxicology is equally astonishing, as instanced in the conversation he holds with Madame de Villefort, who, for nefarious purposes, desires to improve her knowledge of poisons. Monte Christo discourses on the poisonous properties of brucine, a drug rarely used in England, but largely used in France. "Suppose," says the Count, "you were to take a millegramme of this poison the first day, two millegrammes the second day, and so on. Well, at the end of ten days you would have taken a centigramme: at the end of twenty days, increasing another millegramme, you would have taken three hundred centigrammes; that is to say, a dose you would support without inconvenience, and which would be very dangerous for any other person who had not taken the same precautions as yourself. Well, then, at the end of a month, when drinking water from the same carafe, you would kill the person who had drunk this water, without your perceiving otherwise than from slight inconvenience that there was any poisonous substance mingled with the water." The Count thus explains the doctrine of immunity from a poison, by accustoming the system to its effect in small doses for a length of time, a process which is actually possible with some drugs, but not with all. His satirical description of the bungling of the common poisoner, as compared to the fine subtlety and cunning he advocates, is also worth quoting: "Amongst us a simpleton, possessed by the demon of hate or cupidity, who has an enemy to destroy, or some near relation to dispose of, goes straight to the grocer's or druggist's, gives a false name, which leads more easily to his detection than his real one, and purchases, under a pretext that the rats prevent him from sleeping, five or six pennyworth of arsenic. If he is really a cunning fellow he goes to five or six different druggists or grocers, and thereby becomes only five or six times more easily traced; then, when he has acquired his specific, he administers duly to his enemy or near kinsman a dose of arsenic which would make a mammoth or mastodon burst, and which, without rhyme or reason,makes his victim utter groans which alarm the whole neighbourhood. Then arrive a crowd of policemen and constables. They fetch a doctor, who opens the dead body, and collects from the entrails and stomach a quantity of arsenic in a spoon. Next day a hundred newspapers relate the fact, with the names of the victim and the murderer. The same evening the grocer or grocers, druggist or druggists, come and say, 'It was I who sold the arsenic to the gentleman accused'; and rather than not recognize the guilty purchaser, they will recognize twenty. Then the foolish criminal is taken, imprisoned, interrogated, confronted, confounded, condemned, and cut off by hemp or steel; or, if she be a woman of any consideration, they lock her up for life. This is the way in which you northerners understand chemistry." And so he endeavours to incite a woman, who is already anxiously contemplating a series of terrible crimes.
The recital of the ingenious experiments of the Abbé Adelmonte is a piece of clever construction, as the quotation will show. "The Abbé," said Monte Christo, "had a remarkably fine garden full of vegetables, flowers, and fruit. From amongst these vegetables he selected the most simple—a cabbage, for instance. For three days he watered this cabbage with a distillation of arsenic; on the third, the cabbage began to droop and turn yellow. At that moment he cut it. In the eyes of everybody it seemed fit for table, and preserved its wholesome appearance. It was only poisoned to the Abbé Adelmonte. He then took the cabbage to the room where he had rabbits, for the Abbé Adelmonte had a collection of rabbits, cats, and guinea-pigs, equally fine as his collection of vegetables, flowers, and fruit. Well, the Abbé Adelmonte took a rabbit and made it eat a leaf of the cabbage. The rabbit died. What magistrate would find or even venture to insinuate anything against this? Whatprocureur du roihas ever ventured to draw up an accusation against M. Magendie or M. Flourens, in consequence of the rabbits, cats, and guinea-pigs they have killed? Not one. So, then, the rabbit dies, and justice takes no notice. This rabbit dead, the Abbé Adelmonte has its entrails taken out by his cook and thrown on the dunghill; on this dunghill was a hen,who, pecking these intestines, was, in her turn, taken ill, and dies next day. At the moment when she was struggling in the convulsions of death, a vulture was flying by (there are a good many vultures in Adelmonte's country); this bird darts on the dead bird and carries it away to a rock, where it dines off its prey. Three days afterwards this poor vulture, who has been very much indisposed since that dinner, feels very giddy, suddenly, whilst flying aloft in the clouds, and falls heavily into a fish-pond. The pike, eels, and carp eat greedily always, as everybody knows—well, they feast on the vulture. Well, suppose the next day, one of these eels, or pike, or carp is served at your table, poisoned, as they are to the third generation. Well, then, your guest will be poisoned in the fifth generation, and die at the end of eight or ten days, of pains in the intestines, sickness, or abscess of the pylorus. The doctors open the body, and say, with an air of profound learning, 'The subject has died of a tumour on the liver, or typhoid fever.'"
After attempting to kill half the household with brucine, Madame de Villefort changes her particular poison for a simple narcotic, recognized by Monte Christo (who in this instance frustrates the murderer) as being dissolved in alcohol. The name of the latter poison is not told us by the novelist, but on the doctor's examination of the suspected liquid we read, "He took from its silver case a small bottle of nitric acid, dropped a little of it into the liquor, which immediately changed to a blood-red colour."
Perhaps the most curious method of poisoning ever used in fiction is that introduced by the late Mr. James Payn in his novel, "Halves." The poisoner uses finely chopped horse-hair as a medium for getting rid ofherniece. In this way she brings on a disease which puzzles the doctor, until one day he comes across the would-be murderess pulling the horse-hair out of the drawing-room sofa, which causes him to suspect her at once. This ingenious lady introduced the chopped horse-hair into the pepper-pot used by her victim. The inimitable Count Fosco, whom Wilkie Collins introduces into "The Woman in White," was supposed to possess a remarkable knowledge of chemistry, although he says, "Only twice did I call science to myaid," in working out his plot to abduct Lady Glyde. His media were simple: "A medicated glass of water and a medicated bottle of smelling-salts relieved her of all further embarrassment and alarm." This genial villain waxes eloquent on the science of chemistry in his confession. "Chemistry!" he exclaims, "has always had irresistible attractions for me from the enormous, the illimitable power which the knowledge of it confers. Chemists—I assert it emphatically—might sway, if they pleased, the destinies of humanity. Mind, they say, rules the world. But what rules the mind? The body (follow me closely here) lies at the mercy of the most omnipotent of all potentates—the chemist. Give me—Fosco—chemistry; and when Shakespeare has conceived Hamlet, and sits down to execute the conception—with a few grains of powder dropped into his daily food, I will reduce his mind, by the action of his body, till his pen pours out the most abject drivel that has ever degraded paper. Under similar circumstances revive me the illustrious Newton. I guarantee that when he sees the apple fall he shalleat it, instead of discovering the principle of gravitation. Nero's dinner shall transform Nero into the mildest of men before he has done digesting it, and the morning draught of Alexander the Great shall make Alexander run for his life at the first sight of the enemy the same afternoon. On my sacred word of honour it is lucky for Society that modern chemists are, by incomprehensible good fortune, the most harmless of mankind. The mass are worthy fathers of families, who keep shops. The few are philosophers besotted with admiration for the sound of their own lecturing voices, visionaries who waste their lives on fantastic impossibilities, or quacks whose ambition soars no higher than our corns."
In "Armadale," the same novelist introduces us to a poisoner of the deepest dye in the person of Miss Gwilt. This fair damsel, whose auburn locks seemed to have possessed an irresistible attraction for the opposite sex, was addicted to taking laudanum to soothe her troubled nerves, and first tried to mix a dose with some lemonade she had prepared for her husband's namesake and friend, whom she wished out of the way. This attempt failing, and a second one, to scuttle a yacht in which he was sailing, provingfutile also, he was finally lured to a sanatorium in London, where she had arranged for him to be placed to sleep in a room into which a poisonous gas (presumably carbonic acid) was to be passed. At the last moment she discovers her husband has taken the place of her victim, and in a revulsion of feeling she rescues him, and ends her own life instead in the poisoned chamber. According to the story, the medical investigation which followed this tragedy ended in discovering that she had died of apoplexy; a fact which had it occurred in real life would not have redounded to the credit of the medical men who conducted it.
The heroine of Mr. Benson's novel, "The Rubicon," poisons herself with prussic acid ofunheard ofstrength, which she discoversamong some photographic chemicals.
On the stage, "poisoning" has gone somewhat out of fashion with modern dramatists, although it was a common thing in years gone by for the villain of the play to swallow a cup of cold poison in the last act, and after several dying speeches to fall suddenly flat on his back and die to slow music. The death of Cleopatra, described by Shakespeare as resulting from the bite of a venomous snake, is like no clinical description of the final effects of death from the bite of any known snake. Beverley, in "The Gamester," takes a dose of strong poison in the fifth act, and afterwards makes several fairly long speeches before he apparently feels the effects, and finally succumbs. The description of the death of Juliet, which Shakespeare, in all probability, conceived from reading the effects that followed the drinking of morion or mandragora wine, is an accurate description of death from that drug. The use of this anodyne preparation to deaden pain dates from ancient times, and it is stated it was a common practice for women to administer it to those about to suffer the penalty of the law by being crucified. We have another instance of the fabulous effects ascribed to poisons by the early playwrights, in Massinger's play, "The Duke of Milan." Francisco dusts over a plant some poisonous powder and hands it to Eugenia. Ludovico approaches, and kisses the lady's hand but twice, and then dies from the effects of the poison.
Miss Helen Mathers, in one ofher recent works, viz., "The Sin of Hagar," a story warranted to thrill the soul of "Sweet Seventeen," makes some extraordinary discoveries which will be new to chemists. For instance, she tells us of strychnine that actuallydiscoloursa glass of whisky and water. One of the characters, a frisky old dowager, professes to be anamateurchemist, and this lady, we are gravely informed by the novelist, "detects the presence of the strychnine in the glass of whisky and waterat a glance."
But Miss Mathers has still another poison, whose properties will doubtless be a revelation to scientists, and it is with this marvellous body the "double-dyed villainess" of the story puts an end to her woes. For convenience she carries it about with her concealed in a ring, and when at last she decides on committing suicide, we are told "she simply placed the ring to her lips, a strange odour spread through the room, and she instantly lay dead."
Sufficient eccentricities of this kind in fiction might be enumerated to fill a volume, but we must forbear. It is perhaps hardly necessary to state that the lady novelist is the greatest sinner in this respect, and stranger poisons are evolved from her fertile brain than were ever known to man.
THE LAMBETH POISON MYSTERIES
Towardsthe close of the year 1891 and the early part of 1892, public interest was excited by the mysterious deaths of several young women of the "unfortunate" class residing in the neighbourhood of Lambeth. The first case was that of a girl named Matilda Clover, who lived in Lambeth Road. On the night of October 20, 1891, she spent the evening at a music-hall in company with a man, who returned with her to her lodgings about nine o'clock. Shortly afterwards she was seen to go out alone, and she purchased some bottled beer, which she carried to her rooms. After a little time the man left the house.
At three o'clock in the morning the inmates of the house were aroused by the screams of a woman, and on the landlady entering Matilda Clover's room, she found the unfortunate girl lying across the bed in the greatest agony. Medical aid was sent for, and the assistant of a neighbouring doctor saw the girl, and judged she was suffering from the effects of drink. He prescribed a sedative mixture, but the girl got worse, and, after a further convulsion, died on the following morning. The medical man whose assistant had seen her the previous night, gave a certificate that death was due to delirium tremens and syncope, and Matilda Clover was buried at Tooting.
A few weeks afterwards a woman called Ellen Donworth, who resided in Duke Street, Westminster Bridge Road, is stated to have received a letter, in consequence of which she went out between six and seven in the evening. About eight o'clock she was found in Waterloo Road in great agony, and died while she was being conveyed to St. Thomas's Hospital. Before her death she made a statement, that a man with a dark beard and wearing a high hat had given her "two drops of white stuff" to drink. In this case a post-mortem examination was made and on analysis both strychnine and morphine were found in the stomach, proving that the woman had been poisoned.
These cases had almost been forgotten, when, some six monthsafterwards, attention was again aroused by the mysterious deaths of two girls named Alice Marsh and Emma Shrivell, who lodged in Stamford Street. On the evening of April 11, 1892, a man, who one of the girls in her dying testimony called "Fred," and who she described as a doctor, called to see them, and together they partook of tea. The man stayed till 2 a.m., and during the evening gave them both "three long pills."
Half an hour after the man left the house, both girls were found in a dying condition. While they were being removed to the hospital Alice Marsh died in the cab, and Emma Shrivell lived for only six hours afterwards. The result of an analysis of the stomach and organs revealed the fact that death in each case had been caused by strychnine.
There was absolutely no evidence beyond the vague description of the man for the police to work upon, and this case, like the others, with which at first it was not connected, seemed likely to remain among the unsolved mysteries; when by the following curious chain of circumstances, the perpetrator of these cold-blooded crimes was at last brought to justice.
Some time after the deaths of the two girls Marsh and Shrivell, a Dr. Harper, of Barnstaple, received a letter, in which the writer stated, that he had indisputable evidence that the doctor's son, who had recently qualified as a medical practitioner in London, had poisoned two girls—Marsh and Shrivell—and that he, the writer, required £1,500 to suppress it. Dr. Harper placed this letter in the hands of the police, with the result, that on June 3, 1892, a man named Thomas Neill, or Neill Cream, was arrested on the charge of sending a threatening letter. He was brought up at Bow Street on this charge for several days, when it transpired that in the preceding November a well-known London physician had also received a letter, in which the writer declared that he had evidence to show that the physician had poisoned a Miss Clover with strychnine, which evidence he could purchase for £2,500, and so save himself from ruin.
Neill Cream was remanded, and in the meanwhile the body of Matilda Clover was exhumed, and the contents of the stomach sent to Dr. Stevenson, one of the Government analysts, for examination. He discovered the presence of strychnine, and came to the conclusion that some one had administered a fatal dose toher.
An inquest was then held on the body of Matilda Clover, with the result that James Neill, or Neill Cream, was committed on the charge of wilful murder.
This man's lodgings were searched after his arrest, and a curious piece of paper was discovered, on which, written in pencil in his handwriting, were the initials "M. C.," and opposite to them two dates, and then a third date, viz. October 20, which was the date of Matilda Clover's death. On the same paper, in connection with theinitials"E. S.," was also found two dates, one being April 11, which was the date of Emma Shrivell's death. There was also found in his possession a paper bearing the address of Marsh and Shrivell, and it was afterwards proved that he had said on more than one occasion that he knew them well.
In his room a quantity of small pills were discovered, each containing from one-sixteenth to one-twenty-second of a grain of strychnine, also fifty-four other bottles of pills, seven of which contained strychnine, and a bottle containing one hundred and sixty-eight pills, each containing one-twenty-second of a grain of strychnine. These, it is supposed, he obtained as an agent for the Harvey Drug Co. of America. It was found he had purchased a quantity of empty gelatine capsules from a chemist in Parliament Street, which there is little doubt he had used to administer a number of the small pills in a poisonous dose.
Thomas Neill, or Neill Cream, was tried for the wilful murder of Matilda Clover at the Central Criminal Court, before Mr. Justice Hawkins, on October 18, 1892, the trial lasting five days.
It transpired that Cream, who had received some medical education and styled himself a "doctor," came to this country from America on October 1, 1891, and on arriving in London first stayed at Anderton's Hotel, in Fleet Street. Shortly afterwards he took apartments in Lambeth, and became engaged to a lady living at Berkhampstead.
He was identified as having been seen in the company of Matilda Clover, and also by a policeman, as the man who left the house in Stamford Street on the night that Marsh and Shrivell were murdered.
Dr. Stevenson, who made the analysis of the body of Matilda Clover on May 6, 1892, stated in his evidence that he found strychnine in the stomach, liver, and brain, and that quantitativelyhe obtained one-sixteenth of a grain of strychnine from two pounds of animal matter. He also examined the organs from the bodies of Alice Marsh and Emma Shrivell. He found 6·39 grains of strychnine in the stomach and its contents of Alice Marsh, and 1·6 grain ofstrychninein the stomach and its contents, also 1·46 grain in the vomit, and ·2 grain in a small portion of the liver of Emma Shrivell.
The jury, after deliberating for ten minutes, returned a verdict of guilty, and Thomas Neill, or Neill Cream, as he was otherwise known, was sentenced to death. He was executed on November 15, 1892.
THE HORSFORD CASE
Towardsthe close of the year 1897, a Mrs. Holmes, a widow, was living with her three children at Stoneley, near Kimbolton. She had a cousin named Walter Horsford, a well-to-do young farmer who occupied a farm at Spaldwick about twelve miles away, and who frequently came to Stoneley to visit her.
A romantic attachment eventually sprang up between them, which resulted in a too intimate acquaintance.
After a while Horsford's affection began to wane, and in the end he married another lady.
Shortly afterwards Mrs. Holmes left Stoneley and took up her residence at St. Neots.
About December of the same year she wrote a letter to Horsford, informing him of her condition, a piece of news which appears to have greatly upset him, as he was in fear the information might reach his wife.
On December 28 he called at a chemist's shop in Thrapstone, a neighbouring town, and asked for a shilling's worth of strychnine, some prussic acid, arsenic, and carbolic acid, which he stated he required for poisoning rats. The chemist, to whom he was a stranger, requested him to bring a witness, which he did, and the chemist's poison register was duly signed by Horsford and a man who introduced him. He took the poisons, which consisted of ninety grains of strychnine, one pound of arsenic, and some prussic acid and carbolic acid, away with him.
About a week afterwards Mrs. Holmes received a letter from Horsford. It was taken in by her daughter, who recognised his handwriting, and the envelope is also supposed to have contained two packets of strychnine.
On the evening of January 7, 1898, Mrs. Holmes retired to bed, apparently in her usual health, about half-past nine. The only other persons in the house were her daughter Annie, her son Percy, and her infant. The daughter noticed that her mother took a glass of water upstairs with her, which was an unusual circumstance. On going to her mother's bedroom shortly afterwards, she found her suffering great pain, and shesaw the glass, now almost empty, standing on a chest of drawers.
Percy Holmes ran out and called in the assistance of some neighbours, and then went for a doctor. When medical aid arrived, the unfortunate woman was in convulsions and died shortly afterwards.
The day after her death the police searched the house, but failed to find any trace of poison, and an inquest was held on January 8, which Horsford was summoned to attend.
In his evidence before the coroner, he swore that he had neither written to nor seen the deceased woman. The medical evidence proved that death was caused by strychnine.
The inquest was adjourned for a week, and in the meanwhile Mrs. Holmes was buried. From information received by the police, a further search was made in the house, with the result that two packets were discovered under the feather bed in Mrs. Holmes' bedroom. One packet of buff-coloured paper was found to contain about thirty-three grains of strychnine in powder, on which was written the words, "One dose. Take as told," in Horsford's handwriting. On the second packet, the contents of which had been used, was written, "Take in a little water. It is quite harmless." This was also in Horsford's handwriting.
On January 10, Walter Horsford was arrested on the charge of perjury committed at the inquest, and it was resolved to have another examination made of the body of the deceased woman. On examination of further documents and letters discovered by the police, the charge of wilful murder was added to corrupt perjury against Horsford, and he was committed for trial.
The trial took place on June 2, 1898, at Huntingdon, before Mr. Justice Hawkins.
Dr. Stevenson stated in his evidence, he first made an analysis of a portion of the body of Mrs. Holmes on January 19, and extracted 1·31 grain of strychnine, but no other poison. Subsequently he examined the two packets discovered under the bed, and found one contained 33¾ grains of powdered strychnine, and the other, which presented the appearance of having had the powder shaken out, a few minute crystals of strychnine. In each case it was the pure alkaloid. The body was exhumed nineteen days after death, and he then made an analysis of all the chief organs, and obtained therefrom a totalquantity of 3·69 grains of strychnine. Death usually occurred about half an hour after the commencement of the symptoms. He judged there could not have been less than ten grains of strychnine in the body at the time of death.
The jury found Walter Horsford guilty, and he was sentenced to death.
THE GREAT AMERICAN POISON MYSTERY
Oneof the most carefully planned murders by means of poison in modern times was investigated at the trial of Roland B. Molineux, who was charged with causing the death of Mrs. Catherine J. Adams in New York in 1899.
On November 10, 1898, a Mr. Henry C. Barnett, a produce booker, who was a member of the Knickerbocker Athletic Club, one of the most prominent social organizations in New York, received by post at the club a sample box of Kutnow's Powder. He was in the habit of taking this and similar preparations for simple ailments, and soon after receiving the box he took a dose of its contents. He became ill immediately afterwards, and was thought to be suffering from diphtheria. That he had a slight attack of this disease there is little doubt, as the fact was proved from a bacteriological examination made by his medical attendant. He left his bed earlier than the doctor advised, and died presumably of heart failure.
The contents of the box, however, were examined, which led to the discovery that the powder had been tampered with and mixed with cyanide of mercury; and although Mr. Barnett had died from natural causes, it seemed clear an attempt had been made to poison him by some one who knew he was in the habit of taking this powder. The investigation, however, does not appear to have been carried farther.
The next chapter in the story occurred in connection with a Mr. Harry Cornish, who occupied the position of physical director to the Knickerbocker Athletic Club.
A day or two before Christmas in the same year, a packet directed to him was delivered by post at his address. It contained a box, in which, on opening, he found at one end a silver article for holding matches or toothpicks; at the other end was a bottle labelled "Emerson's Bromo-seltzer," and between the two was packed some soft tissue paper.
Mr. Cornish was at first under the impression that some onehad sent him the packet as a present. After removing the articles from the box, he threw it and the wrapper into his wastepaper basket, but onsecondthoughts he cut the address from the wrapper and kept it.
The bottle, labelled "Bromo-seltzer," which is a saline preparation well known in America, was sealed over the top and bore the usual revenue stamp. After tearing off the outside wrapper, Mr. Cornish placed the bottle and the silver holder on his desk.
On the following Sunday he remarked to his aunt, a Mrs. Catherine Adams, that he had received a present. Mrs. Adams and her daughter Mrs. Rogers joked him about it, saying he must have some admirer, and was afraid to bring his present home, as the sender's name was probably upon it. So on Tuesday night Mr. Cornish took the bottle and the silver holder home with him, and presented them to Mrs. Rogers, saying they were no use to him and she might have them.
The next morning Mrs. Adams complained of a headache, and her daughter suggested a dose of the Bromo-seltzer. Mr. Cornish was present, and mixed a teaspoonful of the preparation from the bottle with a glass of water, and gave it to his aunt. After drinking it she at once exclaimed, "My, how bitter that is!"
"Why, that's all right!" said Mr. Cornish, as he took a drink from the glass.
A few moments afterwards Mrs. Adams collapsed, and died within a short time. Mr. Cornish was seized with violent vomiting, which doubtless saved his life, and he recovered.
A post-mortem examination revealed the fact that Mrs. Adams had died from cyanide poisoning; and on the bottle of Bromo-seltzer being analysed the contents were found to have been mixed with cyanide of mercury.
For a long time the affair seemed a complete mystery, and the police investigations appeared likely to be fruitless. Then the particulars of the death of Mr. Barnett, who was Chairman of the House Committee of the Knickerbocker Club, were brought to light; and connecting them with the fact that Mr. Cornish was also a prominent member of the club, and had received the bottle of Bromo-seltzer by post in the same manner, it seemed highly probable that both the poisoned packets which contained cyanideof mercury, had been sent by the same hand.
Further examination proved that the bottle used was not a genuine Bromo-seltzer one, and that the label had been removed from a genuine bottle and carefully pasted on that sent to Mr. Cornish.
A firm of druggists in Cincinnati then came forward and stated, that as far back as May 31, 1898, they had received a written application signed "H. C. Barnett" for a sample box of pills, and another similar application on December 21, 1898, which was signed "H. Cornish."
Both these applications were found to be in the same handwriting, which was also strikingly similar to the address on the packet sent to Mr. Cornish, which he had fortunately kept. The address given by the applicant who called himself "H. C. Barnett," was 257, West Forty-second Street; New York, a place where private letter-boxes are rented for callers. The address given by the applicant signing himself "H. Cornish," was a similar place at 1,620, Broadway, in the same city. From these facts it seemed evident that an attempt had been made to poison both Barnett and Cornish by some one who knew them, and the poisoner had concealed his identity by employing the names of his intended victims.
The nature of the poison used, cyanide of mercury, was also a slight clue, asit isa substance which is not used in medicine and must in all probability have been specially prepared for the purpose, by some one with a good knowledge of chemistry.
At the coroner's inquest, which began on February 9, 1899, certain facts were elicited that tended to bring suspicion on Roland B. Molineux, who was also a member of the Knickerbocker Club and well acquainted with Barnett and Cornish. He was also known to have quarrelled with the latter. At the close of the inquest Molineux was arrested, and removed to the Tombs prison.
Owing to legal technicalities in the original indictment, which charged him with the murder of both Mr. Barnett and Mrs. Adams, he was twice liberated, and then for the third time arrested.
The trial of Molineux for the murder of Mrs. Adams was a memorable one, and lasted nearly three months. It began on November 14, 1899, at the Central Criminal Court,New York, and was not concluded till February 11, 1900.
The evidence was entirely circumstantial. Most of the experts in handwriting who were examined declared that the address on the packet sent to Mr. Cornish was in Molineux's writing, and that he had also written both applications to the druggists in Cincinnati. Further, Molineux was engaged as a chemist to a colour factory in which cyanide of mercury was used, which would enable him either to make or procure that special poison, from which only three other fatal cases had been recorded.
No witnesses were called for the defence, and the jury found Roland B. Molineux guilty of "murder in the first degree," which, according to American law, is murder with premeditation.
SOME CURIOUS METHODS EMPLOYED BY SECRET POISONERS
Thestrange and curious methods employed by poisoners to accomplish their deadly purpose, form an interesting study to students of human nature. The poisoner generally sets to work on a preconceived and carefully thought-out plan, which he proceeds to carry out with all the cunning he possesses. The methods that can be employed to introduce a poisonous substance into the human body are necessarily limited; and although they are varied at times according to the ingenuity in which the deed is planned, we find the poisoner with all his craft shows but little originality, and the modes used in ancient times are repeated down through the centuries to the present day.
There seems little doubt that the earliest method employed by man was the poisoned weapon.
The use of the poisoned arrow-head by primitive man goes back to a period of remote antiquity. Among the cave remains of the palæolithic period, arrow-and spear-heads of bone have been found marked with depressions for containing poison, and this method of introducing poison seems to have been practised by most of the aboriginal races.
Arrow poisons were well known to the Greeks and their word "toxicon" signified a poisonous substance into which the arrow-"toxon" was dipped. Homer alludes to the use of poisoned arrows in the "Odyssey," and Ovid mentions the bile and blood of vipers as being employed to poison weapons. The Scythians and the tribes of the Caucasus were reputed to use Viper poison mixed with the serum of human blood that had decomposed. The Celts and the Gauls, according to Pliny, dipped their arrow-heads in hellebore juice; and down to the seventh century we find poisoned weapons were commonly used in Europe.
During the Middle Ages until the sixteenth century, the poisoned dagger or sword formed the favourite weapon of the assassin, and the preparation of the blade for this purposewas brought almost to a fine art in Spain. It is recorded that Lorenzo de Medici was stabbed with a poisoned dagger; and the Duke de Biscaglia, the second husband of the famous Lucrezia Borgia, nearly fell a victim to the assassin's knife on the steps of St. Peter's.
Of all other methods employed by poisoners, the administration of the lethal dose through the medium of food or drink seems ever to have been the favourite. The poisoned wine or cake recurs with a somewhat monotonous frequency in the history of the poisoner, from the earliest times down to the present day. Women especially seem to have been attracted by this mode of poisoning, a fact probably due to their control and direction of domestic matters, which rendered the introduction of a poisonous substance into food or drink an easy matter. Occasionally they have fallen victims to their own evil designs, as instanced in the case of Rosamond the wife of Helmichis, King of Lombardy, in the year 575. Wishing to rid herself of her husband, she gave him a cup of poisoned wine on coming from his bath. The king drank part of it, and suspecting its nature from the strange effect it produced, he insisted she should drink the remainder, with the result that both died shortly afterwards.
The Hindooshave an ingenious method of using powdered glass as a lethal agent, either by mixing it with sherbet or some kind of food. In such cases the substance acts by its irritant action on the stomach or intestines, while at the same time, if successful, no trace of poison can be discovered in the bodily organs.
A celebrated case in which this agent was used occurred in India in 1874, when the Gaekwar, or reigning prince of Baroda was tried for attempting to kill his political resident, Colonel Phayre, by administering powdered glass to him in sherbet.
The Gaekwar was tried before a court consisting of three Indian princes and three English judges, and was defended by the late Mr. Serjeant Ballantine. The princes returned a verdict of "Not proven," while the judges decided that he was guilty, with the result that the Gaekwar was deposed.
The sweetmeat was a favourite form employed to administer poison during the Middle Ages. Such confections were usually handed roundto the guests after a meal in Italy. Princes and nobles frequently used this method of ridding themselves of an enemy; and if the plot failed in the first instance, they were always ready to try it again, for, as Cæsar Borgia is stated to have once exclaimed, "what has failed at dinner-time will succeed at supper-time." Catherine de Medici introduced this method into France, and her Florentine perfumers were said to be adepts in mixing arsenic with sweetmeats.
The poisoned flowers of mediæval romance, and poisoned gloves and boots, which figure so often in legend and story as lethal media, we must dismiss as mere fables of an age when the historian drew largely on his imagination.
The "poison ring," with its carefully concealed tiny spike, which was intended to penetrate the flesh of the victim, might perhaps have set up blood-poisoning, as would a similar wound if inflicted by a rusty nail.
The use of rings with secret receptacles to contain poisons we have already mentioned. Among the gems in the British Museum there is an onyx which has been hollowed out to form a receptacle for poison. The face of the stone is engraved with the head of a horned faun. To take the poison, it was only necessary to bite through the thin shell of the onyx and swallow the contents.
When the gold deposited by Camillus in the Capitol was taken away, it is recorded that the custodian responsible for it "broke the stone of his ring in his mouth," and died shortly afterwards.
The poisoners of the seventeenth century not content with introducing poison into wine and other drinks, sought to improve on this method, by preparing the goblet or cup in such a way, that it would impregnate any liquid that was placed in it.
There is record of one François Belot who made a speciality of this art, and, it is said, received a comfortable income therefrom; but he fitly ended his days by being broken on the wheel on June 10, 1679.
According to a contemporary writer, his secret method consisted in cramming a toad with arsenic, placing it in a silver goblet, and, after pricking its head, crushing it in the vessel. While this operation was being performed, certain charms were uttered.
"I know a secret," statedBelot, "such, that in doctoring a cup with a toad, and what I put into it, if fifty persons chanced to drink from it afterwards, even if it were washed and rinsed, they would all be done for, and the cup could only be purified by throwing it into a hot fire. After having thus poisoned the cup, I should not try it upon a human being, but upon a dog, and I should entrust the cup to nobody." And yet Belot's powers were believed in, and he enjoyed a substantial reputation in his day.
His boasting is on a par with that of the magician Blessis, who flourished about the same period. He declared to the world that he had discovered a method of manipulating mirrors in such a way that any one who looked in them received his death-blow!
The stories of the "poisoned shirt," which was a favourite medium with the poisoners of the seventeenth century, are not, however, without a substratum of fact.
The tail of the shirt was prepared by soaking it in a strong solution of arsenic or corrosive sublimate. The object was to produce a violent dermatitis, with ulceration about the perineum and neighbouring parts, which should compel the victim to keep his bed. Medical men would then be summoned in due course, and would probably judge the patient to be suffering from syphilis, and administer mercury in large quantities. The fatal dose could then be introduced at leisure.
The notorious La Bosse left on record her method of preparing the "poisoned shirt." The garment was first to be washed, and the tail then soaked in a strong solution of arsenic, so that it only looked "a little rusty," as if it had been ill-washed and was stiffer than usual. "The effect," she concludes, "it should produce on the wearer is a violent inflammation and intense pain, and that when one came to examine him, one would not detect anything."
The Duke of Savoy is said to have succumbed to the effects of a poisoned shirt of this kind.
Some time ago Dr. Nass, a French medical man, made some interesting experiments, with a view to testing the truth of these stories. He carefully shaved a portion of the left lumbar region of a guinea-pig, and gently rubbed the skin with a paste containing arsenic, in the proportion of one in ten.He repeated this operation several times during the day. Shortly afterwards the animal became prostrate, the eyes became dull, it assumed a cholera-like aspect, and in forty-eight hours died. The skin on which the paste had been applied remained unchanged and unbroken, and showed no sign of ulceration. On examining the internal organs after death, fatty degeneration of the viscera was found, as is usual after arsenical poisoning.
This experiment does not, of course, actually prove the effect of a shirt impregnated with arsenic being worn in direct contact with the skin, but it shows that arsenic may be introduced into the body by simple, gentle friction on an unbroken skin, and that the poisoned shirt theory was possible.
The administration of poison in the form of medicine is another method which has often been criminally employed. In France, the enema was at one time frequently made use of for introducing arsenic, corrosive sublimate, and opium into the system. The poisoner's aim, in such cases, was to attribute the fatal effects which followed to disease. Within recent years a curious case was tried at the Paris Court of Assizes, in which a lady was charged with attempting to poison her husband. It was known that the couple had lived unhappily together, and arrangements had been made for a divorce. One morning the husband complained of a severe headache, and his wife suggested a dose of antipyrine, which she gave him in some mineral water. He remarked to her at the time that the draught had a peculiar taste. Later in the day she administered sundry cups of coffee to him; but he grew rapidly worse and at night a doctor was summoned. He failed to diagnose the complaint, and called in other medical men, who were equally puzzled. One thing which they all noticed, was a peculiar dilation of the pupils of the patient's eyes.
A consultation was held the next day, and shortly afterwards one of the medical men received a note from the lady, in which she stated, that her husband "was black. He was dead, more dead than any man I ever saw."
The doctor at once went to see the patient, and found him in a state of collapse. He bled him twice and injected caffeine, but he still remained motionless.After a time it occurred to the doctor that the patient's symptoms resembled those of atropine poisoning, and, resorting to other measures, he eventually brought him round. Then he remembered, that the lady had previously asked him for some morphine for herself, and when he had refused it, she requested some atropine for her dog's eyes. He wrote her a prescription for a solution of atropine, containing ten per cent. of the drug, and took it to the chemist himself. On further inquiries it was proved that the lady had procured atropine upon various other occasions by copying the doctor's prescription and forging his signature.
At the trial, the medical evidence was very conflicting; but the concensus of opinion was in favour of the theory that atropine had been administered in small, repeated doses. The accused woman declared in her defence, that atropine had been put into the medicine for her husband in mistake by the chemist who had dispensed it. There was no evidence to support this theory, and she was found guilty and sentenced to five years' penal servitude.
A strange method, which said to have been employed by the Borgias, and was afterwards used in France, was a combination of arsenic with the secretions or products of decomposition of an animal to which it had been administered. The poison was prepared by cutting open a pig, and well sprinkling the carcase with arsenic or other poison. Then it was left to putrefy, after which the liquids that ran from the decaying mass were collected, and these formed the finished poison.
As science advances, opening up fresh fields for research and poisons of a still more deadly nature are revealed, so the chemist sets to work to discover methods for their certain detection, and thus renders the poisoners' fiendish work more difficult.
It is well to remember that even the most deadly poisons have their proper use, and in skilled hands prove valuable instruments in combating many diseases that afflict suffering humanity.
THE END
Butler & Tanner, The Selwood Printing Works, Frome, and London.