C. J. S. Thompson

“ It is a curious fact that arsenic has been the favourite medium of female poisoners from very early times; and in two celebrated poisoning cases of later years, in both of which women were accused of murder by the administration of arsenic, the plea that the poison had been used by them for cosmetic purposes has been put forward to account for having it in their possession. The effect of arsenic on the skin is well known, and that it is frequently used, both internally and externally, to improve the skin, by women, is an undoubted fact. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The ancient Greeks, like the Chinese of to-day, looked upon suicide, under certain conditions, as a noble act, for which poison was the usual medium. Their "death cup" was mainly composed of the juice or extract of a species of hemlock, called by them cicuta. The Chinese, from remote times, are supposed to have used gold as a poison, especially for suicidal purposes, and at the present day, when a high official or other individual puts an end to his life, it is always officially announced, "He has taken gold leaf"; a curious phrase, which probably has its origin in antiquity. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The Orientalist, when he indulges in hashish retires into the depth of his harem; no one is then admitted who cannot contribute to his enjoyment. He surrounds himself with his dancing girls, who perform their graceful evolutions before him to the sound of music; gradually a new condition of the brain allows a series of illusions, arising from the external senses, to present themselves. The mind becomes overpowered by the brilliancy of gorgeous visions ”

“ The criminal destruction of life by poison has been practised from ancient times. Very little was known of toxicology in those days, and even the symptoms often passed unrecognised or were attributed to natural causes, and the poisoners' fiendish work was frequently undiscovered and rendered easy. In the early Christian era, poisoning, indeed, became quite a profession, and convenient individuals could be hired with little difficulty to administer a deadly dose to an enemy or rival. ”

“ But would-be experimentalists in the effects of hashish would do well to remember that it may not be indulged in with impunity, and most authorities agree that the brain becomes eventually disordered with frequent indulgence in the drug even in India. It further becomes weakened and incapable of separating the true from the false; frequent intoxication leads to a condition of delirium, and usually of a dangerous nature; the moral nature becomes numbed, and the victim at last becomes unfit to pursue his ordinary avocation. ”

“ The opium question is so complex in its nature, and is so largely influenced by the habits87 and constitution of those nations who are addicted to its use, that it is obvious that only those with skilled medical knowledge, who are on the spot and have lived and had a daily experience of the people, are in a proper position to deal with the question at all. So much has been written by religious enthusiasts, and other persons totally ignorant of the nature and properties of the drug, that one almost hesitates to touch upon the question at all. ”

“ The proof of the purchase of aconitine by the prisoner, and the evidence of the post-mortem examination, pointed to the cause of death, and the presence of aconitine was amply proved by the clinical and other tests patiently and carefully applied by the analyst. The difficulty of proving the presence of a rare vegetable alkaloid in the body after death was, no doubt, duly considered by Lamson when he fixed on aconitine as the medium for his evil design; but science proved the master of the criminal, and the evidence of the instrument by which the crime was committed was indisputably proved. ”

“ 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 name aconite was derived from Akon, a city of Heraclea, and the plant, owing to its deadly nature, was supposed by the early Greeks to have originated from the foam of the dog Cerberus. Aconite was largely used as an arrow poison by the ancients, and also employed for that purpose by the Chinese and the wild hill tribes of India. It was used by the ancient Greeks and Romans to destroy life, and they believed they could cause death to take place at a certain time by regulating the dose of poison. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Witch doctors are, in fact, the greatest power in the land; they hold the lives of all in their hands, and are daily employed to satisfy the passions of their neighbours. "According to native ideas," says one who has had a long experience among the native tribes, "death or sickness never occurs through natural causes, but is always the result of somebody's act. Whenever any one is accused of having practised witchcraft, or of having committed any other crime, Calabar bean or Muavi is used to decided the case. ”

“ 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,105 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. ”

“ 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 ”

“ There is little doubt that death might be caused by the mere mechanical effect of an insoluble powder of this kind, if it were possible to introduce it into the stomach in sufficient quantity, but powdered glass or sand would have the same effect as diamond dust, viz. in causing violent irritation of the stomach. Yet some of these old traditions have a substratum of fact.
The poisonous properties of the toad have long been regarded as fabulous, but recent investigation has proved that the skin of a species of toad secretes a poison, similar in action to digitalis. ”

“ The only case on record in which the active principle of aconite has been used for the purpose of criminal poisoning is that of Dr. Lamson, who suffered the extreme penalty of the law for administering the drug to Percy Malcolm John, and thereby causing his death. The story is remarkable for the cold-blooded way in which the murder was carried out. George Henry Lamson, a surgeon, in impecunious circumstances, had a reversionary interest through his wife in a 64 sum of £1,500, which would come to him on the death of his brother-in-law, Percy Malcolm John. ”

“ The strange 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 ”

“ There is no comparison between the effects of the opium habit and the habitual use of alcohol. English people cannot judge from their own standard, the manners and customs of people living under conditions with which they are unacquainted. While we look on opium as a narcotic, the Hindoo uses it as a stimulant to enable him to go through hard work on the smallest quantity possible of food. ”

“ In the seventeenth century the mania for poisoning seems to have spread to France, and great interest was excited by the disclosures which followed the discovery of Exili's conspiracy to poison a number of persons. Madame de Montespan, one of the favourites of Louis XIV, a woman of great beauty, died very suddenly at the age of twenty-six, on June 30, 1672, and it was generally believed she had been poisoned. The rumour seems to have been set on foot by one of her husband's old servants, who professed to know the individual who had administered the fatal dose. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Arsenic is the agent most commonly employed for criminal purposes in India, doubtless because it can be both easily and cheaply obtained. The reports of the analyst to the Bombay Government throw considerable light on the methods pursued by Indian poisoners. The poison is usually given in sweetmeats, and generally by a "strange woman," who has been met in the street and who mysteriously disappears. This "strange woman" is found in every analyst's report for the past twenty years, and under much the same circumstances. ”

“ Dioscorides throws a further light on the poisons of antiquity in his great work on Materia Medica, which for fifteen centuries or more remained the chief authority on that subject. He mentions cantharides, copper, mercury, lead, and arsenic. Among the animal poisons are included toads, salamanders, poisonous snakes, a peculiar kind of honey, and the blood of the ox, probably after it had turned putrid. The sea-hare is frequently alluded to by the ancient Greeks, and was evidently regarded by them as capable of producing a very powerful poison. ”

“ When the guilt of one of the parties has been established by his death, his property is at once looted, his wife and children being killed. So great, however, is the faith of the natives in the infallibility of the Muavi test, and they so fully believe that in case of innocence they will be proof against the deadly effects of the drug, that they will never hesitate to submit themselves to the trial ”

“ Dr. Maclagan, professor of medical jurisprudence in the University of Edinburgh, was then called to give the result of the chemical examination of the various organs of the body of Mrs. Pritchard, which had been retained for analysis. Antimony, corresponding to one-fourth of a grain of tartar emetic, was found in the urine, in small quantities in the bile and blood, and as much as four grains in the whole liver. Evidence of the presence of antimony was also found in the spleen, kidney, muscular substance of the heart, coats of the stomach and rectum, the brain and uterus. ”

“ 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." ”

“ The physician examines and reflects, but finds no symptoms either external or internal, no vomiting, no inflammation, no fever. In short, he can only advise patience, strict regimen, and laxatives. The malady, however, creeps on, and the physician is again sent for. Still he cannot detect any symptoms of note. Meanwhile the poison takes firmer hold of the system; languor, wearisomeness, and loathing of food continue; the nobler organs gradually become torpid, and the lungs in particular at length begin to suffer. In a word, the malady from the first is incurable ”

“ A curious superstition existed in early times, and is still entertained by the ignorant, that if the body rapidly decomposes after a sudden death it is to be attributed to the effects of poison. So when Britannicus died, it is recorded that the Romans attempted to conceal his discoloured face by means of paint. During the Roman period, poisoning was reduced to a fine art, and the skilled or professional poisoner obtained large27 amounts of money for his services.
The Borgias' favourite method of administering a lethal dose was by means of a species of hypodermic injection. ”

“ A halo of mystery, sometimes intermixed with romance, has hung about the dread word poison from very early times. In the dark days of mythology, allusions to mysterious poisons were made in legend and saga. Thus a country in the Far North was supposed to be ruled and dominated by sorcerers and kindred beings, all of whom were said to be children of the Sun. Here dwelt Æëtes, Perses, Hecate, Medea, and Circe. ”

“ The greatest craft and cunning used to be exerted in order to introduce poison into the system, and there are many old traditions concerning the subtle methods employed, although a number of these are doubtless more legendary than correct. Thus Tissot states that John, King of Castile, owed his death to wearing a pair of boots which were supposed to have been impregnated with poison by a Turk. Henry VI is said to have succumbed through wearing poisoned gloves and Louis XIV and Pope Clement VII through the fumes from a poisoned taper. ”