Poisoner

“ The professional poisoner in India—for there are many such—is rarely caught or even suspected. In a large number of cases, crimes of this kind are taken little notice of by the community; and sometimes the poisoner apparently thinks nothing of poisoning a whole family in order to make sure of his victim. ”

“ I shall say nothing of the secrecy of the poison method, of the chance which still exists, in spite of modern diagnosis, that the illness induced by it will pass for one arising from natural causes. This is ground traversed so often that its features are as familiar as those of one's own house door. Nor shall I say anything of the ease with which, even in these days, the favourite poison of the woman murderer, arsenic, can be obtained in one form or another.
One hears and reads, however, a great deal about the sense of power which gradually steals upon the poisoner. ”

“ The Robber who assassinates on the High-way, leaves the Traveller the Resource of defending himself, and the Chance of being aided by the Arrival of other Travellers: But the Poisoner, who forces himself into the Confidence of a sick Person, is a hundred times more dangerous, and as just an Object of Punishment. ”

“ 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 ”

“ The Toxicological Department is worked by a higher class of criminals, as for example, absconding trustees, who are there comfortably settled in life, enjoying many modern conveniences. It produces poisons which usually cause death by cerebral hemorrhage; but each has its special antidote, possessed of which the initiated poisoner can eat and drink with his victim; on this subject the doctor pursues, however, a policy of masterly reticence. ”

“ The poisoners have been principally women of the lowest class, and their victims have been their husbands or their children. The motive for the crime has in most instances been the basest that can be imagined,—the desire to obtain from burial-clubs to which they subscribed, the premium, or burial-money. A recent enactment, restricting the sale of arsenic and other poisons, will, it is to be hoped, check, if it do not extirpate this abominable crime.—1851. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Lamb, the poisoner (engraving) , 202; slow poisoning in Italy, its general prevalence; employed by the Duke of Guise; much used by Roman ladies to poison husbands, 203; trial and execution of La Spara and others; other women punished, 204; atrocious crimes of La Tophania; the nature of her poison; protected in sanctuary by the clergy of Naples; seized by the viceroy, tried, and executed, 206-208. In France: Exili, Glaser, and Sainte Croix, the first criminals, 208; Madame de Brinvilliers and Sainte Croix; their crimes and punishment, 208-214; M. de Penautier charged with poisoning ”

“ Just as a chemist makes experiments for the pleasure and the interest of watching them, poisoners have often, without the smallest ulterior object, killed persons whose living or dying was to them a matter of complete indifference. ”

“ Plutarch thus describes the punishment of poisoners among the Persians.—"Poisoners are put to death, by the Persian laws, in the following manner. The head of the criminal is laid upon a flat stone, the executioner with another stone beats and pounds his head, until both head and face are entirely crushed." ”

“ These poisoners, or necromancers, since they pretend to compound spells by means of which they attain their ends, are acquainted with various deadly vegetable poisons entirely unknown to the European pharmacopœia, and many persons yearly fall victims to them, whose deaths, as the medical men are unable to recognise any of the symptoms attributable to known poisons, are ascribed to other causes. ”

“ Some one had attempted to murder you: and that attempt had been made immediately after you had signed a cremation certificate. That was a very impressive fact. As you know, it is my habit to look very narrowly at cremation cases, for the reason that cremation offers great facilities for certain kinds of crime. Poisoners—and particularly arsenic and antimony poisoners—have repeatedly been convicted on evidence furnished by an exhumed body. If such poisoners can get the corpse of the victim cremated, they are virtually safe ”

“ There are few words in the English language which produce a more painful impression upon the popular mind than does the word Poison, and there are at least two valid reasons why it should be so. In the first place we find poison waging war against human life, sometimes openly, sometimes insidiously, often successfully; and in the second place, from remote ages down to the present day, we are accustomed to see poison going hand in hand with crime as its chief companion. But we must remember that poison is by no means an evil-doer, only as the agent of the assassin or of the suicide. ”

“ My curiosity was somewhat aroused, and I questioned him, whereupon he told me that the drug, being tasteless, was given in food or drink, and that the victim was seized with a terrible and immeasurable sadness and depth of despair, in which life appeared too horrible to endure, and which the unfortunate always ended by seizing a weapon of some sort and killing himself; and the chief, being of an inquiring mind, had caused the poison to be administered to a man who was carefully guarded and allowed no weapon. ”

“ You die," was the reply.
"You'll die, too, if you eat me," said Rob. "I'm full of poison."
"Poison? Don't know poison," returned the chief, much perplexed to understand him.
"Well, poison will make you sick—awful sick. Then you'll die. I'm full of it; eat it every day for breakfast. It don't hurt white men, you see, but it kills black men quicker than the bang-stick." ”

“ Bunglers that you are, don't use arsenic or any mineral poison; they leave traces; you will be found out. Use vegetable poisons; poison your fathers, poison your mothers, poison all your families, and their inheritance will be yours—fear nothing; you will go unpunished! You have committed murder by poisoning, it is true ”

“ If there were an accident; if, for instance, the poison was in the sugar, or in some of the viands served, then others than Mr. Brenton would have been poisoned. The fact that one man out of twenty-six was poisoned, and the fact that several people are to benefit by his death, point, it seems to me, to murder; but to be sure of that, I will ask Mr. Brenton one question. My dear sir, did you administer this poison to yourself? ”

“ Bright, translucent and harmless though it looks, there is nothing more powerful, more deadly than the poison this phial contains. I tell you this in order that there may be no secrets between us. Five years ago it was given to me in Rome, by one who had chosen for his study the direct action of poisons on the physical and mental powers. He is dead now, but this secret of his is alive with me.
“If a few drops of this potent poison volatilised are inhaled by any one, a dull faintness immediately ensues. Ha! I saw you start. You are right, though, you have breathed it. Listen! ”

“ Much of it, I am convinced, is due to the administration of poison, but a great deal more is effected by suggestion; and, to my mind, there is little difference in the measure of guilt of one who hits his enemy on the head with a club, and of him who secretly gives a poisonous drug and causes death by physical means, or of him again, who, by acting on a man’s fears, administers a moral poison to the mind and frighten his victim to death. ”

“ As for those unfortunate chiefs, I have not the slightest doubt that they have been removed by poison—some secret and comparatively slow but deadly poison, and I intend to make it my first business to discover what that poison is, and its antidote—if I can. The chances are, however, that I shall fail, for almost all the savage peoples possess a great deal more knowledge of drugs, and especially of poisons, than we civilised folk are aware of, or are inclined to credit them with ”

“ To try her I gave out that I had committed a robbery, and thus made myself liable to be punished with death, and no sooner had she heard me than she sped to the police to denounce me.
"With regard to the second question, I have found nectar in a vessel of poison. That woman there, of evil repute, whose heart is supposed to contain poison, has been to me like life-giving nectar. She has done for me a service as great even as that which a dutiful wife could have done.
"As to the third question, my false friends there are dogs in human form. ”

“ I severely retorted. "It was while carrying this poem from one newspaper to another that you secured that bit of print upon the blank side of which yourself printed the obituary notice with which you savoured your revenge upon the woman who had disappointed you."
"You know that? Then you know where I got the poison with which I tipped the silly toy with which that weak man fooled away his life?"
"No," said I, "I do not know where you got it. I merely know it was no common poison bought at a druggist's, or from any ordinary chemist." ”

“ The Sun has risen on high, destroying all the many poisons; Aditya, the all-seeing, the destroyer of the unseen, rises for the good of living beings.
‘10. I deposit the poison in the solar orb, like a leathern bottle in the house of a vendor of spirits; verily that adorable Sun never dies; nor through his favour shall we die of the venom; for, though afar off, yet drawn by his coursers he will overtake the poison: the science of antidotes converted thee, Poison, to ambrosia. ”

“ The poison which is procured from this tree is a gum that issues out between the bark and the tree itself, like the camphor. Malefactors, who for their crimes are sentenced to die, are the only persons who fetch the poison; and this is the only chance they have of saving their lives. After sentence is pronounced upon them by the judge, they are asked in court, whether they will die by the hands of the executioner, or whether they will go to the Upas tree for a box of poison? ”

“ Was there indeed no way, short of the actual fact of sudden death, to prove that they had died of poisoning, no test, no manner in which the poisonings could be fixed on some one? Had the murderer used the safest of poisons? ”

“ One very powerful poison absolutely defies detection. Another, and the most deadly poison known to man reveals itself instantly. This second poison perfumes the corpse and leaves it smelling with a fruity odor. ”

“ Further, the public imagination was impressed; crimes were the stock topic of conversation. The most trifling accidents were attributed to poison. Every husband was accused of poisoning his mother-in-law. Terror reigned in Paris. ”

“ Guy defines a poison to be any substance which, when applied to the body externally, or in any way introduced into the system, without acting mechanically, but by its own inherent qualities, is capable of destroying life. ”

“ This poison we have been obliged to purchase for our friends, wives, children and selves, at a high price; as wine has been scarce for several years past; and it would seem that Nature had denied this liquor so long out of revenge against her enemies and the destroyers of the whole human race. You ought, therefore, most prudent fathers, not only to empty their vessels, by throwing this poison into your river; but to cast alive into the flames the sellers of this wine, and thus to punish poisoning as well as robbery.”—Pirkheimeri Opera, Franck. ”

“ The poison of all snakes let the rivers carry away; slain [are] the cross-lined ones, crushed down the pṛ́dākus.
21. I choose as it were the filaments of herbs successfully; I conduct as it were mares; O snake, let thy poison come out.
Apparently processes analogous to that of extracting the poison are referred to. The pada-division sādhu॰yā́ is prescribed by Prāt. iv. 30. There seems to be no reason why the Anukr. should call the verse kakummatī.
22. What poison is in fire, in the sun, what in the earth, in herbs, kāndā-poison, kanáknaka—let thy poison come out; let it come. ”

“ Verse 4
Their poison is like the poison of a serpent - When they bite, they convey poison into the wound, as the serpent does. They not only injure you by outward acts, but by their malevolence they poison your reputation. They do you as much evil as they can, and propagate the worst reports that others may have you in abhorrence, treat you as a bad and dangerous man ”

“ The nature of the poison cannot be discovered, as the simple scratch corrupted the blood and there are no local signs to tell what kind was employed. As to the motive of the crime, it may have been love, it may have been jealousy, perhaps robbery; as no money or jewellery were found on the body, and there was a mark on the neck as though a chain had been roughly wrenched off. ”

“ I will mix with the crowd when my father is led round, let this serpent fall on him as if by chance, and then run up to him and say that I am skilled in charms, and can save his life. No doubt they will allow me to try, and I will stop the effect of the poison in such a manner that he will not die, and yet remain insensible, as if dead. ”