Report of the trial of Madeleine Smith : before the High Court of Justiciary at Edinburgh, June 30th to July 9th, 1857, for the alleged poisoning of Pierre Émile l'Angelier / by Alexander Forbes Irvine, advocate.

Smith, Madeleine, 1835-1928.

Date:: 1857

Credit: Report of the trial of Madeleine Smith : before the High Court of Justiciary at Edinburgh, June 30th to July 9th, 1857, for the alleged poisoning of Pierre Émile l'Angelier / by Alexander Forbes Irvine, advocate. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, Harvard Medical School.

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$of being cast down or depressed. Dr Girdwood, Falkirk, deponed to having been applied to by several parties for arsenic to use as a cosmetic, after an article had appeared in Cliamberg' Journal on the subject. That many silly women, after seeing things talked about in the newspapers, may have tried whether arsenic would improve their complexions might be true enough; but he did not think that would satisfy them that that was the object of the prisoner in pur- chasing it. His Lordship then referred to the evidence of Dr Adam, and the other druggists whose shops he was said to have visited on his way from Coatbridge to Glasgow. The stories told by them were certainly very odd. Mr Ross had seen him at the inn eat a quantity of roast beef, and drink some porter—he had walked with him all the way to Glasgow, conversed cheerfally on several sub- jects, and never went into any shop on the road. Were they to be- lieve, in opposition to this, that only 600 yards or 700 yards from the inn at Coatbridge, he entered a druggist's shop and swallowed 25 drops of laudanum'? At Bailieston, again, wholly inconsistent with Ross' statement, it was asserted that he went into another shop, bent with pain, and got 25 or §0 drops more of laudanum. His Lordship thought there must be some mistake on the part of these people; their evidence, both as to the day and the man, was indistinct and indefinite. Miss Kirk said that a gentleman like the photograph shown her, came into her shop a little before or after eight o'clock, and bought some medicine—she thought a powder, but if that powder had been arsenic, sm'ely the woman would have remembered it. She was bound to write it down, and she must have known that. Dr Paterson of Leith, had described several cases of poisoning by arsenic which had come under his own obser- vation among the girls employed at colourworks; and in these cases, though the ^dctims denied having taken the poison, they submitted to medical treatment just like any other patient. None of them, however had desired a doctor to be called. Now, L'Angelier never objected to a doctor being sent for, and at last became urgent to see one. Dr Lawrie of Glasgow, stated that he had washed his face and hands into a basin in which half an ovmce of arsenic had been thrown, and experienced no bad effects. That was just what might have been expected from a single application; but whether the con- tinued n.se of it in this way would produce any beneficial effect on the skin, either disagreeable or beneficial, was a totally different matter. Dr Maclagan of Edinburgh, also said that so little arsenic would be dissolved in cold water, that washing in it would not likely have any appreciable effect. He stated also that the organic matter in cocoa or coffee would lessen, instead of augmenting, its dissolving power; a considerable quantity would, however, be dissolved, if it were boiled in these vehicles. His Lordship next directed attention to the corresj)ondence. On tliis point he observed :—The Lord Advo- cate states his theory of the case thus: the panel became ac()itainte(l A\itli r/Angch'er, the ;u'quaint;uice went on \qv\ rapid]\^, and ended$