On poisons, in relation to medical jurisprudence and medicine / by Alfred S. Taylor ; edited, with notes and additions, by R. Eglesfeld Griffith.
- Alfred Swaine Taylor
- Date:
- 1848
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: On poisons, in relation to medical jurisprudence and medicine / by Alfred S. Taylor ; edited, with notes and additions, by R. Eglesfeld Griffith. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)
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![DETECTION OF POISON IN THE FOOD. IMPUTED POISONING. 53| unsuspectingly use this water may be attacked with symptoms of poisoning, and die from the effects. In the Registrar-General's Quarterly Report for 1846, it is stated that nearly the whole of the members of a family in Derby- shire, died from having drunk water impregnated with arsenic, which was drawn from a well contiguous to certain chemical works attached to the pre- mises. (Med. Gaz. xxxyii. 843.) It is well to bear in mind, in conducting these inquiries, that symptoms re- sembling those produced by irritant poison, may be sometimes due to the description of food which may have been taken at the meal. Besides flesh ren- dered unwholesome from disease and decay, there are certain kinds of shell-fish, as well as pork, bacon, sausages, cheese, and bread, which, under certain cir- cumstances, may give rise to formidable symptoms, and even death. In such a case, all the foregoing characters of poisoning are brought out; and, indeed, the case may be regarded as one of poisoning by an animal or vegetable irritant. The diagnosis is difficult; and great ambiguity frequently arises, from the fact that not more than one or two individuals may be affected, who have frequently before partaken of the same kind of food without any particular inconvenience (see Animal Irritants.) 4. The discovery op poison in the pood, taken, or in the matters vomited.— One of the best proofs of poisoning, in the living subject, is the detection of poi- son by chemical analysis, either in the food taken by the person labouring under its effects, or in the matters vomited. The evidence is, of course, more satis- factory when the poison is discovered in the matters vomited, than in the food; because this will show that poison has really been taken, and will readily account for the symptoms. If thrown away, we must then examine the food of which the patient may have partaken. Should the results in both cases be negative, the probability is, that the symptoms may have been due to disease. In investigating a case of poisoning in the living subject, a medical jurist must remember, that poisoning is sometimes feigned, and at others, imputed. It is very easy for an artful person to put poison into food, and to accuse another of having administered it, as well as to introduce poison into the matters vomited or discharged from the bowels. There are few of these accusers who go so far as to swallow poison under such circumstances, there being a great dread of poisonous substances among the lower orders; and it will be at once apparent, that it would require a person well versed in toxicology, to feign a series of symptoms which would impose upon a practitioner at all acquainted with the subject. In short, the difficulty reduces itself to this:—What inference can we draw from the chemical detection of poison in food] All that a medical man can do, is to say whether poison be present or not in a particular article of food: —he must leave it to the authorities of the law, to develope the alleged attempt at administration;—but if the poison have been actually administered, then we should expect to have the usual symptoms. With regard to the detection of poison in the matters vomited from the stomach, this affords no decisive proof that it has been swallowed except under two circumstances:—1. When the accuser actually labours under the usual symptoms of poisoning, in which case there can be no feigning, and the question of imputation is a matter to be esta- blished by general evidence. 2. When the matters are actually vomited into a clean vessel in the presence of the medical attendant himself, or of some person on whose testimony perfect reliance can be placed. (For an atrocious case of imputed poisoning in which the accused party had a narrow escape of his, life, see page 47.) 5*](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21158071_0057.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
