Trial for murder by poisoning with arsenic, Berkshire Lent Assizes, 1845 : Post-mortem appearences; chemical analysis; detection of the poison as sulphuret, twenty-eight days after interment / by Alfred S. Taylor.

  • Taylor, Alfred Swaine, 1806-1880.
Date:
1854
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Trial for murder by poisoning with arsenic, Berkshire Lent Assizes, 1845 : Post-mortem appearences; chemical analysis; detection of the poison as sulphuret, twenty-eight days after interment / by Alfred S. Taylor. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by Royal College of Physicians, London. The original may be consulted at Royal College of Physicians, London.

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    membrane of the stomach, and allowed to dry spontaneously by imbibition on several folds of white blotting paper. When the deposit was examined with a glass there were observed white-looking crystalline particles, like sand, inter- mixed with the yellow substance. 1. A small portion of this was boiled with copper and pure muriatic acid, when an iron-grey deposit, indicative of arse- nic, immediately appeared on the metal. Several slips of fine copper gauze were then successively placed in the liquid, and a considerable quantity of the iron-grey deposit was thus obtained. On drying the copper, and gently heating it in a small reduction tube, a white crystalline sublimate was produced, bearing all the physical characters of arsenious acid. 2. Another portion of the yellow substance was now mixed with incinerated acetate of soda, well dried; and, on heating the mixture in a reduction tube, a distinct and well-formed crystalline ring of metallic arsenic was immediately pi’ocured. The part of the glass containing the ring was filed off and broken, and the fragments were then heated gently in a wide tube, when a white crystalline crust, apparently of arse- nious acid, was immediately obtained. On dissolving this in a few drops of water, and adding the ammonio-nitrate of silver and the ammonio-sulphate of topper, a rich lemon- yellow precipitate was obtained in the former case, and a bright grass-green in the latter. Sulphuretted hydi’Ogen also gave, with another portion, a golden-yellow precipitate. These results, thus corroborating and confirming each other, proved beyond all doubt that the deposit in the mucous membrane of the stomach was a compound of arse- nic. The poison had been obtained in the metallic state by Rein sell’s process, and by reduction with soda flux. The metal had been reconverted to arsenious acid, and this, dis- solved in water, had given the usual re-actions with the two liquid and the gaseous tests.* * The reader will perceive that Marsh's process was not employed. This was considered unnecessary, because the existence of the poison was so clearly established by the other processes and tests. By avoiding the unnecessary multiplication of proofs, the objections taken to chemical evidence in cross- exami-