[725] Belloc, Méd. Lég., t. iv. p. 124.
[726] Recueil de la Soc. de Méd. de Paris, t. vi. p. 22, An. vii.; also Tardieu, Étude Méd. Légale, sur l’Empoisonnement, Obs. xxvii. p. 457.
[727] Mean, Bibliothèque Méd., t. lxxiv., 1821, p. 401.
[728] Tardieu, op. cit., Obs. xxix.; Dr. Vernois, Ann. d’Hyg. et de Méd. Lég., t. xxxvi., 1st ser., p. 141, 1846.
[729] Ansiaulx, Clinique Chirurgicale. Mangor (Acta. Societ. Reg. Hafniens, iii. p. 178) gives the case of a man who poisoned his three wives successively with arsenic—the two last by introducing into the vagina a powder composed of flour and arsenic. Another similar case is related by Brisken. Mangor made experiments on mares, showing that when arsenic is applied to the vagina, death may result from inflammation.
[730] Méd. Légale, iv.
§ 725. Arsenic in Wall-Papers.—It is now an accepted fact that arsenical colours on wall-papers cause illness. The symptoms are those of chronic poisoning, and present nothing distinctive from the effects produced from small doses of arsenic.
Kirschgasser[731] has described the symptoms in detail of twenty-six cases. That arsenic is actually present in patients suffering is often susceptible of proof, by examining skilfully and carefully a considerable volume (from one to two days’ collection) of the urine; in most of the cases thus examined arsenic has been discovered. This poisoning is produced, sometimes from the dust, at others from a volatile compound of arsenic, which has the following properties:—It is very volatile (perhaps a gas), it has a strong alliaceous odour, it is not entirely decomposed by a solution of silver nitrate, but is apparently decomposed by a boiling acid solution of potassic permanganate. The author suggests that it may be a compound of CO and As, but this is only a supposition. The existence of this volatile substance has been settled beyond all question by the experiments of Gosio,[732] confirmed by those of Charles Robert Sanger.[733]