Science and the Criminal

by C. Ainsworth Mitchell

In the French case a child had been poisoned by some broth, and the symptoms had suggested the presence of a narcotic poison. The chemical analysis of alkaloidal poisons was at that time in its infancy, and in order to obtain proof of the poisonous character of the broth, some of the meat remaining in it was given to a cat. The animal died in about five hours, and the symptoms produced and the appearance of its body after death were all similar to those observed in the child.

The evidence was therefore regarded as corroborative proof that the plant henbane had been introduced into the broth.

In the present state of chemical analysis proof would have been expected of the presence of the active principles of henbane (hyoscine and hyoscyamine) in the broth and in the body of the victim, and physiological tests would probably only have been accepted as supplying additional proof of the identity of the poison.

A striking example of the way in which the scientific evidence may succeed in establishing the innocence of a person accused of murder is seen in the following case, which was tried in 1835:—A woman, who had a violent disposition and was subject to attacks of hysteria, accused her husband of having attempted to poison her, and in proof of her charge produced a white powder, which, as she alleged, he had put into her food. The powder was found to be white arsenic, and the food on examination was found to contain a fatal quantity of that poison. The husband was therefore immediately arrested and kept in prison pending the investigation.

The woman was perfectly well for eight days, but on the ninth day became very violent, and did many eccentric things, and on the next day she died. Examination of the body showed that arsenic had been the cause of death. Her husband denied that he had ever put any arsenic into her food, but had it not been for the scientific evidence he would probably have been unable to prove that he was innocent.

Undoubtedly he owed his escape to his having been in prison for the eight days between the accusation brought by his wife and her death, for the medical witnesses proved that it was not possible for him to have given the dose of arsenic which caused the death of the woman, since the effects of arsenic could not have remained latent in the system for that length of time.

Circumstances, therefore, indicated that the woman had committed suicide, and on the strength of this evidence the prisoner was immediately set at liberty.

To come to more recent times, the most notable trial in which the results of experiments upon animals have formed one of the strongest links in the evidence against the prisoner, was that of George Henry Lamson, in 1881, who was convicted of poisoning his brother-in-law.

Here again the accused was a medical man, who was able by reason of his specialised knowledge to use a poison that at the time would not readily be identified in the body after death. In fact, in the opinion of Montagu Williams, who defended him at the trial, there could be but little doubt but that he had previously poisoned a brother of his victim in the same manner, without incurring any suspicion.

He was a young man twenty-nine years of age, in practice in a small way at Bournemouth. He was not well off and had been in pecuniary straits, and, as it was known at the trial, would have benefited materially by the death of his brother-in-law, Percy John, a lad of nineteen, who was at a school in Wimbledon.