Reports of Trials for Murder by Poisoning; / by Prussic Acid, Strychnia, Antimony, Arsenic, and Aconita. Including the trials of Tawell, W. Palmer, Dove, Madeline Smith, Dr. Pritchard, Smethurst, and Dr. Lamson, with chemical introduction and notes on the poisons used

by G. Lathom Browne; active 19th century C. G. Stewart

1. He found 2 grains (a poisonous dose) in the liver. This could hardly have got there within so short a time.

2. In a stomach irritated by arsenic or disease, food may remain undigested for seven, eight, or more hours.

8. A previous dose of arsenic, adherent to the coats of the stomach, might be dissolved by an influx of warm gruel.

4. The portion in the intestines might have been evacuated by purging.

5. The “pinkish liquid” described by the surgeon who performed the post-mortem, pointed to admixture with blood, therefore to inflammation of some standing, and certainly did not tally with Dr. Letheby’s description of “gruel.”

With reference to the alleged administration of arsenic in cocoa in Madeline Smith’s case, the following details will be illustrative.

100 grains of white arsenic were found to be a small teaspoonful, not heaped. This quantity was mixed with two teaspoonfuls of Epps’s cocoa. The colour was rendered lighter, but still looked natural. On making up with boiling water and milk, as directed, a cup of cocoa was obtained, in which neither appearance, taste, nor smell, betrayed anything unusual. On standing the milk rapidly curdled, and the arsenic deposited, but this would not be seen in an opaque cup. With arrowroot or gruel a similar result was obtained.[140]

It has been stated that arsenic trioxide volatilizes with the vapour of water. I have not found this to be the case to any appreciable extent, but it does volatilize slowly at 100° C., and still more at 120°. About ½ gramme of As₂ O₃ lost, after six hours on the water-bath, 3 per cent. of its weight; after six hours at 120° C. it lost six per cent. When chlorides are present, as in the body, it is still more liable to volatilization as arsenic trichloride. Hence matters containing it cannot be boiled down or dried without danger of loss, unless previously rendered alkaline.

R. Otto has stated that ordinary sulphuretted hydrogen may contain arsenic from the sulphate of iron used. He proposes to prepare the gas by the action of pure hydrochloric acid on pure calcium sulphide obtained by roasting gypsum with charcoal (Ber. Chem. Ges. xii. 250). I have tested water into which sulphuretted hydrogen has been repeatedly passed, and have found no arsenic: if really present in the gas, the As H₃ is not absorbed in the liquid.