Fodere reports a case, in which an erroneous conclusion respecting the presence of arsenic was drawn, evidently owing to the same source of fallacy. The Society of Medicine at Marseilles, in consequence of a girl having been poisoned by a quack medicine, appointed a scientific person to examine the composition of the Nostrum; this person, strongly prepossessed with the opinion that it contained arsenic, applied the copper test above described, and having obtained by means of it, a green precipitate, reported, without any further inquiry, that the medicine in question was an arsenical solution. Foderé, however, suspected the correctness of the conclusion, in consequence of the residue not yielding by combustion, any alliaceous odour; a new analysis was therefore made, which proved the nostrum to be nothing more than a very strong alcoholic tincture of colocynth. Médecine Légale, tom. iv. p. 137.
[258]. It is hardly necessary to observe that neither the carbonate of ammonia or of potass, or sulphuric or muriatic acid, produce any effect whatever in a pure solution of white arsenic.
[259]. Corrosive sublimate, however, produces both these effects, from causes which we have fully explained under the consideration of that poison.
[260]. Toxicologie Générale, supra citat.
[261]. See Leçons de Médecine Légale, a Paris, 1821. “Experiences chimiques propres à decouvrir les poisons minéraux qui ont été mêlés avec du thé, du café, du vin, ete.” Trente-unieme Leçon. p. 415.
[262]. Chirurg. Med. p. 185.
[263]. The arsenite of potass, which has been long known under the name of the “arsenical salt of Macquer” has been used in medicine, and the Dublin Pharmacopœia contains a process for the preparation of “arsenias kali.”
[264]. Nouvelles Experiences, &c., op. sup. cit.
[265]. Opera Omnia de Venenis, 1761.
[266]. Υδραργυρος of the Greeks from its fluidity and colour. Quicksilver. Quick, in the old Saxon tongue signified living: an epithet derived from its mobility.