By the 43 _Geo._ 3. _c._ 58. (commonly called Lord _Ellenborough’s_ Act) any person administering poison with _intent_ to murder another, (though no death ensue) or to procure the miscarriage of a woman quick with child, is declared guilty of felony without benefit of clergy: and persons administering medicines to procure miscarriage, though the woman is not quick with child, are declared guilty of felony, punishable by imprisonment or transportation (_vide post_). If a man persuade another to drink a poisonous liquor, under the notion of a medicine, who afterwards drinks it in his absence, or if _A_, intending to poison _B_, put poison into a thing, and deliver it to _D_ who knows nothing of the matter, to be by him delivered to _B_, and _D_ innocently delivers it accordingly in the absence of _A_;[109] in this case the procurer of the felony is as much a principal as if he had been present when it was done (2 _Hawk. P. C._ 443: _Vin. Ab. tit. Accessory_) or if one mix poison with any eatable with intent to kill another, and a stranger casually eat it and die,[110] it is murder; _Dalton_, 93. _Agnes Gore’s_ case for poisoning by ratsbane (9 _Co. Rep._ 81: _Palm. R._ 547.), not so if it be to kill vermin; but query if it be manslaughter where there is not proper precaution, as where the poison is laid in ordinary places for keeping meat, and mixed with ordinary food, so that a child may take it. 1 _East. P. C._ He that counsels another to give poison, if that other doth it, the counsellor, if absent, is accessory _before_. _Coke, P. C._ 49. Case of the murder of Sir _Thomas Overbury_, _Harg. St. Trials_. But he that absolutely gives or lays the poison, to the intent to poison, though he be absent when it is taken by the party, yet he is principal, and this was _Weston’s_ case. _Harg. St. Trials_: _Co. P. C._ _p._ 49. _Vaux’s_ case, _ubi supra_, and _Donellan’s_ case for the murder of Sir _Theodosius Boughton_, _Warwick Assizes_, 1784. See _Appendix_, 243. It is not our intention to detail every mode by which murder by poison may be committed; too many are already known to the world in general; on those which are known, we may safely comment; nor would there be as much mischief as is commonly supposed in hinting at some others; for if any should study this subject with evil intention, he may be assured that the progress of modern science, though it may have discovered some new modes of destruction, has been yet more fertile in antidotes for the injured, and in means of detecting the guilty. OF POISONS, CHEMICALLY, PHYSIOLOGICALLY, AND PATHOLOGICALLY CONSIDERED.