Poisons, Their Effects and Detection: A Manual for the Use of Analytical Chemists and ExpertsBlyth, Alexander Wynter
Science
Poisons, Their Effects and Detection: A Manual for the Use of Analytical Chemists and Experts
Blyth, Alexander Wynter
Poisons
On November 20, 1889, two men, R. French and H. Fenwick, both
intemperate men, occupied a cabin at the Leeds Forge Works; the cabin
was 540 c. feet in capacity, and was lighted by two burners, each
burning 5·5 c. feet of water gas per hour; the cabin was warmed by a
cooking stove, also burning water gas, the products of combustion
escaping into the cabin. Both men went into the cabin after breakfast
(8.30 A.M.). French was seen often going to and fro, and Fenwick was
seen outside at 10.30 A.M. At 11.30 the foreman accompanied French to
the cabin, and found Fenwick asleep, as he thought. At 12.30 P.M.
French’s son took the men their dinner, which was afterwards found
uneaten. At that time French also appeared to be asleep; he was shaken
by his son, upon which he nodded to his son to leave. The door of the
cabin appears to have been shut, and all through the morning the lights
kept burning; no smell was experienced. At 2.30 P.M. both the men were
discovered dead. It was subsequently found that the stove was unlighted,
and the water gas supply turned on.
What attracted most attention to this case was the strange incident at
the _post-mortem_ examination. The autopsies were begun two days after
the death, November 22, in a room of 39,000 c. feet capacity. There were
present Mr. T. Scattergood (senior), Mr. Arthur Scattergood (junior),
Mr. Hargreaves, three local surgeons, Messrs. Brown, Loe and Jessop, and
two assistants, Pugh and Spray. Arthur Scattergood first fainted, Mr.
Scattergood, senior, also had some peculiar sensations, viz., tingling
in the head and slight giddiness; then Mr. Pugh became faint and
staggered; and Mr. Loe, Mr. Brown, and Mr. Spray all complained.
These symptoms were not produced, as was at first thought, by some
volatile gas or vapour emanating from the bodies of the poisoned men,
but, as subsequently discovered, admitted of a very simple explanation;
eight burners in the room were turned partly on and not lighted, and
each of the eight burners poured water gas into the room.
In 1891 occurred some cases of poisoning[59] by CO which are probably
unique. The cases in question happened in January in a family at
Darlaston. The first sign of anything unusual having happened to the
family most affected was the fact that up to 9 A.M., Sunday morning,
January 18, none of the family had been seen about. The house was broken
into by the neighbours; and the father, mother, and three children were
found in bed apparently asleep, and all efforts to rouse them utterly
failed. The medical men summoned arrived about 10 A.M. and found the
father and mother in a state of complete unconsciousness, and two of the
children, aged 11 and 14 years, suffering from pain and sickness and
diarrhœa; the third child had by this time been removed to a
neighbouring cottage.
[59] “Notes on cases of poisoning by the inhalation of carbon monoxide,”
by Dr. George Reid, Medical Officer of Health, County of Stafford.
_Public Health_, vol. iii. 364.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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