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 usedBrowne, G. Lathom (George Lathom)
Science
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
Browne, G. Lathom (George Lathom)
Medical jurisprudence -- Great Britain; Poisons; Trials (Murder) -- Great Britain; Trials (Poisoning) -- Great Britain
“I knew Mrs. Hart, and went to see her at Salthill on the 26th
September, 1843. She had a child of mine in her care. I was there from
three to four months, in which time I saw Mr. Tawell there twice. On
the 30th of September he came, and in ten minutes after, Mrs. Hart
sent me out for a bottle of stout, which I got and gave to her. She
took it into the room where he was. Shortly after she came out and
sent me for a sheet of paper, leaving Mr. Tawell in the room with
the stout. When I came back she said to me ‘I am so ill, I shall be
obliged to tell my master to go; I am so sick, my head is so bad.’
She was very sick, and I helped her upstairs to bed. After she got
upstairs she was sick again. She was in very good health when Tawell
came. She said she only drank one glass of porter and felt sick
directly afterwards. I went down again and saw eighteen sovereigns on
the table, which I put into a drawer. There was some porter in the
glasses and in the bottle. That in the glasses I threw away, and drank
that in the bottle, and it did not make me ill. Mrs. Hart complained
of being very giddy, but did not say anything about her throat.”
ANALYTICAL EVIDENCE.
_Mr. Cooper_, the Analytical Chemist and Lecturer on Medical
Jurisprudence, was then called and examined by _Serjeant Byles_.
“On the 3rd of January,” said the witness, “Messrs. Champneys,
Norblad, and Pickering called on me with a carpet bag. The bag
contained a bottle (ordinary one, such as olives are usually sold
in) full or nearly so with the contents of the stomach; a portion
of porter in an ordinary beer-bottle, on which was a paper label
signifying that it contained Guinness’s beer; a glass tumbler, about
half full of what appeared to be a mixture of beer and water; a part
of a plum bun, and a phial containing a few drops (perhaps about half
a drachm) of a nearly colourless fluid; a small piece of pink paper,
such as is generally used by apothecaries for tying over the corks of
medicine phials, and had apparently been used for such purpose; and
the stomach and part of the intestines. The bottle which contained the
contents of the stomach was tied over with a piece of bladder, and,
I think, corked as well, but of the latter I am not certain; it was
opened and smelt strongly of food in the progress of digestion, it
had also the smell of beer. On the application of litmus paper to the
surface of the contents it became red instantly, and so very red that
I was disposed to consider that Mr. Norblad and the other gentlemen
were right in their conjecture as to its containing oxalic acid. A
portion was now taken out of this bottle and put into a porcelain
evaporating basin, to which some distilled water was added, and
stirred well together with a glass rod; the basin with its contents
was then placed on the heated sand bath and kept stirring until it
boiled, and even after it had boiled for some minutes. During the
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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