Morning journal and courier., 1890-07-11
Poisoning In India. From the Times of India

The report of Dr. T. D. Collis Barry, the acting chemical aua1yzer to the Indian gov- ernment, for the past year is, as usual, a morbidly interesting document, largely sug- gestive of human wickedness, unavenged tragedies, municipal csrlessness, and, it Is to be feared, of wholesale undiscovered adulter- ation. The total number of articles being received during the year was 2,300, 1,002 articles examined in the investigations of medico- legal cases, LOAF articles being sam. pies of government stores, and the remainder being potable water. Farming to the details of the report. one naturally glanoes first at the cases of suspected human poisoning which the year brought forth. These num- bered ITO, as against lS2 in the previous year, and 159 in 18S7 Of this number poison was aotutlly detected in only 66 cases, or 3S per cent.-a smaller percentage than usual. In 3S cases arsenic was the poison discovered; in 20 it was opium; in pounded glass; in dhatura; in mercury, and nux vomica. "Cases" in this instance is some. what misleading, for in 66 cases it appears that S3 persons were concerned of whom 35 died. This compares, however, very favor ably with 1888, and still more so with 1885, when 15S persons were poisoned and GA died.
 A new feature was introduced in a very curious case from Satara. A blacksmith at tached to the Ninth regiment stated that suluo poieous pOesIuly COrEOslV6 hQOHnat6, and mixed with his foo by his assistant in the workmanshop, with the object of getting promotion after his death. He did not eat any of the food, but only suspected it of con- tsiniDg poison. On inquiry the police found that he had mixed the poison with the food himself, and then falsely accused his fellow-workman, and packet of arsenious oxide was found in his possession. Pounded glass was used as poison in bread-cakes, in bajri bread, and in rice; and In a case from Nazik woman confessed to having pounded her bangles, and mixed the powdered glass with bread, which she gave her husband to eat. In the majority of instances during the past ten years of this class of poisoning, however, the attempt has generally proved futile, the coarseness and grittiness of the glass at once exciting suspicion. Evidently the skill of the old Venitians in this direotion has no parallel in India, where, indeed, glass would only seem to be used as the handiest articles within reach, when arsenic opium, and dhaturs are not ready procurable. Dr. Lyon, in his exhaustive Manual of the Med. ical Jurisprudence for India," records only one fatal case of poisoning from pounded glass in India. This was in 1876, and death these records of Dr. Lyon's is that of a wom. an who swallowed quantity of coarsely pounded glass in order to "scour out her stomach" She came very near securing out her soul as well, but with prompt emetics and skillful treatment she recovered. Ar senic, however, from it's easy accessibility. has always held the first place in Indian next. Last year the proportion was 50 per cent. arsenic and 31 per cent. opium, and broadly speaking, the proportion is much the same for the past ten years.
 The favorite mode of administration in the first case appears to be in the form of sweetmeats. Dr. Lyon mentions case in which man approached in an entirely friendly way a police Sepoy who had run away with his wife. He gave the Sepoy them, but, finding the material gritty, spat it out. Out of the 860 grains of this sweet meat, Dr. Lyon subsequently, extracted 61O grains of arsenic oxide. In another instance two children died after eating sweetmeats calmly given them by woman who had quarrelled with their parents. A post-mor. tenn revealed the presence of 100 grains of arsenious oxide in the stomach of one of the children Perhaps the most remarkable of recorded cases of this sort, however, was that given in the Chemical Analyzers report for 1882-S3. Fiveinmates of leper hospital in Bombay were found suffering from irri- tant poisoning. An examination showed that some swestmeats they had eaten con- tained arsenious oxide to the extent of twelve grains per ounce and some tamarined about fifty grains per pound some of the fragments of arsenious oxide in this case being as large as small beans. Inquiry revealed the fact that these messengers of death had been ad- lninistered in the most matter. of-faet way by leper who wanted to get another leper out of the way, 80 that he might marry his wife; and as no plan occurred to him of isolating his victim, he had to cooly poison the whole group. The case in which an arsenioal Iove-philtre was administered to danoing- girl in Bombay with fatal results will still be remembered, as will also no doubt the case in which woman, at the instigation of one of her psramours, prepared some sweet meat balls with arsenic for the purpose of murdering another man who was in love with her, and by accident, succeeded instead in poisoning her mother and sister and sev- erai children.