The Logan County banner. [volume] (Logan, W. Va.) 1889-1903, 1892-07-07
EXPERTS in POISONING.


called attention 10 the curious fact that
the prevailing types of crime have
varied with every phase in the progress
OF civilization. Thus piracy and in
fanticide have steadily decreased since
the beginning OF our chronological era
Highway robbery, too, has declined,
while theft has considerably increased
and certain stealthy forms of murder
have thus far successfully baffied the
exorcism Of law, says Prof. Oswald.
The poison-monger's art, for instance,
has contrived to defy the progress of
science by constant improvements of its
own. Only few weeks ago one of the
experts consulted in the trial Of the
New York. student accused of causing
+ the deathsof his wife quoted the opin-
ion OF several eminent specialists to the
effect that no chemical analysis4can
pretend to TRACE the vestiges of Certain
poisons as modified by the subsequent
administration Of other drugs"
In other words. prisoners have learned
to cover the traces of their crime by
taking the precaution to use more than
one drug. Arsenic and strychnine oc-
casionally betray their presence, even
if the stomach of the victim should have
retained only the hundredth part of a
grain, but the tests of the analysts are
SO delicate and so far from being un-
equivocal that their reliability depends
upon conditions which adopts have
often managed to modify.
The prisoners of antiquity had in
deed, to contend with far more rseri-F
II
that the righteousness of many virulent
substances betrays itself by their re-
| pulsiveness. Strychnine and opium are.
intensely bitter. so much so in fact that
in some of their powdered forms an in
visible trace can be tasted in the air on
shaking a small Quantity from one pa
per into another. Bt1ladona, digitalis,
stramonium, hemlock and colchicum
| are either acrid or SO nauseous that
deadly dose can be swallowed only
with difficulty, even by suicides. In an
admixture with most articles of food
vegetable poisons can generally be de-
tected by the protest of the human
palate.
Certain mineral poisons, however,
make remarkable exception from that
rule. 1t Would almost seem as if nature
| had not thought it worth while to warn
| our instinct against such out-of-th e-way
substances as sugar of lead or arsenious
acid. Common white arsenic is odorless
| and almost tasteless, deceivfng even the
vigilance of such cautious creatures as
| rats and foxes. In small doses its taste
| is as difficult to detect as that
of a few PARTICLES Of white chalk or
powdered alum but being IA rather in
soluble substance the deadly drug might
betray itself 70 the eve
About three hundred years ago the
latter difficulty was obviated by the dis
covery of an italian crone, who found
| by experiments that long-continuea
| boiling will communicate the properties
of arsenic to soft water. The fluid thus
obtained is colorless as well as tasteless
and odorless, yet withal potent enough
to surpass the virulence of hemloclS
| Juice. Thinking her secret absolutely
| discovery proof, the old hag sold it to
numerous customers, most of them
young wives encountered with undesir-
able husbands Aqua toffana," as the
initiated called the fatal solution would
L
shrewdest chemical detectives of that
time, but before long caused so phc-
nomenal a mortality of male adults,
nearly all of them old, ugly and mar
ried, that the theory of an accidental
Eeoincidence became untenable, and the
|seeret leaked cut after the arrest of half
a hundred suspected widows.
| But the recipe of the inventor, too,
was then divulged, and her successor
soon learned to observe the additional
precaution of administering the water
of divorce" in minute doses. Instead of
the naturally suspicious result of sud
den death, the effect, thus modified, was
a gradual decline 81 health and vigor
The victim would complained languor,,
nausea and digestive ailments closely
resembling the effects of certain
atmospheric conditions incident to
the climate of northern Europe.
.'The sultry weather would be
the plausible explanation, and the ag-
gravation of symptoms could be as
easily attributed to cholera morbus or
congestive- chills. Prof. Pietro Longi-
nocti, an eminent jurist of the eight
zenith century, states his reasons for
the estimate that half million human
beings-husbands, wives, superauous
infants or otherwise undesirable rela-
tives and OBSERVATION-DISCLOSURES thus dis
creetly removed" Medical jurispru-
dence, in the meantime had enlisted
the aid of analytical chemistry, and
Longinotti suggests that, as rule a
thorough autopsy should precedc cor
oner's burial permit.
The facility of divorces might seem
to have modified the necessity of such
/ precautions, still there is no doubt that
the secret adoption of Longinotti's plan
would lead to surprising revelations in
certain over-populated. districts of the
eastern continent, and perhaps also, Of
the new world where poisons OF all
sorts are often as freely sold as ginger
and quinine.
If should see fit To take a short-line
trip to the other world" said the Swiss
philosopher Halter, II would no more
think of shooting myself than man
would dream of getting himself fred
across river from the nouth of a can
non if he could instead use commo-
dious ferry" He alludes to the eutha-
nasia of narcotic poisons, and his view
would have been confirmed if he had
lived to witness the experiments that
have made prussic acid and cyanide of
potassium the favorite drugs Of sui
cides A single drop of the acid,
applied to the tongue of. :. "a,
full-grown rabbit, has been known to
4 produce instant death, and the failure
Of suicidal attempts with drugs of that
sort can be often explained by the fact
that amateur chemists are apt to use
absurd overdoses. A young druggist o.
my acquaintance came near getting him
self into serious trouble by accommo-
dating friend who pretended to need
a lot of cyanide for Photographic pu4-
poses. This customer intended to take