Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1892-04-17
REMOVAL BY POISON.
Curious Facts About a Subject Agitat.
ing Pittsburg Just Now.
THIS SORT OF MURDER Is COMMON.
Difficult for the Analysts When More Than
One Kind q Used.
SMALL QUANTITIES GIVEN OFTEN

i
every phase in the progress of civilization.
Thus piracy and infanticide have steadily
decreased since the beginning of our chrono-
logical era. Highway robbery, too, has de-
clined, while theft has considerably in
creased and certain stealthy forms of mur-
der have thus far successfully bafled the
e1orcism of Jaw.
The poison-monger's art, for instance, has
contrived to defy the progress of science by
constant improvements of its own
says the San Francisco Chronicle Only a
few weeks ago one of the experts consulted
in the trial of the New York student accused
OF causing the death of his wife quoted the
opinion of several eminent specialists to the
effect that ''no chemical analysis can pre-
tend to trace the vestiges of certain poisons
as modified by the subsequent administra-
| tion of other drugs" In other words, poi
souers have learned to cover the traces Of
their crime by taking the precaution to use
more than one drug. Arsenic and strych-
nine occasionally betray their presence,
| even if the stomach of the victim should
have retained only the hundredth part Of
grain, but the tests of the analysts are 50
uCliCdtc anu 81 ilOu OcluS uucQulFOCdl
that their reliability depends upon condi-
tions which adopts have often managed to
| modify.
Protests of the Human Palate.
The poisoners of antiquity had, indeed, to
contend with far more serious difficulty,
viz, the circumstance that the injuriousness
Of many virulent substances betrays itself
by their responsiveness Strychnine and
opium are intensely bitter, so much so in
fact that in some of their powdered forms
an invisible trace can be tasted in the air on
shaking a small quantity from one paper
into another. Belladona, digitalis, stra-
monium, 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 gener-
ally be detected by the protest of the human
palate.
Certain mineral poisons, however, make
a remarkable exception from that rule. It
| would almost seem as if nature had not
| thought it worth her while to warn our in
| stinst against such out-of-the-way sub
stances as sugar of lead or arsenious acid.
| Common white arsenic is odorless and al
most tasteless, deceiving even the vigilance
of such cautious creatures as rats and foxes.
| In small doses its taste is as difficult to
detect as that of few particles of white
| chalk or powdered alum, but being rather
| insoluble substance the deadly drug might
betray itself to the eye.
About 300 years ago the latter difficulty
was obviated by the discovery of an italian
crone, who found by experiments that long
| continued boiling will communicate the
properties of arsenic to soft water. The
| fluid thus obtained is colorless as we'll as
| tasteless and odorless, yet withal potent
enough to surpass the yirulence of hemlock
| juice. Thinking her secret absolutely dis
covery proof, the old hag sold it to numer-
| Gus customers, most of them young wives
| encumbered with undesirable husbands.
Administering Water of Divorce.
"Aqua toffaaa," as the initiated called
the fatal solution, would have baffled the
ingenuity of the shrewdest chemical detect
ives of that time, but before long caused so
| phenomenal mortality of male adults,
nearly all of them old, ugly and married,
that the theory of an accidental coincidence
became untenable, and the secret leaked out
after the arrest of half 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 sudden death, the
effect, thus modified, was gradual decline
of health and vigor. The victim would
complain OF languor, nausea and digestive
ailments closely resembling the effects Of
certain atmospheric conditions incident to
the climate of Northern Europe. ''Ths
sultry weather" would be the plausible e1-
PLANTATION, and the aggravation of symptoms
could be as easily attributed to cholera
morbus or congestive chills.
Prof Pietro Longinoti, an eminent iur-
ist of the eighteenth century, states his rea-
sons for the estimate that half a million hu-
man beings-husbands, wives, superfuous
infants or otherwise undesirable relatives
and acquaintances-were thus discreetly
"removed." Medical Jurisprudence, in
the meantime, had enlisted the aid Of
analytical chemistry, and Longinotti sug-
gests that, as a rule, thorough autopsy
should precede a coroner's burial permit
The Trouble About Overdoses
The facility of divorces might seem to
have modified the necessity of such pre-
cautions, still there is no doubt that the
secret adoption of Longinotti's plan would
lead to surprising revelations In certain
overpopulated districts of the Eastern Con-
tinent, and perhaps, also, of the New
World, where poisons of all sorts are often
'If should see fit to take a short-line
trip to tine other world" said the Swiss
philosopher Haller, "I would no more
think of shooting myself than man would
dream of getting himself fired across a river
from the mouth of cannon if he could in
stead use commodious ferry" He alludes
to the euthanasia of narcotic poisons, and
his view would have been confirmed if he
had lived to witness the experiments that
IL nd
assium the favorite drugs of suicides. A
single drop of the acid. applied to the
tongue of a full-grown rabbit, has been
known to 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 of my acquaintance
came near getting himself into serious
trouble by accommodating q friend who
pretended to need q lot of cyanide for pho
tended to take peep through the camera
obscura OF Davy's locker, but missed his
chance by swallowing the whole of his pur-
chase, sufficient quantity to kill regi-
ment of soldiers. Under the circumstances
of the case in question it merely produeeda .
vomiting fit, and few hours work with the
stomach pump put the repentant sinner on
his legs again.
By good luck prussic acid and its derivs-
tions lose their portentous properties by
few days exposure to air and even to sun
light, but tine criminal history of the two
last decades seems to prove that criminals
begin to master the difficulties of such cir
in a way which threatens to
make discovery next to impossible.
A Man.
There is occasionally man whose word is