Читать книгу Treatise on Poisons - Robert Sir Christison - Страница 10

The chemical evidence in charges of poisoning is generally, and with justice, considered the most decisive of all the branches of proof. It is accounted most valid, when it detects the poison in the general textures of the body, or in the blood, or in the stomach, intestines or gullet, then in the matter vomited, next in articles of food, drink or medicine of which the sufferer has partaken, and lastly, in any articles found in the prisoner’s possession, and for which he cannot account satisfactorily.

When poison is detected in any of these quarters, more especially in the stomach or intestines, it is seldom that any farther proof is needed to establish the fact of poisoning. In two circumstances, however, some corroboration is necessary.

In the first place, in cases where a defence is attempted by a charge of imputation of poisoning it may be necessary to determine by an accurate account of the symptoms, or by the morbid appearances, or by both together, whether the poison was introduced into the body before or after death. For it is said, that attempts have been made to impute crime by introducing poison into the stomach or anus of a dead body; and although I have not been able to find any authentic instance of so horrible an act of ingenuity having been perpetrated, it must nevertheless be allowed to be quite possible.

Secondly, an account of the symptoms and morbid appearances is still more necessary, when the question at issue is, not so much whether poison has been given, as whether it was the cause of death, granting it had been taken. Some remarks have been already made on this question in the two former sections. In the present place some farther illustrations will be added from two very striking cases. They are interesting in many respects, and particularly as showing the importance of strict medico-legal investigation: I am almost certain that but a few years ago their real nature would not have been discovered in this country. The first to be noticed occurred to Dr. Wildberg of Rostock. Wildberg was required to examine the body of a girl, who died while her father was in the act of chastising her severely for stealing, and who was believed by all the bye-standers, and by the father himself, to have died of the beating. Accordingly, Wildberg found the marks of many stripes on the arms, shoulders and back, and under some of the marks blood was extravasated in considerable quantity. But these injuries, though severe, did not appear to him adequate to account for death. He therefore proceeded to examine the cavities; and on opening the stomach, he found it very much inflamed, and lined with a white powder which proved on analysis to be arsenic. It turned out, that on the theft being detected the girl had taken arsenic for fear of her father’s anger, that she vomited during the flogging, and died in slight convulsions. Consequently, Wildberg very properly imputed death to the arsenic. In this case the chemical evidence proved that poison had been taken; but an account of the symptoms and appearances was necessary to prove that she died of it.^[83] The other case occurred to Pyl in 1783. A woman at Berlin, who lived on bad terms with her husband, went to bed in perfect health; but soon afterwards her mother found her breathing very hard, and on inquiring into the cause discovered a wound in the left side of the breast. A surgeon being immediately sent for, the hemorrhage which had never been great, was checked without difficulty; but she died nevertheless towards morning. On opening the chest it appeared that the wound pierced into it, and penetrated the pericardium, but did not wound the heart; and although the fifth intercostal artery had been divided, hardly any blood was effused into the cavity of the chest. Coupling these circumstances with the trifling hemorrhage during life, and the fact that she had much vomiting, and some convulsions immediately before death, Pyl satisfied himself that she had not died of the wound: and accordingly the signs of corrosion in the mouth and throat, and of irritation in the stomach, with the subsequent discovery of the remains of some nitric acid in a glass in her room, proved that she had died of poison.^[84]