Note 773 — PART IX.—INORGANIC POISONS. (continued 2)

From some observations of Fresenius in a recent number of the Zeitschrift f. anal. Chem., it would seem necessary to test all glass vessels used; for it is difficult at present to purchase arsenic-free glass.

[774] See a case of poisoning (non-fatal) of a lady by the use of arsenical candles, Med. Times and Gazette, vol. iii., 1876, p. 367.

[775] To solve this question, it has been at times considered necessary to analyse an extraordinary number of things. In the “affaire Danval” (Journ. d’Hygiène, 2e sér., No. 108, July 1878), more than sixty different articles, comprising drugs, drinks, perfumes, bed-curtains, wall-paper, and other matters, were submitted to the experts.

[776] The following important case is related by Sonnenschein:—

Nicholas Nobel and his wife, Jerome, were buried two metres from each other in the churchyard at Spinal, the earth of which notoriously contained arsenic. A suspicion of poisoning arose. The bodies were exhumed, and arsenic was found in the stomach and intestines of Nobel, but not the slightest trace in the corpse of the wife. The remains of the bodies were reinterred, and after six months, on a fresh suspicion of poisoning arising, again exhumed. The corpse of the woman had been put naked in the moist earth during a heavy shower, but this time also no arsenic was detected in it.