Note 10 — Chapter II
Reading edition
At the inquest, this witness, speaking of the results of the chemical analysis, said:—“It may not have been prussic acid, but in conjunction with some salt nearly allied to it. I do not think it was administered by itself but in some liquid. The salts of prussic acid have not the same pungent peculiar odour as prussic acid itself. They would produce death, but he could not say how quickly.” Mr. Norblad, on the same occasion, suggested that one of the salts into the composition of which prussic acid enters, might have been given; “that cyanide of potassium, the salt to which he referred, would cause death in from two seconds to a quarter of an hour, according to the amount given.” At the time of the inquest it was not known that the prisoner had bought of Thomas, Scheele’s solution of prussic acid. On the properties of the various kinds of these salts, see Mr. Stewart’s remarks, pp. 73-77.