Medico-legal contributions on arsenic : containing reports of a number of cases of arsenical poisoning, together with an account of the methods employed in their chemical examination / by Charles H. Porter.

  • Porter, Charles H. (Charles Hogeboom), 1834-1903.
Date:
1862
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Medico-legal contributions on arsenic : containing reports of a number of cases of arsenical poisoning, together with an account of the methods employed in their chemical examination / by Charles H. Porter. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    .3. Chemical Examination. The stomach and its contents, and portions of the liv< Bophagus and intestines, were given to a-Doctor James Puller for chemical examination. He professed to be a Chemist, and stated at the trial that he had taken portions of the contents of the oesophagus and stomach, placed them in test ttfbes, and applied to one ammonia-nitrate of silver, and to the other ammonia-sul- phate of copper. After boiling the liquids, one exhibited a yel- low, and the other a green color, upon which lie assumed the presence of arsenic. He made no attempt to analyze the substance of any of the organs, but boiled some of the fluid contained in the jar with the liver, witli hydrochloric acid and metallic cop- per. The latter became coated, after boiling three minutes, with a black deposit, which he assumed to be metallic arsenic. The precipitate from the liquid test above mentioned, he reduced, as he said, to metallic arsenic, converted this into arsenic acid,, and then reprecipitated with ammonia-nitrate of silver. No further description of his processes is furnished us. Another analysis was made by Dr. William Manlius Smith, physician and chemist, of portions of the large and small intes- tines, the liver and oesophagus. He testifies that he decomposed the organic matter by hydrochloric acid and chlorate of potash, and found arsenic in all the remains examined by him. From fourteen Troy ounces of the liver, after it had been cleansed from extraneous matters by washing, he obtained two and one- third grains of arsenious acid, which was weighed in that form. The details of the various processes employed by him are now inaccessible. The results of his tests were exhibited to the court during the trial. 4. Resume. A brief examination of the symptoms recorded in the begin- ning of this case, is sufficient to establish their identity with the effects of an irritant poison like arsenic; and we can have little hesitancy in ascribing Mr. Rosa's death to poison. As regards the nature of the poison administered, there can be no doubt that arsenic was demonstrated to exist in the remains in considerable quantity. The yellow patch, as large as the palm of one's hand, found in the stomach, (undoubtedly the sulphuret of arsenic,) furnished valid grounds, by itself, for assuming the presence of