30 ESSAY ON THE RATIONALE OP 



ty, and passed through it a stream of sulphuretted hydrogen gas, and 

 reproduced the original orpiment, or sulphuret of arsenic : these 

 various experiments were repeated five or six times, and uniformly 

 with the same results. Mr. Herapath then washed the stomach in 

 water, allowed the substance to precipitate, dried and weighed 

 it, and found it to contain seventeen grains ; he then destroyed 

 the animal matter, dissolved the arsenic, turned the sulphur into 

 sulphuric acid, and precipitated the whole by sulphuretted hydrogen 

 gas, and that reproduced sulphuret of arsenic. From thirteen grains 

 of the mixed matter he obtained four grains of sulphuret of arsenic : 

 there were still some portions adherent to the stomach, which he 

 could not wash off, and it must be remembered that some had been 

 evacuated by vomiting. This case is one of the most satisfactory on 

 record. 



Sometimes, even with all the aids of science, it is impossible to 

 arrive at a safe and unquestionable conclusion in cases of this kind. 

 A young man, named Freeman, a druggist's apprentice, was tried at 

 the Leicester spring assizes, 1829, before Lord Chief Justice Best, 

 for the murder of Judith Buswell, his master's female servant, by 

 Frussic acid. The deceased was pregnant by the prisoner, and was 

 found one morning dead in bed. Sevei'al circumstances led to 

 the suspicion that the apprentice had been instrumental in the admi- 

 nistration of the poison ; but it was proved that the deceased had 

 made arrangements for a miscarriage by artificial means on the very 

 night in question ; and it was therefore represented, on the part of 

 the prisoner, that she had taken the poison of her own accord. It 

 appeared that she had taken Frussic acid from a partially emptied 

 phial, which lay corked and wrapped in paper beside her bed, where 

 she was found lying with the bed-clothes drawn up to her chin and 

 her arms folded across the trunk ; a piece of leather and string, which 

 appeared to have been taken from a bottle, were found in the room. 

 It was considered in the highest degree improbable, but was generally 

 admitted by the medical witnesses to have been possible, that the de- 

 ceased might have corked the bottle after taking the dose from which 

 she died, and the prisoner, though his conduct had very deservedly 

 drawn suspicion upon him, was therefore acquitted. The fact is in- 

 structive and admonitory, that Frofessor Christison, in the subse- 

 quent edition of his book. On Poisons, with the candour which ever 

 marks the scientific mind, acknowledges that the concurrence which 

 he had previously expressed in the opinion of the majority of 

 the witnesses, that there could not be time, after swallowing the 



