294 REVIEWS TAYLOR S TREATISE ON POISONS. 



testify that, with proper diligence one person may effect the com- 

 plete analysis of two or three substances in a couple of days. Even 

 if the process were more difficult and more tedious, the heavy respon- 

 sibility attaching to the experiment should lead us to adopt a process 

 which will enable us to give our evidence with absolute confidence. 



Since writing the above a trial has taken place in England of a Mr. 

 Smethurst, on charge of administering arsenic, from the evidence on 

 which, the objectionable character of Reinsch's test becomes very evi- 

 dent, and it is highly probable that had the examination, according to 

 this process, been made by a less experienced and accurate investigator 

 than Dr. Taylor, the arsenic would have escaped detection. 



A certain solution was examined by Dr. Taylor by all the tests for 

 arsenic which he thought proper, and none was found. Reinsch's test 

 failed completely, for the gauze was destroyed. Eventually, however, 

 in conjunction with Dr. Odling, the liquid was proved to contain 

 arsenic and chlorate of potassa, and in the trial great stress seems to 

 have been laid upon the action of this salt in " depositing the poison 

 more fully and fatally on the coats of the stomach, and of preventing 

 its detection in the viscera !" — {Morning Star, May 21st.) 



Drs. Taylor and Odling, on failing to obtain reliable indications on 

 the first application of Reinch's test, proceeded to remove the chlorine 

 by repeated additions of copper gauze, the first experiments all failed, 

 and yet Dr. Odling, in his evidence, states that " Reinsch's is the most 

 certain of all tests." 



It is impossible to imagine why the tests applied by Dr. Taylor did 

 not succeed, for on making some experiments with a solution of one 

 quarter of a grain of arsenious acid in four ounces of a saturated solu- 

 tion of chlorate of potassa, no difficulty whatever was experienced in 

 detecting it by the sulphate of copper, the nitrate of silver, and the 

 hydro-sulphuric acid tests. Even the test with sulphate of copper and 

 potassa succeeded partially ; when more arsenic was added it answered 

 perfectly. Reinsch's test, however, as found by Dr. Taylor, did not 

 succeed, but if the other tests failed in his hands, it must have been 

 from some other cause than the presence of chlorate, for the solution 

 on which the above experiments were made, was sixteen times more 

 dilute than that used by him. It is quite evident, however, that 

 where chlorate of potassa is present, Reinsch's process is of no value, 

 but it in no way hinders the separation of the arsenic by hydro-sulphuric 



