i88 3 J 
last Half-Century . 523 
had put 20 drops of the acid down the throat of a parrot, 
with a glass syringe, and the smell was so suffocating that 
three women who were present had to leave the room ! On 
opening the body of the woman poisoned by Tawell, Mr. 
Champneys positively smelt prussic acid, whilst the other 
two surgeons present could not. In a case of suicide by 
potassium cyanide {see “ Chemical News,” 1861, p. 261) the 
smell of prussic acid was not perceived by the surgeon 
during the post mortem , nor by the chemist during the 
analysis, until the contents of the stomach had been dis- 
tilled with dilute sulphuric acid. In experiments made by 
the author a poisonous dose could be distinctly smelt in 
i^- pints of stout. 
Now making all due allowance for the great difference in 
the sense of smell in different persons, for its want of con- 
stancy in the same person, and for the admitted variation 
in the strength of commercial samples of prussic acid, it 
may still be urged that there is here an undesirable want of 
agreement on a simple matter of faCt. 
We pass next to strychnia. In the Palmer case Dr. 
Taylor failed, as is well known, to deteCt this poison in the 
body of Cook. Commenting on this result Mr. Herapath 
said, in his examination, “ If it had existed in the body of 
Cook it ought to have been discovered,” — “ if it was there 
Dr. Taylor ought to have found it,” and he would not deny 
having even said “ No doubt strychnia had been given.” 
On the other hand, Dr. Taylor denied that strychnia could 
always be found when it had occasioned death. 
A further difference of opinion took place as regards the 
persistence or the transformation of strychnine in the body. 
The late Dr. F. C. Calvert succeeded in extracting strych- 
nine from the bodies of some hounds three weeks after their 
death. Mr. Nunneley, without pronouncing strychnine 
absolutely indestructible, maintained that within ordinary 
limits it could be found unchanged, even forty days after 
death. Richter has even detected it in animal tissues after 
eleven years . On the other hand, Mr. Morley leans to the 
opinion that the poison, having done its work, ceases to 
exist as such. Dr. Taylor, too, holds that it “ undergoes 
some partial change in the blood.” Dr. Taylor, at this 
memorable trial, even committed himself to the statement 
that “ the colour tests [for strychnine] are fallacious,” whilst 
they are now recognised as decisive if the known precau- 
tions are observed. The same eminent toxicologist declared 
that he knew of “ no process by which strychnine could be 
2 M 2 
