POISONING- WITH ARSENIC AND STRYCHNIA. 
609 
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ORIGINAL AND EXTRACTED ARTICLES. 
POISONING WITH ARSENIC AND STRYCHNIA. 
TO THE EDITOR OF THE PHARMACEUTICAL JOURNAL. 
Sir —The case of murder by Mary Ashford referred to in your last number 
is one of importance in a toxicological point of view, inasmuch as it exhibits the 
action of two poisons acting slowly upon the system at the same time.. 
In the comments I made in July last on the Dawlish suicide, I considered the 
symptoms to prove that strychnia and arsenic had been swallowed, either toge¬ 
ther or nearly so ; and the former, being the most active, had killed the woman 
before the arsenic had begun to act, and that thus there had been neither sick¬ 
ness nor diarrhoea. In Ashford’s case, the symptoms of poisoning by.arsemc 
commenced on the Sunday and continued until Friday afternoon,.the sickness, 
etc., being repeated after every feeding from his wife’s hands showing evidently 
that small but repeated doses were administered. On Friday, the first fit 
came on. This fit was undoubtedly a strychnic spasm; the back was arched, 
the eyes wild and turned upwards, the limbs extended, cramped, and rigid. 
Several of these attacks recurred until Saturday, 5 o’clock, when he died m a 
very terrible spasm; but during the Friday and Saturday the arsenical symp¬ 
toms continued as well as those from strychnia, and it is evident that the mur¬ 
deress continued her small doses, as on Saturday morning she had mixed arsenic 
with the doctor’s medicine, and this arsenic I found to weigh 11 grains. It is 
rare that arsenic is six days in destroying life, except where death is caused by 
ulceration of the stomach ; and it is equally rare that strychnia should be nearly 
twenty-four hours before death occurs. .1 have known three cases where twelve 
to fourteen hours passed before terminating life, but never longer. . 
One part of this case, which could not be brought before the court, 1S worthy 
of notice Mary Ashford had in her possession arsenic coloured blue arsenic 
coloured black, and vermin powder, besides a packet of something which she 
threw into the fire the moment she was taken into custody ; from whence had 
she the means of being so well provided with poisons ? From letters left behind 
her it was certain that she was in communication with persons m Exeter wno, 
like Charlotte Winsor, are called “white witches,” who will undertake any 
murderous work for a fee. I learnt that there were three of them m Exeter, 
