professor taylor’s report on poisoning. 
179 
intended for the destruction of vermin. In one instance of attempted murder which I 
was required to investigate, a mere youth had been able to procure a quantity of this 
poison, and had attempted to destroy the life of his mistress, by mixing it with milk pre¬ 
pared for her breakfast. 
Strychnia, morphia, veratria, prussic acid, the oil of bitter almonds, and preparations 
of colchicum, are not commonly found in the shops of the lower class of druggists or 
village shopkeepers, and they are not retailed to strangers, without due inquiry, by the 
respectable class of druggists who keep them ; but there is no impediment to their sale 
except that which may arise from conscientious feelings on the part of the vendor, or 
from his suspicions being aroused by the statements of the person who asks for such 
potent drugs. If the applicant is prepared to pay for them, and to assign a plausible 
reason for the purchase, he will find no great difficulty in procuring them. In one 
instance, an ounce of wine of colchicum was supplied to a maid-servant by a druggist, 
and it was employed for a criminal purpose. The servant had been directed to state 
that the wine was required as drops for the treatment of rheumatic gout. It was used 
as a poison, and destroyed life. 
There are unnecessary facilities given for the purchase of a variety of noxious drugs, 
such as oil of savin, cantharides, tincture of ergot of rye, and tincture of the percldoride 
of iron, which are employed for the purposes of criminal abortion. Corrosive sublimate, 
the sulphates of copper, iron, and zinc, and other mineral irritants, are easily procured 
upon false pretences, and are then employed to procure abortion. These drugs, thus 
used by ignorant persons, either lead to the destruction of life, or seriously injure health. 
In one instance within my knowledge, arsenic was purchased and given as an abortive : 
it destroyed the life of the woman, without causing abortion ; in another instance, which 
was the subject of a recent trial, the health of the female was completely broken up by 
the effects of large doses of tincture of perchloride of iron. The tincture had been pro¬ 
cured by a farm labourer, without any difficulty, at the shop of a man who had been 
regarded as a respectable druggist. It w r as clearly proved that he was cognizant of the 
purpose for which this drug was required, and he was convicted.* 
There are two poisons of a most potent kind which can be readily purchased even by 
boys and girls, either at the village shop or at the druggist’s. These are strychnia , sold 
under the name of Butler’s vermin killer or Battle’s vermin killer, and cyanide of po¬ 
tassium. The first is professedly sold for destroying vermin ; but it has been the means 
of death in many cases of murder and suicide, some of which have come under my 
notice. These two popular vermin-killers are mixtures of strychnia with flour or fari¬ 
naceous meal, coloured either with soot or Prussian blue. A threepenny packet contains, 
according to my analysis, one grain of strychnia, and a sixpenny packet two grains. In 
the threepenny packet there is sufficient poison to destroy the lives of two persons. The 
following recent case, in which I was required to give evidence, may be taken as an il¬ 
lustration of the dangerous facilities which exist for the sale of this deadly poison. A 
girl, aged only thirteen years, was tried for the murder of her master’s infant, whom she 
had been employed to nurse. It seems that the child was restless, and gave the girl 
some trouble. The girl went to a village grocer’s shop, and procured, without any 
difficulty, a packet of Battle’s vermin killer. She took the opportunity of her mistress’s 
absence from the room, to put a small portion of the powder into the infant’s mouth. It 
died in a few hours with the usual symptoms of poisoning by strychnia. It turned out 
upon inquiry that this child had acted as nurse to infants in other families ; and on two 
' previous occasions, the infants entrusted to her care had also died suddenly in convulsions, 
as it is believed from the administration of this deadly poison ! She was found guilty 
of manslaughter, and sentenced to penal servitude.! 
So long as such facilities are given for the purchase of strychnia at a cheap rate, in 
village grocers’ shops, by mere children, so long will it be useless to place restrictions on 
the sale of other and less potent drugs. Respectable druggists refuse to sell these 
powders, or strychnia in any form, but the sale of them has become a profitable branch 
of trade in the shops of oilmen, grocers, and others. As strychnia can be purchased for 
less than a penny per grain, the profit on the sale of these dangerous powders cannot be 
less than 200 per cent. 
* Regina v. Rumble, Lincoln Lent Assizes, 1863. 
t The Queen against Elizabeth Vamplew T , Lincoln Summer Assizes, 1862. 
