100 
RESEARCH FOR ARSENIC AND ANTIMONY. 
Dr. Geoghegan, Mr. Watson, Mr. Herapath, and other 
analysts of repute for many years ; and the result of their 
united experience appears to be, that it is admirably adapted 
for the detection and separation of arsenic from the tissues 
of the body. 
The first record of its employment in this country for the 
detection of absorbed arsenic in the tissues, for medico-legal 
evidence, was in the case of Mrs. Gilmour, who was tried 
in Edinburgh, in January, 1844, on the charge of murdering 
her husband by poison. Dr. Christison found arsenic in 
comparatively large quantity in the liver, by boiling a por¬ 
tion of this organ with diluted muriatic acid and copper. 
This was the second instance in which, up to that date, the 
poison had been found in the liver in this country. In 
conjunction with Dr. Penny, of Glasgow, he has used this 
process up to a recent date, namely, in the case of Madeleine 
Smith, who was tried at Edinburgh on a charge of poisoning, 
in June, 1857.^ In the last edition of his 4 Poisons/ p. 271, 
Dr. Christison says of the discovery of Reinsch, that “ it 
forms the groundwork of the best process of all yet proposed 
for the detection of arsenic in solution.” In short, those 
who have tried the two processes have in the end generally 
preferred that of Reinsch. Mr. Herapath, of Bristol, who has 
had great experience in the examination of cases of arsenical 
poisoning, states that he prefers, and has always acted upon, 
the principle first proposed by Reinsch.-j- With this strong 
testimony in its favour, it cannot be a matter of surprise that 
Reinsch’s process has been and continues to be so much 
employed by English analysts for the detection of arsenic in 
the dead body. 
There is this difference between the two discoverers, Marsh 
and Reinsch—while the former suggested a useful applica¬ 
tion of facts already made known by others, the latter dis¬ 
covered for himself the simple fact upon which his process 
is based. Until within a recent period it was thought, too, 
that the materials used in the process of Reinsch were far 
less liable to give rise to fallacious results than the materials 
required for the process of Marsh. The investigations, how¬ 
ever, which were carried out by Dr. Odling and myself in 
the case of Isabella Banks (the case of 4 The Queen against 
Smethurst/ August, 1859) showed that there was a latent 
fallacy connected with the use of ReinsclTs process, of the 
existence of which neither Reinsch nor any toxicologist of 
* ‘Report of Trial by Irvine/ 1857, p. 61. 
t ‘Ure’s ‘Dictionary of Arts and Manufactures/ Part i, November, 
1859, p. 191. 
