§§ 8, 9-] METHODS OF CHEMICALLY DETECTING POISONS. 13 
highly developed pathology, which has learned, by multiplied observa¬ 
tions, all the normal and abnormal signs in tissues and organs ; and, 
finally, to an ever-advancing chemistry, which is able in many instances 
to separate and detect the hurtful and noxious thing, although hid for 
months deep in the ground. 
II.—Growth and Development of the Modern Methods of 
Chemically Detecting Poisons. 
§ 8. The history of the detection of poisons has gone through several 
phases. The first phase has already been incidentally touched upon— 
i.e. detection by antecedent and surrounding circumstances, aided some¬ 
times by experiments on animals. If the death was sudden, if the post¬ 
mortem decomposition was rapid, poison was indicated : sometimes a 
portion of the food last eaten, or the suspected thing, would be given 
to an animal; if the animal also died, such accumulation of proof would 
render the matter beyond doubt. The modern toxicologists are more 
sceptical, for even the last test is not of itself satisfactory. It is now 
known that meat may become filled with bacilli and produce rapid death, 
and yet no poison, as such, has been added. 
In the next phase, the doctors were permitted to dissect, and to 
familiarise themselves with pathological appearances. This was a great 
step gained : the apoplexies, heart diseases, perforations of the stomach, 
and fatal internal haemorrhages could no longer be ascribed to poison. 
If popular clamour made a false accusation, there was more chance of 
a correct judgment. It was not until the end of the eighteenth and 
the beginning of the last century, however, that chemistry was far 
enough advanced to test for the more common mineral poisons ; the 
modern phase was then entered on, and toxicology took a new departure. 
§ 9. From the treatise of Barthelemy d’Anglais 1 in the thirteenth 
century (in which he noticed the poisonous properties of quicksilver 
vapour), up to the end of the fifteenth century, there are numerous 
treatises upon poison, most of which are mere learned compilations, and 
scarcely repay perusal. In the sixteenth century, there are a few works, 
such, for example, as Porta, which partook of the general advancement of 
science, and left behind the stereotyped doctrine of the old classical 
schools. 2 
In the seventeenth century the Honourable Robert Boyle made some 
1 De Rerum Proprietaribus. 
2 In the sixteenth century it was not considered proper to write upon poisons. 
Jerome Cardan declared a poisoner worse than a brigand, “ and that is why I have 
refused not only to teach or experiment on such things, but even to know them.”— 
J. Carden, De Subtilitate. Basel, 1558. 
