SULPHURIC ACID. 
§61.] 
The number of deaths from sulphuric acid will vary, other things 
being equal, in each country, according to the manufactures in that 
country employing sulphuric acid. The number of cases of poisoning 
in England and Wales for the five years ending 1916 was as follows :— 
DEATHS FROM SULPHURIC ACID IN ENGLAND AND WALES FOR 
THE FIVE YEARS ENDING 1916. 
Accident or Negligence. 
Males.8 
Females .... 3 
Total . 11 
Suicide. 
Males.13 
Females. 
Total . 13 
Falck, 1 in comparing different countries, considers the past statistics 
to show that in France sulphuric acid has been the cause of 4-5 to 5-5 
per cent, of the total deaths from poison, and in England 5-9 per cent. 
In England, France, and Denmark, taken together, 10*8, Prussia 10-6 ; 
while in certain cities, as Berlin and Vienna, the percentages are much 
higher—Vienna showing 43-3 per cent., Berlin 90 per cent. 
§ 61. Accidental, Suicidal, and Criminal Poisoning. —Deaths from 
sulphuric acid are, for the most part, accidental or suicidal, rarely 
criminal. In 53 out of 113 cases collected by Bohm, in which the 
cause of the poisoning could, with fair accuracy, be ascertained, 45*3 
per cent, were due to accident, 30-2 were suicidal, and 24-5 per cent, 
were cases of criminal poisoning, the victims being children. 
The cause of the comparatively rare use of sulphuric acid by the 
poisoner is obvious. First of all, the acid can never be mixed with food 
without entirely changing its aspect ; next, it is only in cases of in¬ 
sensibility or paralysis that it could be administered to an adult, unless 
given by force, or under very exceptional circumstances ; and lastly, 
the stains on the mouth and garments would at once betray, even to 
uneducated persons, the presence of something wrong. As an agent 
of murder, then, sulphuric acid is confined in its use to young children, 
more especially to the newly born. 
There is a remarkable case related by Haagan, 2 in which an adult 
man, in full possession of his faculties, neither paralysed nor helpless, 
was murdered by sulphuric acid. The wife of a day-labourer gave her 
husband drops of sulphuric acid on sugar, instead of his medicine, and 
finally finished the work by administering a spoonful of the acid. The 
spoon was carried well to the back of the throat, so that the man took 
the acid at a gulp. 11 grms. (171 grains) of sulphuric acid, partly in 
combination with soda and potash, were separated from his stomach. 
Accidental poisoning is most common among children. The oily, 
1 Lehrbuch der prciktischen Toxicologie, p. 54. 
2 Gross, Die Strafrechtspflege in Deutschland, 4, 1861, Heft i. S. 181. 
