ARSENIC  EATING. 
351 
practice,  and  has  published  in  the  Edinburgh  Medical  Journal  a 
circumstantial  account  of  what  he  saw.  We  quote  one  case,  in 
which  it  will  be  seen  no  jugglery  could  have  been  practised: — 
"Mathias  Schober,  a  healthy-looking,  fresh -complexioned,  fairly 
muscular  young  man,  of  the  age  of  26  years,  and  about  five  feet 
nine  inches  in  height,  a  native  of  Liegest,  and  employed  as  a 
house  servant  there,  said  he  had  taken  Huttereich  for  about  a 
year  and  a  half — not,  however,  white  arsenic,  but  the  yellow 
arsenic,  or  orpiment,  of  which  he  took  a  specimen  from  his  pocket 
and  showed  it  to  me.  Of  this  I  retained  a  piece  for  chemical 
investigation.  He  informed  me  that  he  took  the  arsenic  in  order 
to  keep  strong,  though  he  had  never  suffered  from  ill  health.  He 
said  he  had  never  experienced  any  bad  effects,  even  when  he  first 
began  using  it;  that  be  had  at  first  taken  rather  less  than  a  grain 
every  fortnight ;  that  he  now  took  it  twice  a  week ;  and  that  on 
omitting  to  take  it  for  any  longer  period  he  experienced  a  long- 
ing for  it,  which  was  relieved  by  a  repetition  of  the  usual  dose. 
His  reason  for  taken  the  orpiment  instead  of  the  white  arsenic 
was,  that  it  was  more  easily  procured;  but  having  professed  him- 
self quite  indifferent  whether  it  were  arsenious  acid  or  the  suL 
phuret,  Dr.  Knappe  produced  a  paper  containing  the  former  (of 
which  I  also  kept  a  sample),  and  having  asked  him  to  choose  out 
a  piece  such  as  he  was  in  the  habit  of  taking,  it  was  weighed, 
and  found  to  be  nearly  five  grains.  We  had  no  finer  weight 
than  one  grain;  but  the  piece  of  arsenic  was  much  over  four, 
though  less  than  five.  Dr.  Knappe,  having  carefully  ground  this 
to  powder  on  a  clean  piece  of  paper,  it  was  transferred  to  a  small 
piece  of  plain  white  bread,  about  as  large  as  a  man's  thumb-nail, 
and  this  the  doctor  put  into  his  mouth.  Schober  chewed  it  and 
swallowed  it,  and  then  swallowed  another  portion  of  bread  the 
same  size  immediately  after.  This  was  at  9.30  A.M.  He  stayed 
with  us  a  few  minutes,  but  he  had  to  return  to  his  work,  promis- 
ing, however,  to  come  back  in  a  short  while.  This  he  did  at 
11.30,  two  hours  after,  and  made  water  in  my  presence  to  the 
amount  of  what  I  estimated  at  twenty-eight  ounces,  into  a  vessel 
previously  carefully  cleaned,  and  the  urine  was  put  into  bottles 
thoroughly  washed  by  myself.  Unfortunately,  in  the  hurry  of 
my  departure,  in  trying  to  pack  these  bottles  into  my  hat-box,  I 
