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Excerpt from American Chemical Journal, Vol. 5: 1883-84
It rarely happens that such a complete and exhaustive chemical analysis is called for in judicial investigations, and thus we find on record but few instances where a poison is sought for quantitatively through the entire body; and yet the results of such a search, in the writer's Opinion, may be of primary importance in answering some of the questions which the finding Of poison in a human body naturally suggests: In What form was the poison taken? How long had it been in the body before death? Was the person habituated to the use of the poison? Etc. These are a few of the questions which, in the case of arsenic at least, call for a decisive answer. Improved chemical methods which give us the means of accurately determining even minute quantities Of arsenic, and our knowledge Of the absorption and elimination of this poison as gleaned by physiological experiments on animals, give us data which ought to enable us in many cases to draw accurate and concise conclu sions.
The results Obtained in this investigation have therefore seemed of sufficient scientific importance to merit a somewhat detailed description; for however important physiological experiments on animals may be, and however trustworthy the results obtained are to the scientific man, still from a judicial point of view data regard ing the relative absorption of poisons, etc., in the human body are of even greater weight and value.
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