[MUSIC]
Okay, let's turn our attention to
inorganic poisons.
So inorganic poisons are based around
particular elements which are toxic.
And this means that, inorganic poisons are
little different to organic poisons.
Whereas our body will get rid of organic
materials, such
as ethanol or caffeine, by transforming
them to other substances,
we know from Robert Boyle that elements
may neither be created nor destroyed.
So these elements will always be these
elements.
So if someone is poisoned with one of
these elements, such as arsenic, antimony,
mercury, or thallium,
that element will still be detectable in
the body after death.
It will still be detectable in the body
after burial
and it will even be detectable in the
ashes after cremation.
Now, one of the most famous poisons of all
time is arsenic.
And arsenic is a good illustration of what
Paracelsus said, because
arsenic compounds used to be readily
available in any pharmacy or drug store.
For instance, Fowler's solution could be
bought and it was widely used as a tonic.
Arsenic was also used in things called
flypaper.
In the old days, before we had these spray
cans for killing
flies, the way to deal with them was to
hang up flypapers.
Now, a flypaper was a strip of paper and
it was coated in glue.
So, if the fly came along and landed on
the paper, it would get stuck in the glue.
But flypapers didn't contain ordinary
glue,
this was glue that had been contaminated
deliberately with arsenic.
So the glue will stick the fly, and the
arsenic would then kill it.
Now, we always associate arsenic with
poisoning, but
as Paracelsus said, the difference between
a poison and the remedy is the dose.
And this arsenic trioxide, which has this
bad reputation, it's
actually now been approved for treatment
of certain types of leukemia.
The drug Trisenox has act, can actually be
used in this kind of treatment.
Now we normally associate arsenic trioxide
with the Victorian era,
and it was so widely used as a poison
that it actually was given the nickname
"Inheritance powder".
That is, if someone was expecting an
inheritance from their husband or from
their
parents, and was getting a little
impatient
and wanted to speed up the process,
then they might use some arsenic trioxide
inheritance powder to do just that.
So this is a reprinting of an article from
the Times
of London, and it originally appeared back
in June of 1869,
and it concerns the case against the lady
called Fanny Frances
Maria Oliver, who was accused of murdering
her husband by administering arsenic.
Now, one of the things that makes arsenic
so useful for poisoning people is because
arsenic poisoning
does not really have any specific symptoms
that you
can point to and say, "aha, this is
arsenic".
It causes vomiting, it causes diarrhoea,
but then
a whole host of things will cause these
conditions.
So, this lady's husband had become ill,
and the doctor had
been summoned, didn't do any good, and the
man had died.
So the doctor had put down the cause of
death as hepatic congestion,
this means problems with the liver.
Well, back in these early Victorian times,
it was very
fashionable to blame any kind of ill
health on the liver.
And so if the doctor had no clue what had
caused death, he would
just put down something technical
sounding, like
hepatic congestion, and everyone would be
satisfied.
Well, murder needs a motive.
And the lady had been drawing money from
the bank, even to the total of 100 pounds.
And back in 1869, 100 pounds was a great
deal of money.
Well, if this lady was poisoning her
husband, then, did
she have the means to actually deliver the
poison to him?
Well according to the witnesses, the wife
prepared all the food for the
husband, and therefore she certainly had
the opportunity to put arsenic in it.
Where did she get the arsenic from?
Well, witnesses said that she'd been able
to obtain
the arsenic from the druggist, that is
from the pharmacy,
and she claimed that she needed it for
cleaning her bonnet.
Well, did the victim show any symptoms?
Well, here you go, he vomited very much.
Well as I said, you can vomit very much for
all sorts of
reasons, but as we know arsenic is an
irritant and it's certainly consistent.
Well this case came to trial after the man
was
dead and buried, but of course the
evidence is still there.
Arsenic is an element.
If he had been poisoned with arsenic, then
arsenic was still in his body.
So, the body was exhumed and was tested
for arsenic.
There is certainly sufficient evidence
here for trial,
and so this case was sent to the Assizes.
Well what happened in the end was that
this lady was
found guilty of murdering her husband, and
was sentenced to death.
So, presumably as an act of mercy, the
death sentence was commuted,
and apparently she spent the rest of her
life in prison doing hard labour.
Because of the widespread use of arsenic
poisoning, the Victorians
desperately needed a reliable, credible
method for doing analysis
and this resulted in the Marsh Test for
arsenic.
Now in forensic science, most of the
techniques that
are used are borrowed from other branches
of science.
The Marsh Test is interesting because it
is one
of the scientific methods specifically
designed for forensic purposes.
And it was developed by this man, James
Marsh, after a murder trial had
collapsed because the chemists could not
convince
the court of the validity of their
analysis.
So Marsh developed this test, very
reliable,
and it was used for many, many years.
Now, of course, it's been superseded by
modern methods such as atomic absorption
spectroscopy.
So, the Marsh test relies on a property of
arsenic that
if you take an arsenic containing sample,
and you heat it with a reducing
agent such as metallic zinc with some
acids such as hydrochloric acid,
then the arsenic will be reduced to
arsine, which is the arsenic trihydride.
Arsenic trihydride is a gas, so it will
bubble out of the solution.
It then passes along the tube to where
there
is a second heater, the little spirit lamp
there.
That heat from that lamp will decompose
the arsenic and the arsine,
and arsenic will be deposited on the
surface of the glass.
And a trained chemist can not only confirm
the presence of arsenic,
but can also estimate the amount of
arsenic from the degree of deposition.
Why this test works so well is because
there are only
two elements in the periodic table that
will behave in this way.
One of them is arsenic, the other one is
arsenic's near relative, antimony.
But the stibine, the antimony trihydride
that would be produced
if it were present, has a different
stability, it's less stable than arsine.
So once again, the trained chemist can
tell the difference between
arsenic deposited on the glass, and
antimony deposited on the glass.
The Marsh test proved very effective
and completely credible in the courts.
Therefore, a very, very powerful weapon in
the hands of the prosecution.
Well, if the prosecution got better, then
the defense had to respond.
And one of the methods that the accused
could defend themselves
even if arsenic were detected in the body,
was by using the so-called Styrian
Defence.
Now Styria is a region, a mountainous
region, of Southern Austria.
And this is back in Victorian times,
or more correctly speaking, Franz
Josephian times.
It was found that the present, the
peasants in Styria
had the habit of eating arsenic or eating
arsenic trioxide,
and they were eating large doses every few
days.
They might be eating 300 to 400 mg,
which, whereas the lethal dose is about
half that.
And some of them could eat almost a gram,
and this was actually done.
Some of these peasants were taken to a
medical congress in
Vienna and ate arsenic in front of an
audience of medical doctors.
So, there are two questions.
How did they do it?
How could they eat this much arsenic
trioxide without dropping dead?
And there were various theories.
One theory is that the solid arsenic
trioxide
only released into the body very, very
slowly
so it never built up to a high
concentration.
The other possibility is that because
these peasants had
been eating arsenic for a long time,
starting maybe
at low doses going to higher doses, they
had
built up a tolerance that other people
didn't have.
Then there's a question of, why did they do
it.
Well, apparently they said they did it to
improve their health.
And the women also said they did
it because they wanted to improve their
complexion.
Now, one of the effects of arsenic on
the human body is that it damages blood
vessels.
In fact, this damaging of blood vessels is
the reason that arsenic trioxide has
anti-cancer activities.
Now if you damage the blood vessels in
your face,
in your cheeks, then your cheeks will
become more red coloured
and back in the 19th century, having a
nice red
coloured, rosy cheeks, like that was
considered to be very attractive.
Now as for the men, they gave the usual
reason for eating this arsenic.
So here's an example of someone who tried
to use the Styrian Defence,
and this was a lady called Florence
Maybrick
and this was a very high profile trial in
the city of Liverpool back in 1889.
Now, Florence Maybrick was charged with
murdering her husband James.
There was a motive, her husband had been
playing around.
He had a series of mistresses, so she had
a motive for doing it.
So, let's see how the Styrian Defence
played out for Florence Maybrick.
So, the prosecution made the accusation,
they had the evidence that she
had purchased arsenic, in fact they found
a huge amount of arsenic in the house.
And they had evidence, they had witnesses
that she had been
soaking flypapers in water, to make what
is effectively an arsenic soup.
So, the question from the prosecution is,
Mrs. Maybrick, you
did this to murder your husband. Is there
any other reason?
Her response, she wanted this arsenic
containing soup because
she wanted to use it as a cosmetic face
wash.
The prosecution, we dug up your husband's
body, the marsh
test shows that there is arsenic in your
husband's body.
Defense, self medication.
Fowler's solution, which contains arsenic,
was widely available
in those days and many people took it.
Nevertheless, Florence Maybrick was found
guilty and was sentenced to hang.
But this trial was very controversial, not
least because of the behaviour of the
judge.
Now in those days, there was no appeal.
But, with a big controversy in the
newspapers, her sentence of
death was commuted by the Home Secretary,
and she was sent to prison for 15 years.
[BLANK_AUDIO]
After her release from prison, she moved
to the United States.
She lived a very long life, finally dying
only in 1941.
[BLANK_AUDIO]
Well, arsenic poisoning is not restricted
to the Victorian era.
This is a case from 2003, and it's an
arsenic poisoning that occurred
in the state of Maine, up in New England
in the United States.
And it concerns a church and the church
congregation.
And the congregation had got together,
and they chatted, eating
sandwiches and drinking coffee that had
been prepared for them.
And then quite a few members of the
congregation became ill.
Well, you know, when food has been
prepared for a group like this,
it's probably just a case of food
poisoning and it's going to go away.
But, the next day, one of the members of
the congregation, this man called Walter
Morrill, died in hospital.
So of course when somebody dies, the
investigation becomes very serious.
So the leftover food and coffee was
carefully tested,
and chemical tests showed that there was
arsenic in the brewed coffee.
There was no arsenic in the sugar, no
arsenic in
the water, and no arsenic in the coffee
powder itself.
It was in the brewed coffee.
The autopsy on Walter Morrill revealed the
presence of arsenic in his body.
and then the people who'd become ill but
had not died, they were also tested.
Their bodies also contained arsenic.
So what was the conclusion here?
The conclusion was that somebody had put
arsenic into the coffee,
therefore this a case of deliberate
poisoning.
A few days later, police were called to
the house of one of the members of
the church, a farmer called Daniel
Bondeson, and
he had committed suicide, he had shot
himself
and this brought the case to a conclusion.
So, it's believed that this man Bondeson
had deliberately added arsenic to the
coffee.
He'd gone into the room where the coffee
was waiting during
the church service so that nobody had seen
him doing it.
Where had he got the arsenic from?
Well, in the old days,
certain arsenic compounds were used as
agricultural chemicals.
This is potato-farming country, and in the
old days, arsenic has been used
as a defoliant for the potato plants, just
to make it easier to dig up the potatoes.
So it was probably an old agricultural
chemical.
What was the motive?
Well Bondeson is dead, nobody will know
for sure, but possibly
it was some dispute over the church
management or something like that,
and perhaps he'd only intended to make
people
ill but by accident had given an
overdose,
leading to the death of Walter Morrill.
[BLANK_AUDIO]

