On poisoning by tartarized antimony : with medico-legal observations on the cases of Ann Palmer and others / by Alfred S. Taylor.

  • Taylor, Alfred Swaine, 1806-1880.
Date:
1857
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On poisoning by tartarized antimony : with medico-legal observations on the cases of Ann Palmer and others / by Alfred S. Taylor. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by Royal College of Physicians, London. The original may be consulted at Royal College of Physicians, London.

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    life lias been secretly carried on for some time in this country, and that it lias hitherto escaped the notice of the profession. The symptoms do not always present a well-marked character, and in the absence of an examination of the dead body, no suspicion may exist that death has proceeded from other than natural causes. Death from small doses of tartarized antimony may be easily referred to inflammation of the stomach, bilious cholera, or to wasting chronic disease. The body of Ann Palmer had been lying fifteen months in the grave under a regular professional burial certificate of death from bilious cholera, when the sudden death of Cook, and the detection or antimony in his body, led to the exhumation of the body of this lady. It was then only for the first time ascertained, that there existed in the body a cause for the symptoms which had not been even suspected during the last illness of the deceased. How many more may have died under similar circumstances, whose deaths mav have been caused by the secret administration of this mineral, and are registered as deaths from natural disease ! But for the fact that, fifteen months afterwards, Palmer was led to the com- mission of another murder, the cause of the death of the wife * would probably never have transpired; and there is still a dark shadow of mystery hanging over the deaths of his wife’s mother, his friend Haden, and three children, all of whom, as I am informed, had died under his roof, and under his medical superintendence ! The evidence in the case of Macmullen, which will be noticed hereafter, showed that some druggists in Bolton and other localities, have been in the habit of selling kind of food presented to him, his vomitings stilt continuing, and nature being at length exhausted, he expired without any fever. The three last days he had wasted very much; he was become extremely shrunk, and he felt a great heat in his stomach. When opened, that part and the duodenum were found to he black and sloughing off in pieces (aphthous desquamation?); the liver was mortified and as it were burnt. The counsellor was ill three months, had the like symptoms as the lieutenant-civil, and died in the same manner. When opened, his stomach and liver were found in a similar state. Making due allowance for imperfect descrip- tion, and the effects of putrefaction in the dead body, the reader will find that the symptoms and appearances are similar to those described hereafter as a result of poisoning by antimony. The criminal wisdom of one generation is the ignorance of another. The mediaeval art of poisoning consisted rather in the skilful mode of administration, than in the more potent nature of the substance used.