Page:Treatise on poisons in relation to medical jurisprudence, physiology, and the practice of physic (IA treatiseonpoison00chriuoft).pdf/536

 irritants. Their chemical properties are not very characteristic, and they are not well developed unless with a larger quantity of the poison than will usually be met with in medico-legal investigations. This remark, however, does not apply universally; and it is probable, that, as organic analysis goes on improving, better and more delicate processes will be discovered.

CHAPTER XXVII.

OF POISONING WITH OPIUM.

To the medical jurist opium is one of the most important of poisons; since there is hardly any other whose effects come more frequently under his cognizance. It is the poison most generally resorted to by the timid to accomplish self-destruction, for which purpose it is peculiarly well adapted on account of the gentleness of its operation. It has also been often the source of fatal accidents, which naturally arise from its extensive employment in medicine. It has likewise been long very improperly employed to create amusement. And in recent times it has been made use of to commit murder, and to induce stupor previous to the commission of robbery. Mr. Burnett, in his work on Criminal Law, has mentioned a trial for murder in 1800, in which the prisoners were accused of having committed the crime by poisoning with opium; and although a verdict of not proven was returned, there is little doubt that the deceased, an adult, was poisoned in the way supposed. A few years ago, a remarkable trial took place at Paris, where poisoning was alleged to have been effected by means of the alkaloid principle of opium; and the prisoner, a young physician of the name of Castaing, was condemned and executed. In several parts of Britain during the last fifteen years many persons have been brought into great danger by opium having been administered as a narcotic to facilitate robbery; and some have actually been killed. In December, 1828, a conviction was obtained in the Judiciary Court of Edinburgh for this crime, in which instance the persons who had taken the opium recovered. A fatal case, which was strongly suspected to be of the same nature, was submitted to me by the sheriff of this county in 1828; but sufficient evidence could not be procured. In July, 1829, a man Stewart and his wife were condemned, and subsequently executed for the same crime, the person to whom they gave the opium having been killed by it. And about a year afterwards a similar instance occurred at Glasgow, for which a man Byers and his wife were condemned at the Autumn Circuit of 1831. I.—Of the Chemical History and Tests of Opium.

Opium is the inspissated juice of the capsules of the Papaver som-*