example;—a sexton and his wife, who had got a bad name in their village in consequence of informing against the bailiff for smuggling, and who were on that account shunned by all the neighbours, accused the bailiff and his wife of having tried to poison them by mixing poison with their bread. Immediately after eating they were attacked, they said, with sickness, griping, swelling, and dizziness; and they added, that a cat was seized with convulsions after eating a part of it, had sprung away, and never returned. A large portion of the loaf was therefore sent to the Medical Inspector of the district; who reported, that it seemed exactly similar to another unsuspected loaf;—that, although he was not able to detect any poison, it might after all contain one,—vegetable poison particularly;—but that he could hardly believe it did, for he fed a dog, a cat, and a fowl several days with it, and they not only did not suffer any harm, but even appeared very fond of it.[1] In this case it was clear that poisoning was out of the question. On the other hand, the effects of some poisons on man may be developed so characteristically in animals as to supply pointed evidence. Thus, in the case of Mary Bateman, an infamous fortune-teller and charm-worker, who after cheating a poor family for a series of years, at last tried to avoid detection by poisoning them, it was justly accounted good evidence, that a portion of the pudding and the honey, supposed to have been poisoned, caused violent vomiting in a cat, killed three fowls, and proved fatal to a dog in four days, under symptoms of irritation of the stomach such as were observed in the people who died.[2]
- [Footnote: into a wound. He likewise found that it is a deadly poison to the dog, the hawk, and
the frog. [Journal der Praktischen Heilkunde, lxviii. 4, 43.]
Professor Giacomini of Padua says, that "in many experiments performed by him on dogs and rabbits, he has constantly observed, that the former, as being carnivorous by nature, sustain stimulating substances tolerably well; while rabbits, being herbivorous, stand stimulants ill, but sedatives well." "Hence many herbivorous animals eat with impunity large quantities of vegetable poisons of the sedative kind which prove fatal to carnivorous animals." [Annali Univ. di Med. 1841, i. 372.] This may be true as a general rule. But it is not universally applicable; for alcoholic fluids kill dogs with great swiftness in no great dose.
An extraordinary statement was lately brought before the French Institute, to the effect that 120 sheep, affected with an epidemic pleurisy, got each about 500 grains of arsenic without sustaining the slightest harm; and that it was also ascertained to have no poisonous action upon sheep even in a state of health. A commission of the Institute, however, which was appointed to test this assertion, found that healthy sheep were killed by a dose of 155 grains, if they had fasted for some time before [Annales d'Hyg. Publ. &c. 1843, xxix. 468.] It is reasonable to suppose, that ruminating animals, whose alimentary canal is scarcely ever empty should suffer less than carnivorous animals from such poisons as arsenic.
Lassaigne, in some experiments with arsenic, incidentally remarked, that 246 grains of solid arsenic given daily for four days had no effect whatever on a horse; but that this result seemed to depend on the difficulty which the stomach must experience in appropriating it among the bulky materials of its food; for 154 grains in solution killed the same animal in six hours [Journ. de Chim. Méd. 1841, 82].—Gianelli of Lucca found that a horse was killed in eight hours by 185 grains of powder of arsenic given in the form of bolus [Annales d'Hyg. Publ. &c. 1842, xxviii. 88].
I might easily extend these extracts. But the result would be merely a mass of contradiction, from which no sound conclusion could be drawn, otherwise the subject would have been discussed in the text.]
