ÆäÀÌÁö À̹ÌÁö
PDF
ePub

experiments. A circular to that effect was accordingly issued by the Board, which appears, by the filed reports, to have been responded to by only twelve Medical Officers,* who sent in the names of about thirty-six vegetable substances, stated to be used as poisons and procurable in their stations. These articles have been embodied in the "List of Vegetable and Mineral Poisons procurable in the Bazaars of India."-Appendix A.

Many of the vegetable substances described,-as the Datoorah, Gunjah, Aconite, Kurrearee, Gunch, Lall Chitra, Kuchila (Nux Vomica) with its Viscum, Kakmari (Coculus Indicus), and Kurrubee (Oleander) are poisons, and are employed by the natives as such. Others, as the Mishmee Bish, &c., &c., are doubtful, both with regard to their botanical characters and to most of the circumstances under which they are employed, and deserve a very careful investigation. A third set, among which are the Isamel, or Esser Mhool (Aristolochia Indica) and probably several others, are to be considered as powerfully medicinal rather than poisonous.† Several of the reports bear strong evidence of the great unwillingness and suspicion which are nearly always displayed by the natives when called upon to afford aid in the elucidation of questions of this kind. Still, the result of the inquiry was sufficiently encouraging to render its repetition highly advisable.

Great as is the obscurity which envelopes the history of many of the poisonous substances used in India, the present inquiry leads me to feel convinced that the number of poisons, which are used freely by the natives of this presi

* Messrs, Dickens, of Balasore; Morton, Banda; Cumberland, Pooree; Macnab, Ghazeepore; Pitt, Backergunge; Shaw, Agra; J. McRae, Muttra ; Lightfoot, Bolundshuhur; Barber; Griffith, Jubbulpore; Greig, Seetapore; J. Macrae, Monghyr.

†The Aristolochia was, however, ranked by the ancients among the weak poisons.

dency, is very limited indeed. The chief of these are comprised in the following table :—

[merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small]

Doubtless, further experience will call for additions to this list and especially to the 3rd and 4th classes; but it must be repeated that the number of poisons commonly employed with criminal intent in Bengal and the North-West Provinces probably does not much exceed that given in the 1st and 2nd classes of the above list.

A few notes on the employment of these poisons in India may usefully supply the deficiencies in the English standard works on Medical Jurisprudence.

ARSENICAL POISONING.

Arsenious Acid, and the Yellow and Red Sulphurets of Arsenic, are imported into this Presidency in remarkably large quantities. I have ascertained that the principal supplies of White Arsenic are brought to Calcutta, from the Gulf, in Arab ships. Some also is brought from Europe. The present bazar value of Arsenious Acid is about twenty-five rupees per maund (of eighty pounds.) The Yellow Arsenic comes

from Oude that of a superior quality brings from eighty rupees to ninety rupees per maund. Another cheaper and coarser description of the Yellow Sulphuret is imported in greater quantities from Rangoon, where its value is about thirty rupees per maund; this latter appears to pass largely into the interior of the country. Red Arsenic also comes from the territories of Oude; and it is found native in China. Its present value is from thirty rupees to forty rupees per maund, according to its quality. The trade seems to be almost entirely in the hands of natives. The importation of White Arsenic has considerably diminished during the last five years; but it appears, by an official statement, that the total quantity of this drug imported through the Custom House of Calcutta during the five years 1850-51-1854-55 inclusive, was upwards of 786 maunds*.

ARSENIC.-Arsenious Acid; White Oxide of Arsenic.Sumool-Khar, H. Sanchya, S. (Fleming) Phenáshmabhasma, S. (Wise), Suffed Súmbhul, Ind. and Cash. (Honigberger)— May be bought freely at a very low price in nearly all Indian bazaars. Dr. Honigberger says that, in former times, and probably at the present day, any one could purchase Arsenic at Lahore from the druggists, on simply stating that he was in the habit of eating it,† or, that he wanted it for the destruction of rats. It was mentioned in the public prints, a year or two ago, that this ancient and almost universal pretext for buying the strongest of all poisons, and most useless

The importation of White Arsenic, at a duty of 10 per Cent., is authorized by Section III., Regulation XV., 1825.

† From this it would appear that the practice of Arsenic Eating, described by Dr. Von Tschudi as very common among the peasants in some districts of Lower Austria, in Styria, and in the mountainous regions bordering on Hungary, with a view to increase their good looks and embonpoint, and with the somewhat antagonistic expectation of becoming "long-winded" in toiling up their mountain paths, also prevails in Northern India.

of all chemical substances, likewise prevails in Bombay. This is also the common plea upon which criminals purchase the drug from the only too facile Bunneahs, Up-country. The wife of a man who had died by poison, declared that she had administered to her husband a powder, given her by her paramour, to cure him of impotency! The Bunneah from whom the Arsenic was bought, stated that the male prisoner had purchased two pice-worth of Arsenic (about one and a half masha weight) to kill rats.* A prisoner, at Seharunpore, asserted, in his foujdaree confession, that he had purchased Arsenic for the purpose of destroying rats, and that his wife had taken it by mistake. It was proved, however, that he had purchased Arsenic, Mercury and Sulphur, with the object, as he stated, of curing itch. In 1854, one Bijyee, Brahmin, of Bareilly, confessed that, his widowed sister having been seduced and thrown upon him for support while pregnant, he determined to kill her. Telling her that he would take her back to her late husband's relatives, he, while on the road, poisoned her with Arsenic, with which he had provided himself on pretence of poisoning rats.‡

Again, at Tipperah, upwards of 700 miles from the scene of the above tragedy, we find a prisoner giving his mistress a fatal dose of poison, with a view, as he said, of procuring abortion, although he must have been well aware of its effects, as he had previously used it to kill rats. §

Strange, that so weak a lie should be traceable as having passed current in all Europe, as a cloak for homicide, since the fourteenth century;|| and that it should be equally valid throughout all India at the present moment!

* Nizamut Adawlut Reports, N. W. P., 8th March 1852, p. 1607.
† Ibid, 9th April 1853, p. 522.

Ibid, 13th October 1854, p. 551.

§ Police Report, L. P., for 1848, p. 37.

Treatise on Removable and Mitigable Causes of Death, p. 176.

The records of the Chemical Examiner's Office, during the periods already referred to, contain reports of the discovery of White Arsenic either in food, &c., known to have been given with a felonious intention, or in the stomachs, &c., of persons dying under suspicious circumstances, in twenty-three instances. In some few of these cases, the quantity detected amounted to a mere trace: but, in many, it was noticed as being sufficient to destroy eight or ten persons. Dr. Kenneth MacKinnon informs me that, in a large proportion of cases of poisoning by White Arsenie, Up-country, the drug is administered in enormous quantities. In some of these cases, he has known vomiting occur so rapidly, and with such great activity, as to free the stomach before the poison could.

enter the circulation.

In one case, a woman confessed that she had administered three doses of White Arsenie to her son-in-law. The man appears to have been ill three or four days and received native medical treatment.*

In another case, where a small quantity of Arsenic was discovered in the stomach, the individual survived four days. I

In the generality of cases of poisoning by Arsenic the criminals state that their victims died of Cholera. The circumstances under which the poison was administered, are frequently left altogether unexplained; in many cases, however, it was evidently given with intent to kill or disable; and I find three instances in which it was employed with a view to procure abortion. White Arsenic is given by the native practitioners in the "Bish Baree," and in some other preparations. As most of the cases of poisoning

[ocr errors]

Nizamut Adawlut Reports, N. W. P., 6th February 1852, p. 105.
Bad, 2nd September 1852, p. 960.

1 See Nizamut Adawlut Reports, N. W. P., 9th April 1853, p. 522. Ibid, 11al May 1954, p 596, &c.

« ÀÌÀü°è¼Ó »