Democratic Sentinel, Volume 8, Number 44, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 28 November 1884 — Mysterious Poisons. [ARTICLE]

Mysterious Poisons.

The accident to young Dr. A. HPhillips, of this city, at a Montreal hotel, from an overdose of digitalis, has provoked considerable inquiry as to the nature of that most interesting of all poisons. The popular idea that there is no poison so subtle that its presence in the body of its victim cannot be detected after death, is erroneous, and the active principle of digitalis (digitaline) is one of the most striking instances of a deadly poison which leaves no tell-tale evidence of its work behind it. One-half grain of this terrible drug would be sufficient to kill a strong man, and no scientific research, however prompt, would be able to find a trace of it afterward. In 1861 Dr. De la Pommerais, of Paris, was tried for murdering his mistress. He had given her a dose of digitaline, but a post-mortem examination failed to discover traces of the subtle drug, although the most celebrated surgeons made examinations. The moat that could be done was to take portions of the contents of the stomach *fed feed it to animals, which at qhcG exhibited all the symptoms of digital- . ine poisoning. This was, of course, but presumptive evidence, as it was supposed in advance that the woman had been murdered by the drug. Without such a basis the doctors could have discovered nothing to suggest the presence of digitaline. The drug kills by “teutonizing” the heart muscles, and is almost instantaneous in its action. There are several other vegetable poisons equally impossible to detect, mucaria, duboisra aud ocentise, for Instance. —Philadelphia Record.