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NEW AUTHORS SHOWCASE
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06-10-10 12M p6 |
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Criminal Poisoning by Dr. Tony Hargreaves |
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Criminal poisoning covers all aspects of murder by poisoning. The book is approx. 60,000 words and would be of particular interest to students of applied science, chemistry, forensic science as well as the general reader. It comprises: Introduction, 1. History of poisoning, 2. How poisons work, 3. Poisons from nature,4. Drugs and medicines, 5. Poisonous metals, 6. Industrial chemicals, 7. Forensics, 8. The corpse, Conclusion, Glossary, Bibliography. All these chapters are now finished and only the index remains to be written. Mercifully, death arrives but the poison has not yet finished, for the process of rigor mortis has set in with unusual rapidity. Her body is frozen into a rigid and contorted mass. A most agonising death and a frightening sight to witness. This is the horror of strychnine, the nastiest of poisons. It tortures its victim before allowing death to rescue them from their hell. Despite knowing all the horrors of this poison Dr Thomas Neill Cream, later to be known as the Lambeth Poisoner, used it to kill four prostitutes. And who knows how many other victims experienced the horror of strychnine, for it was by no means an uncommon poison.
Arsenic .... Arsenic's history goes back to antiquity when its compounds were used in everyday life for legitimate purposes. The compounds found little use as poisons because they all had taste, smell and colour that made them easily detected if slipped into someone's food or drink. The manufacturer of these, in order to use less sugar and make a cheap product, used plaster of Paris as an ingredient but on one occasion the supplier of the substance mistakenly provided arsenic trioxide. Apparently there was some confusion over labelling and the arsenic trioxide looked exactly like the plaster of Paris. But the Bradford Poisoning was not the only case in which children were unwittingly poisoned by arsenic. Many a child's bedroom had wallpaper on which a pattern was printed and in which the pigment that provided the green colour was an arsenic compound known as Scheele's green. Unfortunately, in damp conditions this pigment reacted with moisture from the air and released the deadly poisonous gas cacodyl that a sleeping child would inhale over many hours.... ..Following his defeat at the Battle of Waterloo in 1815 Napoleon lived in exile at Longwood House on St Helena and dies there in 1821. During this time his stomach complaints worsened , showing all the signs of food poisoning or even stomach cancer. Upon his death he was buried in St Helena where he remained for some twenty years until his body was exhumed and taken to Paris for re-burial. Ever since his demise there were suspicions that the English had hired an assassin to poison him. During the exhumation it was noticed that the body was in a good state of preservation, a fact consistent with the presence of arsenic that acts as a preservative because it kills the bacteria that would otherwise decompose the body. The poisoning theory gained momentum and many more joined the list of those who supported the hired-assassin theory. A closer examination of Napoleon's life, especially his days in exile at Longwood House, reveals more information about arsenic. For a start, it was known that he had taken arsenic tonic for many years and that chronic ingestion of arsenic was one explanation as it often led to stomach cancer.
Examination of dead bodies is carried out to establish the circumstances of death. In some cases the body will be that of a recently deceased person but there are occasions when the body is from someone who died months or years ago. A human corpse is totally biodegradable and the processes by which it degrades begin within hours of death. The degradation results in the corpse being broken down into simple compounds such as carbon dioxide, water, ammonia and hydrogen sulphide. These enter the environment and are available to make new living systems in nature's recycling scheme. The body of someone who died from poisoning only an hour ago, clothed and indoors will be in relatively good condition and still warm. In contrast to this, a body that has been left naked and concealed in the undergrowth for a few months is going to be so badly decomposed that most identifying features have gone. Despite this, poison may still be present. During the time the body was concealed it may also have suffered in that it provided an easy meal for a variety of living creatures: a human body is simply a large piece of meat so far as the fox is concerned. In many instances it will be apparent what the cause of death is, but the body must still be examined for proof. If poisoning is suspected there will be a need to examine the inside of the corpse. A living body works according to well-regulated chemistry but the chemistry inside a dead body is chaotic and it is influenced by the surroundings in which the body is found. The chemistry of many poisons also depends upon the environment in which the poisons are present....
...An adult of body mass seventy kilograms has a body volume of around seventy litres. Burial in a shallow grave, without coffin, results in seventy litres of soil being displaced. Piling this back on top of the burial leaves a distinct feature in the landscape.... When the shallow grave has been there long enough for the decomposition of the body to be underway the volume of the body will decrease. This is cause by the soft tissue becoming liquid and draining away into the earth or the formation of putrefaction gases that diffuse out into the open air. For a seventy kilogram body the water alone amounts to about fifty litres. The grave sinks and this leaves a noticeable depression in the surface. In some cases the abdominal cavity of the body collapses first because this is entirely soft tissue and rapidly putrefies to liquid and gas.
...Aimed at understanding what happens to a dead body when it is left in the open for nature to take its course is the Body Farm. This is part of the Forensic Anthropolgy Research Unit at the University of Tennessee and was established in 1980....
Dr Tony Hargreaves. Lecturer in applied science and forensics
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