apparatus._—Arsenic has been detected in the metal of cast-iron
pots,[542] which Orfila and others have proposed to employ in certain
analyses on the large scale, as, for example, when the poison is sought
for in the whole soft solids of the human body. It is denied, however,
that any of that arsenic can be dissolved out of cast-iron by the
process which has been followed in such circumstances.[543]
The primary fact, and the qualification of it, are in my opinion of
equally little medico-legal importance. It is not likely that such
enormous masses of material will ever be operated on again, as those
which were made use of in some late, French trials, and for which great
iron pots were found indispensable;—because it has been proved that
absorbed arsenic is chiefly to be met with in particular organs or
secretions, such as the liver and urine. Besides, a false importance has
been attached to the enthusiastic analyses of the whole human carcase,
with which some French chemists have been astounding the minds of the
scientific world, as well as the vulgar, on the occasion of certain late
trials for poisoning. I confess I could not find fault with a jury, who
might decline to put faith in the evidence of poisoning with arsenic,
when the analyst, after boiling an entire body, with many gallons of
water, in a huge iron cauldron, making use of whole pounds of sulphuric
acid, nitric acid, and nitre, and toiling for days and weeks at the
process, could do no more than produce minute traces of the poison. What
man of common sense will believe, that, with such bulky materials and
crude apparatus, it is possible to guard to a certainty against the
accidental admission of a little arsenic? At all events I am much
mistaken if any British jury would condemn a prisoner on such
evidence,—or any British chemist find fault with them for declining to
do so.