This year plan to see more of British Columbia—share
your neighbor's enjoyment of his regional advantages
—see the Chilliwack Cherry Carnival; the Mission
Strawberry Festival; Nelson’s Midsummer Bonspiel;
Kelowna’'s Regatta; Penticton’s Peach Festival; Revel-
stoke’s Golden Spike celebrations!—a score of other

community gala days invite you to

Kio Usritish Glintin Wetter

THE BRITISH COLUMBIA GOVERNMENT TRAVEL BUREAU

- DEPARTMENT OF TRADE AND INDUSTRY .
PARLIAMENT BUILDINGS, VICTORIA, B.C.

E. G. ROWEBOTTOM,
DEPUTY MINISTER ©

an officer in the First World War
and stayed in Paris until 1923 when
he added the University of Paris
diploma in legal medicine and
psychiatry to his M.D. degree from the
University of Montreal. He has de-
voted his life to forensic medicine.
He attributes much of the success of
the laboratory to his chemists,
Franchere Pepin and Bernard Peclet.

The role of a chemist in crime was
originally confined to the identifica-
tion of poisons, mostly in corpses,
later came to include the tracing of
clues in textiles and dust, the identi-
fication of blood, and kindred pur-
suits. The comparison microscope and
the spectrograph have immeasurably
strengthened the medico-legal labora-
tory and taken over some of the tasks
formerly handled by chemical means.

The poison business, of course, is
not what it used to be. The R.C.M.P.
Gazette noted more than 10 years ago:
“Pathologists and police experts have
so perfected their methods that the
poison the criminal is able to obtain
easily can infallibly be traced even
long after the death of the victim.”
It added that “murders by poison are
becoming less frequent. ‘The admin-
istration of secret and deadly poisons
was a very elaborate science in ancient
Egypt, Greece and Rome, and
poisoners and distillers of dangerous
draughts were a constant menace to
human life in the Middle Ages, but

TWENTY-THIRD EDITION

ERNEST EVANS,
COMMISSIONER

the development of medical knowl-
edge and toxicology, and the certain
detection of this cowardly crime are
successfully combating it.”

But while lethal Mickey Finns in
the Borgia manner are not now so
often administered, suicide by poison
has become more common in this
century, particlularly since the qual-
ities of barbiturates and other hypnotic
drugs have become known to laymen.
Nowdays “an overdose of sleeping
pills” accomplishes _ self-destruction
painlessly if mot so dramatically as
Brutus’ method of falling on _ his
sword. It is less messy, too.

In cases where poison is suspected,
the chemist works usually by a
standard technique, first to detect and
isolate it and then to determine
(often the hardest thing to prove in
court) whther the poison is present in
sufficient quantity to have caused
death.

Take arsenic, for example. A man
dies in suspicious circumstances and
the symptoms of vomiting, diarrhoea,
irritated stomach, point to the pres-
ence of an inorganic poison, perhaps
one of the irritant arsenic compounds.
The organs of the corpse are ex-
amined. A specimen is taken and first
treated with a mixture of nitric and
sulphuric acid to destroy all organic
matter. The remaining solution is
subjected to a qualitative test and
hypophosphite of sodium and iodine

HON. LESLIE H. EYRES,
7 MINISTER

are added to increase the sensitivity
of the test. If arsenic is present, a
brownish substance is precipitated.
This is the principle of the Bougeault
test.

Then the quantitative examination
is begun. The Gutzeit method is one
of the standard procedures. Addition
of zinc and sulphuric acid will liberate
the hydrogen in the specimen solu-
tion and this will transform any
arsenic present to hydrogen arsenide.
A strip of paper treated with mercuric
chloride is dipped into the solution.
Arsenic will turn it yellow or brown,
depending on the quantity present.
By comparing this with a known test,
the quantity can be determined within
very fine limits. Arsenic is the most
common poison used in homicide,
partly because it is tasteless and
partly because its compounds are so
easily obtainable, being used in weed
killers, sheep dip, wood preservatives,
insecticides and rat poisons. A single
dose of 25 or 30 centigrams is usually
fatal although a high tolerance can be
erected against it by repeated smaller
doses.

There is no definition of poison in
British law since, with many sub-
stances, the quantity used determines
whether it is a food, drug or poison.
Iodine, for example, is a dietary
essential, a food; it is also used as a
drug to improve the functioning of
the thyroid gland; but in relatively

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