COLOURS FOR POISONS.

Press, Volume LVIII, Issue 17611, 14 November 1922, Page 4

COLOURS FOR POISONS.

EXPERIMENTS NOW BEING "UNDERTAKEN. At the request of the Privy Council, who are responsible for the Poisons and Pharmacy Act, a series of experiments is now being carried out by the Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain to test the fensioiJity of tne proposal made by several High Court juuges that poisons should be given distinctive coliours. In the opinion of the investigators, the danger from poi6on would be increased rather than reduced if the poison, when coloured, did not remain practically the same shade under all conditions. They are, therefore, seeking, as a first essential, stability of colour. In the second place, they are rejecting all colouring substances' that might interfere with delicate analytical teats, and so prevent the identification of poison by analysis. The practicability of the proposal from the point cf view of*colour-makers was discussed in an interview by Dr. A. T. do Moulipied, of the British Dyestrffs Corporations headquarters staff. "Already," he pointed out, "there is n. Government regulation that methylated spirit should be coloured with an aniline dye. The effect has been,' in the first place, to make the. drinking of methylated spirit more difficult, and, second'y, to standardise the_ article itself. Nowadays a person buying methylated spirit does not try it or smell it; he merely looks at it.' So, in time, it would be with arsenic and strychnine and cyanides, had each of them its particular tinge. The number of errors that arise through arsenic, say, being mistaken for something else are, no doubt, few, but the colouring of arspnic would not only prevent such accidents, it would assist in the detection and prevention of crime. Armstrong's packets of white powder might have been anything; had they .been coloured bright green thev would instantly have aroused'attention."