A DELICATE TEST.

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume I, Issue 72, 7 March 1911, Page 3

A DELICATE TEST.

Those who were impressed by "A ! Study in Scarlet” will remember \ that when Dr Watson met Sherlock j Holmes, the latter was in a state of ; ecstasy over the discovery of an agent I th-at would determine the presence of , human blood. When Dt Watson said I he failed to see the practical value I of the discovery, Holmes pointed out 1 enthusiastically that in many murder cases it would bring criminals to the scaffold. A blood-stain was found on clothing. Was it the blood of a lower animal or human blood? Hitherto they had been unable to determine this, but his discovery gave ; the law a new weapon. It is a good i many years since Conan Doyle wrote 1 that passage, and, apparently, the j ditncuity was really not completely < overcome until recently, and then not t in a Ixnidon laboratory but in Ger- i many. According to the Daily Mail ! there has just been added to the | Royal Institute of Public Health in i London, a laboratory for the deter- I mination of the nature of blood- i stains by a new German method. A 1 rabbit is inoculated with successive 1 small doses of human blood. After a I time the rabbit manufactures in its ! blood a substance which resembles ; somewhat the curai-ive anti-toxic bod- i ics a house produces in its blood when inoculated with successive doses of diphtheria i>oison.. The blood of such a rabbit when mixed with a solution of the suspected blood (such as might lie made from dissolving out a bloodstain. on a garment) gives a certain > recognisable reaction if the blood is of human origin, but is unchanged if | the blood is from any other animal i save a monkey. The older tests by ; chemicals, the microscope, and the ! spectroscope, are to be retained ; the ' new method is simply an addition to ! the investigator’s armament. The i test is already officially required in Prussia in certain cases, and it is expected that it will be found extreme- I ly useful in England. The other day : we had word that stains found on the ‘ coat of the man. charged with the ; murder of Beron on Clapham Com- ! mon had been proved to be of hum > blood. Perhaps the new test was j used in this case. It is a striking example of the deadly weapons science ' is forging to make th© way of the ; criminal harder.—Exchange. >