DRUG MAKES MEN TELL
TESTED ON CRIMINALS LONDON, December 7. The existence of a drug which makes men speak the truth was revealed at the annual meeting in Liverpool of the British Association of Chemists. Mr Henry T. F. Rhodes, editor of the Chemical Practitioner, was speaking of substances which might be used for unscrupulous motives if they got into the wrong hands. An example, he said, was scopolamine, sometimes wrongly called the “ Truth Serum.” It was not a serum, but an alkaloid, and when administered in a certain way it was said to cause men to speak the truth whether they wished to or not.
Experiments had been tried with this drug on criminals in America. What the effect really was was uncertain, but there was little doubt that it was profound and that it took men off their guard so that they would make admissions that they would withhold when in a normal state.
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Otago Daily Times, Issue 22778, 14 January 1936, Page 9
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156DRUG MAKES MEN TELL Otago Daily Times, Issue 22778, 14 January 1936, Page 9
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