SUBCUTANEOUS POISONING.

Otago Witness, Issue 1189, 12 September 1874, Page 5

SUBCUTANEOUS POISONING.

(Calcutta Englishman. )

This practice has been known in many countries, and formed one of the dark arts of mediaeval Europe. It is now proved that in the Punjaub it is extensively practised, especially among cattle, and we believe that public attention has only to be called to it, in order that it should be also discovered in Bengal. Nothing can be simpler or more inexpensive than the apparatus for thus procuring death. The common leguminous creeper, abrus precatorus, which furnishes the rati seeds that for many hundreds of years have formed the basis of the Indian system of weights and measures, with a little milk of the madar, suffices. The vegetable poison thus produced is not susceptible of proof by chemical analysis, and a very little care in the preparation defies the scrutiny of the microscope. Take a few pice worth of rati seeds, or pick them growing wild, and steep them in water for 24 hours till they become soft. Remove] the testar, or red shell, of the seeds (with a view to avoiding subsequent detection by the microscope), and let them lie in the milk of madar for twelve hours. Pound them in a mortar, and rub them between the palms of the hands into the shape of a needle. Let them dry in the sun, and then prick one into the skin of an enemy whom you wish to get rid of, or attach one to the end of a stick, and give a goad with it into his cattle, if you prefer to attack his property rather than his life. In about six hours, the hard needle-shaped point which you have judiciously broken into the skin of your friend will soften, and he will feel as if he had been pierced by a thorn. If you select a dog for the experiment, the animal will limp a little, but show no other signs of inconvenience. In twelve hours he will become feverish, very thirsty and languid, refuse food, and exhibit a quickened circulation. Then he will lie down and doze in a torpid state, and in two days will die quietly of exhaustion. If the experiment is tried on a man, his constitution will make a longer struggle, and he will hold out another day. He will at first seem to have a very bad fever ; then will come difficulty of swallowing, and he will either die with all the symptoms of a fever patient, or will have them aggravated by local swelling at the point where the poisoned needle was inserted, ending in erysipelas. Here is account of such a case. A man in a village near Rawal Pindi

was awakened one morning by the pain of a couple of blows on his neck. He had just time to catch a glimpse of a retreating assailant, but he felt none the worse for his rude awakening, and went out as usual to his work. On his return at mid-day, he complained of pain in the neck, and his mother, on examining the place, detected two little punctures in it. As the pain increased, he was taken to hospital, and was there found to be suffering from high fever. The fever increased, the neck swelled, and erysipelas supervened. He died exactly three days after the punctures had been made, and but for the accidental discovery of them by his mother, his death would probably have been set down to fever.

A means of destroying life so certain and at the same time so unsuspicious strikes the mind with a peculiar terror. For the popular dread of poisoning is immensely enhanced by anything that tends to increase the difficulty of detection. It was this feeling that rendered the slow poisoning of the mediaeval adepts a source of such wide-spread panic. The subcutaneous poisoning of India is even less susceptible of discovery. Chemical analysis does not touch it, and if the performer takes the trouble to remove the red shells of the rati seeds before he pounds them up, the microscope yields no evidence. It is perfectly useless sending the stomach for examination, which is the usual, and indeed almost the sole, method here pursued in cases of sudden death. The only method of detection is post-mortem examination. And in order that even this test should furnish any results, the animal, in cases of cattle-poison-ing, must be flayed, and the carcase carefully examined. A little red spot is found, with the cellular tissue inflamed for a few inches around it. The only possible chance of recovery would be an early and free incision, with a thorough washing of the wound. This method of poisoning, as mysterious and deadly as snake-bite, is declared to be, next to the use of arsenic, the most common form of cattle-murder in the Punjaub. It is well worth the serious consideration of the civil surgeons and police officers of Bengal. The crime of cattle poisoning is at least as common here as in Northern India ; but except in oases where arsenic or some other mineral drug is used, deteotion is extremely difficult.