SUPPOSED POISONED WINE.

Temuka Leader, Issue 1765, 19 July 1888, Page 4

SUPPOSED POISONED WINE.

The question of the supposed poisoned vines of Hjeres, in connection with which the arrest of the Count de Yiileneuve, the manufacturer, has been reported, has caused great popular excitement in the South of France. The correspondent of a French journal, writing from Toulon, gives details of the affair, obtained from an authoritative source, to the following effect: —The Hyeres doctors have had under treatment since the end of last year numerous cases of a curious disease, which from certain symptoms, appeared at first to be a species of infectious colic. One physician, however, Dr Charles Roux, who had taken great interest in the strange malady, discovered after long and careful investigation that all the persons attacked were in the habit of drinking a certain kind of wine; that in women and children the malady had a milder form, and that water drinkers were exempt. Having got thus far, Dr Roux caused a sample of the suspected wine to be analysed by a chemist, Dr Sambue, who found that it contained a la”ga proportion of arsenic. Further samples of the wine were submitted to Dr Sambue for examination by the police authorities of Hyeres, and these also were found to contain arsenic. The authorities thereupon took action in the matter. The poisonous wine was found to be sold by the Count de Yiileneuve, a wine grower and manufacturer of Saline, who had recently opened offices in Hyeres for the sale of his goods, and a seizure was made on his premises of all the samples found there, and also of all ingredients used by him in the manufacture of his wines. All these have been banded over to Dr. Sambue fur analysis. On a recent Monday the bodies of eleven persons, alleged victims of the poison in the Count de Yilleneuve’s wines, were exhumed in the presence of the Magistrate, and Drs Oongit and Sambue are engaged in an examination of the intestines, with a view to discovering the cause of death The result of the examination, which will take some time, is with great anxiety.