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Hume, Fergus, 1859-1932

"Madame Midas"

According to the evidence of Dr Chinston, the deceased had
died from serous apoplexy, and from all the post-mortem appearances
this was the case. But they must remember that it was almost
impossible to detect certain vegetable poisons, such as aconite and
atropia, without minute chemical analysis. They would remember a
case which startled London some years ago, in which the poisoner had
poisoned his brother-in-law by means of aconite, and it taxed all
the ingenuity and cleverness of experts to find the traces of poison
in the stomach of the deceased. In this case, however, thanks to Dr
Gollipeck, who had seen the similarity of the symptoms between the
post-mortem appearance of the stomach of Adele Blondet and the
present case, the usual tests for conia were applied, and as they
had been told by the Government analyst, the result was conia was
found. So they could be quite certain that the deceased had died of
poison--that poison being conia. The next thing for them to
consider was how the poison was administered. According to the
evidence of Miss Marchurst, some unknown person had been standing
outside the window and poured the poison into the glass on the
table. Mrs Villiers had stated that the window was open all night,
and from the position of the table near it--nothing would be easier
than for anyone to introduce the poison into the glass as asserted
by Miss Marchurst.


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