Poison, Detection, and the Victorian Imagination

Abstract

This relatively brief book provides a carefully researched and well-written history of the development of the field of toxicology in Britain in the nineteenth century. Poisoning was relatively uncommon as a tool of murder in Britain in the eighteenth century, but the middle decades of the nineteenth century appear to have been a high point of criminal poisoning in that country (although poisoning was still less frequent than other means of homicide). Secret poisoning was seen by many as a disease of civilization. This period also saw the rise of medical jurisprudence, especially toxicology, in Britain. Two especially important figures, to whom Burney devotes significant attention, were Robert Christison in Edinburgh and Alfred Swaine Taylor in London. As Burney tells the tale of the development of toxicological expertise and its use in criminal trials, set within a broader framework of British medicine and society, he provides us with a host of fascinating insights into the subject. For example, of the poison cases in the 1840s, 60% involved women as the accused, with the husband as victim in 37% of these, and 70% employed arsenic as the toxic agent. The characteristics attributed to poisoners (deceptive, cold, cunning) were also frequently associated with women at the time.