Murder by Arsenic
| Author | Keith Simpson |
| Published date | 01 October 1949 |
| DOI | 10.1177/0032258X4902200404 |
| Date | 01 October 1949 |
| Subject Matter | Article |
MURDER
BY
ARSENIC
was found lying on the ground near by and, after being returned to
her room, made her way to the Caledonian Canal, where she
jumped
or fell into the waters of the canal and required to be rescued, and
residents in the vicinity were
put
in a state of fear and alarm.
Taking exception to this charge, a local solicitor, who appeared
for the accused before
Mr.
John Cameron, K.C., sitting as honorary
sheriff substitute, asked pointedly how far this doctrine that a man
was responsible for the result of his actions was to be carried. Could
it be suggested
that
every publican who supplied whisky was to be
held responsible for
the
conduct of his customers? Was he to answer
for the actings of every " Saturday night drunk
"?
On the view that
the
charge placed too high a responsibility on the accused,
Mr.
Cameron
dismissed the complaint.
Murder
by
Arsenic
The Godalming Sanatorium Case
By
KEITH
SIMPSON,
M.D.(Lond.)
Reader
in
Forensic
Medicine,
University
of
London
MURDER by administering poison is becoming increasingly
uncommon owing to the wider employment of pathologists for
autopsy and the skill of the analyst in detecting the poisons commonly
used in the past for murder.
The
days of Maybrick, Armstrong and
Seddon are not likely to recur.
It
is the more important, therefore, to
bear in mind the possibility of deliberate poisoning whenever suspicious
circumstances and a group of significant symptoms occur together.
In
this case a woman who was in hospital in skilled hands was
poisoned with arsenic by her husband, at a time when she was dying
from tuberculosis, by means of food and drink sent to her from outside.
Her
death would have occasioned no suspicion in the minds of the
doctors in whose care she lay except for an incident which occurred
at about the time of
her
death, causing inquiry and ultimately revealing
the real substance of the case.
CIRCUMSTANCES
On Tuesday, April rzth, 1949, a woman known as Margery Lilian
Radford, aged 42, died at the Surrey County Sanatorium, where she
had been since May 1948. She had been recognised to be suffering
from pulmonary tuberculosis since November 1942, and, except for
aperiod between March 1944 and December 1947,
her
illness
had
pursued asteadily downhill course.
It
had been recognised upon
her
To continue reading
Request your trial