CHAPTER XXVII

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_SIR R. CHRISTISON, SWAINE TAYLOR, AND POISON DETECTION._

Although the detection of crimes of poisoning is but one of the departments of service which the medical profession is able to render to the law, yet it is one which has very largely attracted public attention, owing to the many awful aspects of death by poisoning, and the helplessness which mankind has always felt in regard to these crimes. Latterly the skill displayed in the detection of the existence of poisons after the death of the victims has set at rest many of the doubts as to the certainty of judgment in regard to poisoning, and the discovery of antidotes to many poisons has supplied a means of remedy in numerous cases before it is too late. It is obvious that these results could only begin to be realised when chemistry had made considerable progress; and consequently it was not till 1813 that a young doctor, the celebrated Orfila, published in Paris the first part of a treatise on Poisons, which was subsequently merged in his “Legal Medicine,” 1821-3. The names most conspicuous in founding this new department of investigation in Great Britain are those which stand at the head of this chapter.

* * * * *

ROBERT CHRISTISON, one of the twin sons of Alexander Christison, many years Professor of Humanity in Edinburgh University, was born at Edinburgh in July 18, 1797. After a complete education, in arts at the University, he finally chose the medical profession, and was for two years and a half resident assistant in the Royal Infirmary. Taking his M.D. degree in 1819, he spent the next eighteen months at St. Bartholomew’s Hospital, London, and in Paris, where he worked in the laboratory of Robiquet at practical chemistry, and studied toxicology with Orfila himself.

When Dr. Christison was about to leave Paris, Dr. Gregory’s death led to a vacancy in the Chair of Medical Jurisprudence at Edinburgh, and Christison was proposed to fill it while still absent. It is significant of the state of knowledge that not one of the candidates besides Christison had any practical knowledge of chemistry. The influence of Lord Melville, however, who had been his father’s resident pupil when young Christison was born, was the determining cause of his success in the election.

At first students were very few, not half-a-dozen attending the earliest course. Christison devoted himself with characteristic energy to make his chair a real influence in the university. And here we may remark briefly on the extraordinary vigour of constitution which the new professor possessed, and retained almost till death. He could walk, run, or row better and with more endurance than any man of his time in Edinburgh, and that is saying a great deal. He made his new chair his primary object. Being an extremely neat and clean worker in the laboratory, his investigations soon became noted, and it was found, when he was called in to give evidence on matters of medical jurisprudence, especially in poisoning cases, that his mind was equally clear and accurate, and that he could give reasons for his beliefs which rendered his statements unimpeachable. From the famous trial of Burke and Hare in 1829 down to 1866 Dr. Christison appeared as a scientific witness in almost every case of medico-legal importance in Scotland, and in many in England.

“As a witness,” says the _Scotsman_ (Jan. 28, 1882), “he was remarkable for a lucid precision of statement, which left no shadow of doubt in the mind of court, counsel, or jury as to his views. Another noteworthy characteristic was the candour and impartiality he invariably displayed, and which, backed as it was by the confidence that came of mature deliberation, rendered him almost impregnable to cross-examination. This was notably illustrated in the celebrated Palmer trial. Some of the medical witnesses for the Crown had got so severely handled by the prisoner’s counsel that the case seemed in danger of breaking down, but Christison had not been long in the box when the lawyers found they had at last met one who was a match for the subtlest of them: and so complete was the failure of all their efforts to discredit his evidence, that the case, by the time he finished, had assumed the gravest possible complexion.”

As a persevering experimentalist, Christison was daring even to rashness in making trials on himself. He thus tested the taste of arsenious acid, which was held by Orfila and most others to be rough and acrid, and which he proved to be rather sweet. He ate an ounce of the root of _Œnanthe crocata_, which had stood most poisonous in England and on the Continent; but the Scotch specimen at any rate did not poison Dr. Christison. A most striking risk was run in the case of the Calabar bean. He took a dose before going to bed, and found its effects resembled those of opium. Not satisfied, he took a larger dose next morning on rising, with the result of almost paralysing him. But he fortunately had a good emetic close at hand, a bowl of shaving water, and administering a large quantity, he was partially relieved. But much prostration remained, and medical assistance had to be summoned.

Christison’s principal services to the literature of his subject consisted in his work on Poisons, which was first published in 1829, and went through several successive editions, and in numerous memoirs and papers contributed to medical and scientific journals, some of which detailed improved chemical processes and tests for poisons, as those on “The Detection of Minute Quantities of Arsenic in Mixed Fluids,” “On the Taste of Arsenic, and on its Property of Preserving the Bodies of Persons who have been Poisoned with it,” and on the poisonous properties of numerous vegetable alkaloids.

In 1832 Christison, having raised his class to no fewer than ninety students, resigned his chair on appointment to that of Materia Medica, intending to become, in addition to a clinical teacher of medicine, an original investigator on the therapeutical action of remedies. But before he had got fully afloat in this, practice, for which he had not specially laid himself out, flowed in upon him, and prevented the realisation of his desire. He accumulated a fine museum of materia medica, and his lectures were very popular. But it cannot be said that he left his mark on medicine or therapeutics to the same extent that he did on toxicology.

Christison was eminently a lover of his university, and exceedingly conscious of its great merits. In numerous matters he was very conservative, and strongly resisted some modern views of pneumonia and fevers. He wielded great influence for many years in the administration of university matters. In 1838 and in 1846 he was President of the Edinburgh College of Physicians. From 1868 to 1873 he was President of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. From 1857 to 1873 he occupied a seat at the General Medical Council. After having been for many years Physician-in-Ordinary to the Queen in Scotland, Dr. Christison received a baronetcy in 1871, on the recommendation of Mr. Gladstone. In the same year his bust by Brodie was presented to the university, by general subscription among the medical profession.

In 1872 Sir Robert Christison completed his fiftieth year of active service as professor in the university, the only case of the kind that had ever occurred; and a large and enthusiastic assembly entertained him at dinner. Further honours still awaited him; he was in 1875 elected President of the British Medical Association at its Edinburgh meeting; and in 1876 he was selected for the Presidency of the British Association, a distinction which however he declined on the ground of his advanced age. He soon afterwards retired from

## active duty; but lived in considerable vigour till about Christmas

1881. He died on January 23, 1882, in his eighty-fifth year.

“As regards his personal characteristics,” says the _Scotsman_, “Sir Robert was perhaps liable to be somewhat misunderstood by those who did not know him. Dogmatic and positive in his opinions, he was inclined to lay down the law in a way that might not always be quite agreeable.... On the other hand, friends who had the good fortune to know him intimately found in his nature a fund of geniality such as the casual observer could never have dreamt of. Warmth of heart and simple unaffected kindness would seem to have been distinguishing qualities of his private and social demeanour.” He was a strong Churchman and Tory. He married in 1827 a Miss Brown, who died in 1849, leaving three sons.

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Some years younger than Christison, ALFRED SWAINE TAYLOR was contemporary through life with him, and occupied for many years a quite exceptional position in the English mind in connection with the detection of cases of poisoning. He was born at Northfleet in 1806, and educated at Hounslow. At the early age of sixteen he became the pupil of a surgeon near Maidstone, and in October 1823 entered as a student at Guy’s and St. Thomas’s Hospitals, then forming a united medical school. Later on he was exclusively connected with Guy’s as pupil and lecturer until his retirement in 1878.

From the year 1826 Taylor gave much attention to medical jurisprudence, although his diligence was such as to win for him a prize for anatomy at Guy’s. Chemistry proved a congenial subject to him under the instruction of Allen and Aikin, and he was further stimulated in the same direction by frequent visits to Paris and all the principal Continental medical schools. At Paris he heard among others Orfila and Gay-Lussac. Geology, mineralogy, and physiology likewise engaged his attention, and so was formed a mind singularly broad in its views of natural phenomena, and well calculated to expound their laws. Taylor passed his examinations at the Apothecaries’ Hall in 1828 and at the College of Surgeons in 1830, and entered upon practice, continuing, however, to study in the chemical laboratory of Guy’s Hospital.

In 1831, when the Apothecaries’ Society first required candidates for their diploma to attend lectures on Medical Jurisprudence, Mr. Taylor was appointed to lecture on the subject at Guy’s Hospital, a post which he continued to hold for forty-seven years. In the next year he succeeded Mr. Barry as co-lecturer on chemistry with Mr. Aikin, whose colleague he continued till 1851, after which he was sole lecturer on chemistry till 1870, when he resigned this lectureship. In these important functions Dr. Taylor acquitted himself admirably. He was exceedingly clear in his statements, exact and successful in his experiments, while yet very undemonstrative in manner.

In 1832 the new lecturer commenced his long series of memoirs bearing on poisoning, by publishing an account of the Grotto del Cane, near Naples, with remarks on suffocation by carbonic acid. This appeared in the _London Medical and Physical Journal_. In subsequent years he contributed important papers to Guy’s Hospital Reports, on the

## action of water on lead, on poisoning by strychnia, on the tests

for arsenic and antimony, &c., and was soon a recognised authority on medico-legal questions. He contributed to the _London Medical and Physical Journal_ valuable memoirs on poisoning, child-murder, &c. In 1836 he published the first volume of a work on medical jurisprudence which was not completed at that time. In 1842 he brought out his well-known “Manual of Medical Jurisprudence,” which reached its tenth large English edition in 1879, in the author’s lifetime, in addition to numerous American editions. The Swiney Prize of 100 guineas, together with a valuable silver vase for a work on Jurisprudence, were also awarded to him.

In 1848, when he became a member of the College of Physicians, Dr. Taylor published a work on Poisons which was at once accepted as standard, and has gone through several editions. In 1865 his large work entitled “The Principles and Practice of Medical Jurisprudence” appeared, including much matter for which there was not space in his manuals. This work attained its third edition in 1883, having been edited by Dr. Thomas Stevenson, his distinguished successor at Guy’s Hospital.

But this represents only a portion of the literary labours of Dr. Taylor. From 1844 to 1851 he was the editor of the _London Medical Gazette_, afterwards incorporated with the _Medical Times_. He largely co-operated in editing various editions of Pereira’s Materia Medica. He brought out in conjunction with Professor Brande a Manual of Chemistry in 1863, and in 1876 edited Dr. Neil Arnott’s celebrated work on Physics. He was elected in 1853 Fellow of the College of Physicians, having had previously conferred upon him the honorary M.D. of St. Andrews University. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1845. He married in 1834 a Miss Cancellor.

It was as a medical witness in important legal cases that Dr. Swaine Taylor was most widely known. If a case of unusual character was before the courts, it came to be expected that he should be called as a witness, and for many years he was retained by the Treasury as their medical adviser on such cases. It is impossible here to refer to the numerous important cases of this character in which Dr. Taylor figured. A writer in the _Medical Times_ for June 12 and 19, 1880 (pp. 642, 671), enters into this question from full knowledge, and describes him thus: “Personally Taylor was of a tall and imposing figure, gracious to friends and bitter to foes, and, as the lawyers found, a superb witness, not to be shaken by any light word of doctrine.... There was a thoroughness about Taylor’s work which was always satisfactory.”

In regard to the celebrated Palmer trial, Dr. Taylor was severely cross-examined, and was contradicted in important points by experts called for the defence. In fact, it is possible that the case would have gone in favour of the prisoner but for the strong confirmation of the view of the prosecution given by Dr. Christison, to which we have already referred. Dr. Taylor expressed his strong views on this question in an extended pamphlet “On Poisoning by Strychnia,” most of which appeared in Guy’s Hospital Reports for 1856. He died on May 27, 1880.

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