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and cocoa. 53 The Arsenic Act had not prevented the sale, but it did provide
evidence of her purchase of the poison.
The Arsenic Act did nothing to prevent accidental poisoning by
arsenic as exemplified in the case of the peppermints contaminated with the
poison in Bradford. Such accidents at home and at work were responsible
for many more deaths than resulted from criminal activity. 54 The Act
exerted no control on the sale of other poisons and accidents involving them
continued to occur. On 5 November 1858, Richard Vaughan of Sackville
Street, London, died from an overdose of laudanum which he had been using
for the relief of pain caused by an ulcer in an eye socket. He had
accumulated a large quantity by the frequent purchase of small amounts.
On 25 October 1858, Mr George Lewis of Hermes Street, Pentonville Road
committed suicide using potassium cyanide. This chemical was used by
photographers and was thus easily obtained. Mr James Moore, of Little St
Andrew's Street, Seven Dials, having purchased a large quantity of oxalic
acid, committed suicide on 9 November 1858. 55
The controls placed on the sale of arsenic made other poisons more
attractive to criminals, as is demonstrated by the case of William Dove, a
gentleman of independent means, living in Burley, near Leeds. He poisoned
his wife over a period of time between December 1855 and March 1856 by
introducing strychnine into her food. Using the pretext of exterminating
53
F. Tennyson Jesse, „Madeleine Smith 1857‟, in H. Hodge and J. Hodge (eds.), Famous Trials (London,
1984), pp. 133-169.
54
A. Crowther and B. White, On soul and conscience: the medical expert and crime. 150 years of
forensic medicine in Glasgow (Aberdeen University Press, 1988), p.19 quoted in Bartrip, „A “Pennurth of
Arsenic for Rat Poison”‟, 57, note 13.
55
Pharmaceutical Journal, 18, 6, (1 Dec. 1858) 342-343.
230