Search results for "Coroner"

Katherine Watson, Poisoned lives: English poisoners and their victims, London and New York, Hambledon and London, 2004, pp. xiv, 268, illus., £19.99 …

2005

This book provides a fresh look at the social history of poisons and poisoners based on around 500 cases of criminal poisoning that occurred in England between 1750 and 1914. Watson analyses not only published sources but also the rich documents stored at the National Archives at Kew. As a consequence, the study offers reliable statistical data about poisoning and includes a broad range of cases, not only the most famous and popular poisoning trials. First of all, Watson describes the main poisons employed in the nineteenth century, their effects on human bodies and the three ways of detecting them: clinical symptoms, post-mortem autopsies and chemical tests. The different value of these si…