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"There is no doubt on the subject in the minds of the medical gentlemen, although the post-mortem examination has not yet taken place. And, as if to put aside all doubt, the bottle from which this Eugénie de Tourville admits she took the cordial proves to contain distilled laurel-water, a deadly poison, curiously colored and flavored."

At that time three women drank some laurel-water; and one of them a short time afterwards became violently disordered, lost her speech, and died in about an hour. A gentleman at Guildford, some few years back, also, by making an experiment as he intended on himself, was poisoned by a small dose: he did not survive the taking it more than two hours.

The one I lay hold of is "Laurel-Water," the melancholy drama of Sir Theodosius Boughton by insidious poisoner killed. I dashed it away, backwards, over my head, and, turning off the gas, abandoned myself to the strange influences that breathed hotly upon me from the clammy vegetation festering in the ropy night-air.

And the same may be said of the kernels of all stone-fruits; for the flavours given to noyau, ratafia, and other liquors which are highly prized by epicures, are all of them derived from the same principle as laurel-water, and which, on chemical investigation, is found to be prussic acid.

It is used in the Ratafie of the distillers, by which some dram-drinkers have been suddenly killed. One pint of water, distilled from fourteen pounds of black cherry stones bruised, has the same deleterious effect, destroying as suddenly as laurel-water. Sleep consists in the abolition of all voluntary power, both over our muscular motions and our ideas; for we neither walk nor reason in sleep.

I have found a place for St. John Long, and read the story of his trial for manslaughter with as much interest as the laurel-water case in which John Hunter figured as a witness. I would give Samuel Hahnemann a place by the side of Samuel Thomson.

Cross-examination promised nothing; for the evidence would consist of the dying deposition of Mrs. Rushton, the finding of the laurel-water, and the medical testimony as to the cause of death. The only person upon whom suspicion glanced was La Houssaye, and that in a vague and indistinct manner. Still, it was necessary to find him without delay, and Mr.

The chevalier persuaded himself that, as he should manage it, death would be attributed to the affection of the heart, from which M. de Tourville had so long suffered. He procured the distilled laurel-water how and from whom was minutely explained colored, flavored it to resemble as nearly as possible the cordial which he knew M. de Tourville and he only was in the habit of frequently taking.

The same plant, as well as other tender plants, such as the garden pea and kidney bean, when subject to the influence of this acid, quickly wither and die, and the laurel-water has the same effect upon them. It appears also that plants which naturally contain the acid, such as the cherry-laurel and almond tree, are not less susceptible of its poisonous action than others.

I have found a place for St. John Long, and read the story of his trial for manslaughter with as much interest as the laurel-water case in which John Hunter figured as a witness. I would give Samuel Hahnemann a place by the side of Samuel Thomson.