The history of poisoning: from ancient times until modern ERA.

The history of poisoning is one of the greatest chapters of the human history, where curiosity and genius, scientific discoveries and empirical knowledge intertwine with intrigues, crimes, politics, personal tragedies of notabilities, wars and natural disasters. Knowledge of toxic substances is likely as old as the mankind. In the Middle Age, Paracelsus claimed that in the world there is no non-toxic substance that the therapeutic and toxic properties of substances are indistinguishable up to a single parameter-dose. This postulate still belongs among the basic pillars of modern toxicology. Probably, the most ancient way of killing people was poisoning. In addition, the presence of poison in the body of the victim was very difficult to determine, since the symptoms of poisoning were similar to signs of certain diseases. Therefore, the criminals had a big chance to escape the punishment. Nowadays, together with development of toxicology the chance of disclosure of such crimes has increased, however, the progress in the field of design and production of toxic substances has also gone up. Within current contribution we have reviewed the most famous historical cases of poisoning from the antiquity to the present.

Les expertises dans l'affaire Lafarge ou la fabrique du doute.

This paper focuses on the role of expertise in the trial of Marie Lafarge, accused of poisoning and killing her husband Charles Pouch-Lafarge on 14 January 1840. Historians have argued that testimonial evidence remained dominant in French criminal law throughout the nineteenth century, thus minimizing the part taken by expert testimony. Lafarge's case provides an opportunity to revisit this claim. Instead of generating certainty, expert opinion in this case created doubt and opened up new questions. Despite the contradictions of expert opinion, Lafarge was convicted. Doubt has been little discussed in the scholarship on expertise, but it is more frequently invoked in the context of agnotology - the making of culturally induced ignorance. The controversy surrounding the Lafarge case serves to illuminate the mechanisms by which doubt could arise, how people reacted to it, and how doubt was configured within an emerging medicolegal expertise.

L'article s'intéresse au rôle de l'expertise dans le procès de Marie Lafarge, laquelle est accusée d'avoir empoisonné et tué son mari, Charles Pouch-Lafarge, le 14 janvier 1840. Les historiens qui ont travaillé sur l'évolution de la justice en France ont beaucoup insisté sur le fait que les preuves testimoniales sont restées dominantes dans la pratique française du droit pénal tout au long du 19e siècle, minimisant ainsi la part prise par les experts et les expertises. Nous réexaminons, à travers le procès Lafarge, le statut et la place accordée à l'expertise dans la première moitié du 19e siècle. Cette affaire est intéressante en ce que, loin de produire des certitudes, les expertises produisent surtout du doute et ouvrent de nouvelles interrogations. Cette question du doute a été peu abordée dans la littérature sur l'expertise ou alors elle surgit dans le cadre de l'agnotologie, laquelle s'intéresse surtout à la fabrique de l'ignorance. Or, malgré les contradictions qui surgissent entre les différents experts, Marie Lafarge est finalement condamnée. Il s'agit, à travers l'étude des controverses médico-légales, de suivre le cheminement du doute, la manière dont il surgit et surtout la façon dont les différents acteurs se positionnent face à lui.

Cornerstones of Toxicology.

The 35th Annual Society of Toxicologic Pathology Symposium, held in June 2016 in San Diego, California, focused on "The Basis and Relevance of Variation in Toxicologic Responses." In order to review the basic tenants of toxicology, a "broad brush" interactive talk that gave an overview of the Cornerstones of Toxicology was presented. The presentation focused on the historical milestones and perspectives of toxicology and through many scientific graphs, data, and real-life examples covered the three basic principles of toxicology that can be summarized, as dose matters (as does timing), people differ, and things change (related to metabolism and biotransformation).

[Medical expert reports in the Valencia of the late Middle Ages: cases of poisoning]. / Los peritajes médicos en la Valencia bajomedieval: los casos de envenenamiento.

During the last decades of the 13th century, in the midst of the shaping and medicalization of the new Kingdom of Valencia, the authorities and citizens envisaged the role that physicians could have in clarifying violent deaths. The first circumstance that compelled judges to resort to physicians was the possible poisoning of an individual, given that they could contribute to elucidating the truth with their expert knowledge. They were even requested to use post-mortem dissection if necessary for this purpose. In reality, physicians were conscious of their limitations in this field and the need for them to act with caution.

Case reports of extracorporeal treatments in poisoning: historical trends.

There are currently limited data on the trends in case reporting of poisoned patients undergoing enhanced elimination with an extracorporeal treatment (ECTR). The present manuscript specifically reviews the longitudinal trends of reports according to technique, poison, and country of publication. To identify case reports of ECTR use in the management of poisoning, multiple databases were searched. There were no limitations on language and year of publication. All case reports describing individual patients undergoing ECTR with the intent of enhancing the elimination of a poison were included in the analysis. Since 1913, 2908 reports were identified. There were an increasing number of published reports with time except for a slight decrease during the 1990s. Hemodialysis was by far the most commonly used ECTR in poisoning, followed by hemoperfusion. The number of reported peritoneal dialyses decreased steadily since 1980s. Methanol, ethylene glycol, lithium, and salicylates remained among the most commonly reported poisons in every decade. The large majority of publications originated from either Europe or North America, and more specifically from the United States, Germany, the United Kingdom, and China. Despite the emerging apparition of new techniques, hemodialysis remains to this day the favoured ECTR in the treatment of poisoned patients.

Poison politics: a contentious history of consumer protection against dangerous household chemicals in the United States.

The history of consumer protection against household poisons presents a key case study of the uniquely American struggle to balance public health and safety with the interests of business. By the late 19th century, package designs, warning labels, and state statutes had formed an uneven patchwork of protective mechanisms against accidental poisonings. As household chemicals proliferated in the early 20th century, physicians concerned with childhood poisonings pressured the federal government to enact legislation mandating warning labels on packaging for these substances. Manufacturers of household chemicals agreed to labeling requirements for caustic poisons but resisted broader regulation. Accidental poisonings of children continued to increase until the enactment of broad labeling and packaging legislation in the 1960s and 1970s. This history suggests that voluntary agreements between government agencies and manufacturers are inadequate to protect consumers against household poisonings and that, in the United States, protective household chemical regulation proceeds in a reactive rather than a precautionary manner.

Doctors in ancient Greek and Roman rhetorical education.

This article collects and examines all references to doctors in rhetorical exercises used in ancient Greek and Roman schools in the Roman Empire. While doctors are sometimes portrayed positively as philanthropic, expert practitioners of their divinely sanctioned art, they are more often depicted as facing charges for poisoning their patients.

Poisoning: fact or fiction?

Analytical toxicology is a complex discipline. Simply detecting a poison in a biological sample does not necessarily mean that the individual from whom the sample was obtained had been poisoned. An analysis can prove exposure and perhaps give an indication of the magnitude of exposure, but the results have to be placed in proper context. Even if sampling was ante-mortem an analysis does not necessarily prove the effects that the drug or poison had on the victim immediately before or at the time of sampling. Tolerance is one big issue, the mechanism of exposure (how the drug got into the body) is another, and of course with post-mortem work there are always additional considerations such as site of sample collection and the possibility of post-mortem change in analyte concentration. There are also questions of quality and reliability, and whether a particular analysis and the interpretation placed upon the result are appropriate in a particular case.

Environmental- and injury-related epidemic-assistance investigations, 1946-2005.

This paper summarizes environmental investigations (n = 458) conducted during the first 60 years of the epidemic-assistance investigation program at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. These investigations were grouped into 10 categories: toxic chemicals (n = 102), indoor air quality and outdoor air toxics (n = 21), new or rare epidemic diseases and unexplained syndromes (n = 29), natural disasters (n = 81), terrorism and unintentional human-made disasters (n = 9), substance use and abuse (n = 13), environmental aspects of infectious disease (n = 132), those affecting neonates and infants (n = 11), violence and injuries (n = 51), and miscellaneous (n = 9). Among the most important or prominent were studies of lead and arsenic toxicity at smelters, mercury in paint and beauty creams, dioxin in waste oil in Missouri, polychlorinated biphenyls and multiple other toxic chemicals, global pesticide poisoning outbreaks, hepatic angiosarcoma among vinyl chloride workers, toxic oil syndrome in Spain, eosinophilia-myalgia syndrome from contaminated L-tryptophan, diethylene glycol poisoning in Haiti, aflatoxicosis in Kenya, Gulf War illness among veterans, impact and needs assessments during natural disasters (e.g., Hurricane Katrina (2005) and the Mount St. Helens volcano eruptions (1980)), risk factors for heat-related mortality, domestic and international terrorist attacks, Parkinsonism related to 1-methyl-4-phenyl-1,2,3,6-tetrahydropyridine in California, and unintentional injury- and violence-related events.

[From alcohol to liquid ecstasy (GHB)--a survey of old and modern knockout agents. Part 2: benzodiazepines and other sedatives/hypnotic drugs]. / Vom Alkohol zum Liquid Ecstasy (GHB)-- ein Uberblick über alte und moderne K.-o.-Mittel. Teil 2: Benzodiazepine und andere Sedativa/Hypnotika.

Owing to the rapid progress in the development of synthetic pharmaceuticals, the classical knockout drugs such as chloroform and diethyl ether have been superseded by highly effective sedative and hypnotic drugs (e. g. methyprylone, clozapine and especially benzodiazepines). These are frequently given to the victim unnoticed by adding them to an alcoholic drink. In this way, alcohol still plays an important role as an interaction partner. The article presents relevant case examples together with their criminalistic background.

[Bull's blood as an ancient poison]. / Bycza krew jako antyczna trucizna.

Article presents ancient tradition about poisoning with bull's blood and the modern attempts of its explanation. Greek and Roman literary sources are compared with the ancient medical texts.

[Clinical toxicology in the historical and contemporary aspects]. / Toksykologia kliniczna w aspekcie historycznym i wspólczesnym.

Analyzing the problem of poisons and poisonings over the centuries can be seen that despite the different genealogies, the development of clinical and forensic toxicology runs parallel. However, slightly different areas of interests have been needed to produce. Staying in parallel position and complement each other, they form a single discipline - Toxicology. The analytics is the core of toxicology, because the turning point of the toxicology evolution was the development of laboratory diagnostic methods, whose role is still increasing, enabling decision-making and consultative medical examination. The toxicology history is fascinating and covers wide issues of the poisonings epidemiology, research methods, cognitive sphere, including the mechanisms of poisoning, expanding the practice through the casuistry and jurisdiction in terms of criminal responsibility, medical errors and the cause of death.

Of poisoners, tanners and the British Raj: redefining Chamar identity in colonial North India, 1850­90.

This article explores colonial representations of the crime of cattle poisoning and uses it as a starting point to investigate questions related to the formation of Chamar identity. Starting from the 1850s, it looks at the process whereby the caste group was imbued with certain undesirable traits of character. Simultaneously, it also explores the larger trend towards fixing the caste with certain occupational traits, so that it began to be identified completely with leather work by late nineteenth century. The role of new specialisms such as ethnography, toxicology and medical jurisprudence in the formation of new definitions about Chamars is also highlighted. The overall aim of the article is to reveal the complexities involved in the formation of colonial discourse about caste and caste groups.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart--controversies regarding his illnesses and death: a bibliographic review.

More has been written about Mozart's illnesses and death than for any other composer. An exploration of PAMA's Bibliography of Performing Arts Medicine provides the data for this review. The bibliography contained 136 entries that pertained to Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Of these, 81 were available to the author, either in printed or electronic copy. In order to provide a clearer historical perspective on this topic, this review assembles information pertaining to illnesses and other medical problems that occurred during Mozart's life as well as those purportedly contributing to his death.