se relied
upon by the prosecution as establishing the presence of arsenic in
the stomach. In regard to tartar emetic, Dr. Taylor, in his work on
medical jurisprudence, says: "Antimony in the metallic state is so
easily procured from a small quantity of material that on no account
should this be omitted. A reliance on a small quantity of a colored
precipitate would be most unsatisfactory as chemical evidence." In
defiance of all the authorities the prosecution, on the trial of Mrs.
Wharton for the murder of General Ketchum, rested its proof of poison
upon these color tests and their sequences. The defence, however,
found that the counterparts of three out of the four so-called
characteristic reactions were readily performed with the substances
known to have been in the stomach of General Ketchum at the time of
his death.

Several cases of poisoning which have been tried recently in this
State and Maryland have attracted much attention, and I propose now
briefly to outline these, and show that the disgraceful scenes
which have taken place were not due to deficiencies of toxicological
science, but to the causes already spoken of.

First in time among these _causes celebres_ was the Schoeppe case,
the facts of which may be briefly summed up as follows: Dr. Schoeppe,
a young German practicing medicine in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, became
engaged to be married to a Miss Stennecke, a maiden lady of sixty
years of age. Miss Stennecke was somewhat of an invalid, not often
actually sick, but habitually distressed by dyspeptic symptoms, etc.
On the morning of the 27th of January, 1869, feeling unwell, she sent
for Dr. Schoeppe, who gave her an emetic. In the afternoon, according
to the testimony of her maid, she was weak, but apparently not ill.
Between 7 and 8 P.M., however, she became much worse, and her servant
noticed that she was very drowsy, so that if left alone she would
immediately fall asleep whilst sitting in her chair. Shortly after
this she was put to bed, and was not seen again until the next morning
about six o'clock, when she was found comatose, with contracted
pupils, irregular respiration and complete muscular relaxation. Late
in the afternoon of the same day she died quietly.

Nothing was said about poisoning until some days afterward, when, a
will having been produced in favor of Dr. Schoeppe, an accusation
was made against him. The body of Miss Stennecke was exhumed, and
underwent a post-mortem examination, w