FACILITIES FOR Benitnsta.—As a physiologist, I declare my conviction that
there are modes of extinguishing life without leaving upon the body the slightest trace of violence, or the slightest indication by which the murder could be detected. The most able anatomists in Loudon, whom I have consulted on this point, fully concur in this opinion. When mur- der is committed in a mode which leaves marks of violence on the exte- rior of the body, suspicion may be excited ; and if, on examining the in- ternal organs, they present certain appearances, the suspicion that murder has been committed will be confirmed. But these appearances in the internal organs are also produced by natural and common diseases, and, therefore, could never of themselves excite even, a suspicion of vio- lence. Yet how easy it is to produce death by strangulation, without leaving upon any part of the exterior of the body even the slightest dis- colouration, we have seen. But there are few more efficient means of accomplishing the object than those which depend on stopping the respi- ration. There is a poison—and these poisons are becoming every day better known to the vulgar—which will destroy life with absolute cer- tainty in from one to four minutes; and the simpleexpedient of exposing the body for a short time to a current of air, or to a shower of rain, will remove any traces of its presence and operation. There is another poison, which, in the minute dose of half a grain, will destroy-the stoutest man in three minutes, and leave behind it not the slightest character by which its presence can be detected. There is abundantly produced from a substance in daily use, a gas, under the fatal influence of which a person may be brought, without its being possible for human sagacity to discover that it has been employed; and there is a gas which any man can carry about in his pocket, one full Inspiration of which will infallibly extinguish life, without the chance of recovery, and without the possibility of detecting its action,—Dr. Southwood Smith's Lecturers On Anatomy.
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