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Summary
This paper analyses the development of three methods for detecting bloodstains during the first half of the nineteenth-century in France. After dealing with the main problems in detecting bloodstains, the paper describes the chemical tests introduced in the mid-1820s. Then the first uses of the microscope in the detection of bloodstains around 1827 are discussed. The most controversial method is then examined, the smell test introduced by Jean-Pierre Barruel in 1829, and the debates which took place in French academies and learned societies during ensuing years are surveyed. Moving to the courtrooms a review is conducted of how the different methods were employed in criminal trials. By reviewing these cases, the main arguments against Barruel's test during the 1830s are explored as well as the changes making possible the return of the microscope to legal medicine around 1840. By reconstructing the history of these three methods, the paper reveals how the senses of smell and vision (colours and microscopic images) were employed in order to produce convincing evidence in both academies and courts. The paper questions two linear master narratives that are organized in terms of progress and decline: the development of forensic science as a result of continued technological progress; and the supposed decline of smell in the history of the senses, particularly in the realm of chemistry and medicine.
Acknowledgements
This essay is part of a larger study on history of forensic science supported by the Spanish government [HAR2012-36204-C02-01]. I am very grateful to the staff of the Chemical Heritage Foundation, Philadelphia, in whose library this essay took off thanks to a short-term fellowship (March 2011). The final version was written during the spring of 2013 at the Centre for the History of Science, Technology and Medicine, University of Manchester. I am very thankful to Ian Burney, Nicholas Duvall, Fraser Joyce and Neil Pemberton for their comments and suggestions. Roger Wood kindly helped me with expert advice and corrections concerning English terminology. I very much appreciate the suggestions of the late Professor John Pickstone, who so generously provided guidance on issues related to French nineteenth-century microscopy and globular theory. Thijs Hagendijk kindly commented on one of the last versions of this paper. I would also like to acknowledge the comments of the editors and the anonymous referees for Annals of Science.
Notes
1 Friedrich Nietzsche, Twilight of the Idols, or How to Philosophize with a Hammer, (Oxford, 1998), 12. First published, 1889.
2 Ambroise Tardieu, Ernest Barruel, and Alphonse Chevallier, ‘Expériences sur l'odeur du sang’, Annales d'Hygiène Publique et de Médecine Légale, 49 (1853), 413–17.
3 Andrew Fleming, Blood Stains in Criminal Trials (Pittsburg, 1861), 45.
4 Johann Ludwig Casper, A Handbook on the Practices of Forensic Medicine (London, 1856), I, 140. The episode was also reported in many textbooks on legal medicine. Cf. A. Taylor, The Principles and Practice of Medical Jurisprudence (London, 1865), 456.
5 Historical studies have been focused on the second half of the nineteenth century. See Tal Golan, ‘Blood Will Out: Distinguishing Humans from Animals and Scientists from Charlatans in the Nineteenth-Century Courtroom’, Historical Studies in the Physical and Biological Sciences, 31 (2000), 93–124; and the summary offered by Katherine D. Watson, Forensic Medicine in Western Society: A History, (London, 2011), 141–46. For a more general overview on studies on science, medicine and the law, see also Tal Golan, Laws of Man and Laws of Nature: A History of Scientific Expert Testimony (Cambridge, 2004); and the studies by Ian A. Burney, Poison, Detection, and the Victorian Imagination (Manchester, 2006); On French legal medicine, see Frédéric Chauvaud, Les experts du crime. La médecine légale en France au XIXè siècle (Paris, 2000); Olivier Leclerc, Le juge et l’expert. Contribution à l’étude des rapports entre le droit et la science (Paris, 2005).
6 See Golan (‘Blood Will Out’, note 5); The previous reference to ‘inversion of credibility’ is also taken from Michael Lynch and others, Truth Machine: The Contentious History of DNA Fingerprinting (Chicago, 2008), chapters VI and VII. See also Simon A. Cole, Suspect Identities: A History of Fingerprinting and Criminal Identification (Boston, 2001). On the battle between chemistry and microscopy for authority in the domain of water quality, see Christopher Hamlin, A Science of Impurity: Water Analysis in Nineteenth Century Britain (Berkeley, 1990). Other studies have shown how chemical tests and microscopic observation were employed in different ways to support different positions about the adulteration of food. For the example of coffee in mid-nineteenth-century England see Simon D. Smith, ‘Coffee, microscopy, and the Lancet's Analytical Sanitary Commission’, Social History of Medicine, 14 (2001), 171–97, particularly, pp. 191–93.
7 Collin Wilson and Damon Wilson, Written in Blood. A History of Forensic Detection (New York, 2003), 189–91.
8 For other examples of early uses of the microscope in legal medicine, see David A. Stoney and Paul M. Dougherty, ‘The Microscope in Forensic Science’, in More Chemistry and Crime. From Marsh Arsenic Test to DNA Profile, edited by Samuel M. Gerber and Richard Saferstein, (Washington, 1997), 107–35.
9 Ian Burney and Neil Pemberton, ‘Bruised Witness: Bernard Spilsbury and the Performance of Early Twentieth-Century English Forensic Pathology’, Medical History, 55 (2011), 41–60. See also Ian Burney and Neil Pemberton, ‘Making space for criminalistics: Hans Gross and fin-de-siècle CSI’, Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences, 44 (2013), 16–25. For a more general discussion about the emergence of the ‘conjectural paradigm’ see the famous seminal work by Carlo Ginzburg, ‘Signes, traces, pistes. Racines d'un paradigme de l'indice’, Le Débat, 6 (1980), 3–44 and Mythes, emblèmes et traces. Morphologie et histoire (Paris, 1989).
10 The number of publications on the history of smell is growing since pioneering studies such as Alain Corbin, Le miasme et la jonquille (Paris, 1982). For a master narrative following the idea of ‘deodorization’ and ‘decline’, see Constance Classen and others, Aroma: The Cultural History of Smell (London, 1994). For critical views against the ‘declinist’ narrative see the review by Mark S. Jenner, ‘Follow Your Nose? Smell, Smelling, and Their Histories’, American Historical Review, 116 (2011), 335–51.
11 Nietzsche (note 1), 12.
12 Gaston Bachelard, La formation de l'esprit scientifique (Paris, 2004) (1ed. 1938), 139–40, and Gaston Bachelard, Le matérialisme rationnel (Paris, 1953), 220–22. See Anne Le Guérer, Les pouvoirs de l'odeur (Paris, 1998), 201–03.
13 For a critical discussion of this idea, see Lissa Roberts, ‘The Death of the Sensuous Chemist: The New Chemistry and the Transformation of Sensuous Technology’, Studies in History and Philosophy of Science, 26 (1995), 503–29.
14 On the many problems for detecting blood (particularly in crimes related to sexual violence) see Cathy McClive, ‘Blood and Expertise: The Trials of the Female Expert in the Ancien Régime Courtroom’, Bulletin of the History of Medicine, 82 (2008), 86–108. I am grateful to Silvia de Renzi for pointing out this paper to me.
15 Alfred S. Taylor, Medical Jurisprudence, (London, 1856), 243.
16 William Sutherland, Blood-stains: Their Detection and the Determination of their Source. A Manual for the Medical and Legal Professions (London, 1907), 1.
17 Fleming (note 3), 7–8.
18 Domenico Bertolini Meli, ‘The Color of Blood’: Between Sensory Experience and Epistemic Significance’, in Histories of Scientific Observation edited by Lorraine Daston and Elizabeth Lunbeck (Chicago, 2011), 117–35.
19 For other similar controversies taking place in early nineteenth-century Paris academies and courts, see José Ramón Bertomeu Sánchez and Agustí Nieto-Galan (eds.), Chemistry, Medicine, and Crime: Mateu J. B. Orfila (1787–1851) and His Times (Sagamore Beach, 2006).
20 See Ian Burney, ‘A Poisoning of No Substance: The Trials of Medico-Legal Proof in Mid-Victorian England’, Journal of British Studies, 38 (1999), 59–92. On the problems of organic analysis, see Sacha Tomic, Aux origines de la chimie organique. Méthodes et pratiques des pharmaciens et des chimistes (1785–1835) (Rennes, 2010).
21 Jean-Louis Lassaigne ‘Considérations chimiques sur une question de médecine-légale relative aux taches de sang’, Archives générales de médecine, 22 (1825), 289–92.
22 Archives of the Académie Royale de Médecine. Procès-verbaux, Section de Pharmacie, n. 27 (Session 12 June 1824). The paper was published in Alphonse Chevallier, ‘Notice sur des essais chimiques faits pour établir une différence entre le fer oxydé par l'eau, et le fer oxydé par le sang’, Journal de chimie médicale, de pharmacie et de toxicologie, 1 (1825), 71–76.
23 Archives of the Académie Royale Médecine, Procès-verbaux, Section de Médecine, n. 161 (Session 10 July 1827).
24 The same year Ansèlme Payen published a similar chemical test for milk in the Journal de Chimie Médicale. See Peter Atkins, Liquid Materialities. A History of Milk, Science and the Law (Farnham, 2010), 67.
25 The issue was extensively discussed by contemporary physiologists. See John Pickstone, ‘Globules and Coagula: Concepts of Tissue Formation in the Early Nineteenth Century’, Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences, 28 (1973), 336–56.
26 The paper was presented at the Paris Academy of Medicine in July 10, 1827, and very quickly published in Mateu Orfila, ‘Du sang, considéré sous le rapport de la médecine légale’, Journal de chimie médicale, de pharmacie et de toxicologie, 3 (1827), 365–77.
27 Archives générales de médecine, 16 (1828), 299–300. The paper had been previously presented at the Société Philomatique de Paris. Cf. François-Vincent Raspail, ‘Sur les moyens, soit chimiques, soit microscopiques, qu'on a tout récemment proposés pour reconnaître les taches de sang en médecine légale’, Journal général de médecine, de chirurgie et de pharmacie, 102 (1828), 335–50, quoted on p. 335.
28 Archives générales de médecine, 16 (1828), 300–01 (debates at the Academy of Medicine, sessions 15 Janvier and 29 Janvier 1828). The contest was published in Journal général de médecine, de chirurgie et de pharmacie, 105 (1828), 282–85 (letter by Orfila, 23 October 1828), and pp. 418–22. (answer by Raspail, 27 November 1828). Many other comments and letters were published.
29 Journal de chimie médicale, de pharmacie et de toxicologie, 3 (1827), 399–400. On the Société Philomatique, see Jonathan Mandelbaum, ‘Science and Friendship: The Société Philomatique de Paris, 1788–1835’, History and Technology, 5 (1988), 179–92.
30 John Pickstone, The Origins of General Physiology in France (London, 1973), chapter II, and Pickstone (note 25). I am grateful to the late Professor John Pickstone for his generous help on these issues.
31 Jean-Baptiste Dumas and Jean-Louis Prévost, ‘Examen du Sang et de son action dans les divers phénomènes de la vie’, Bibliothèque universelle de Genève, 17 (1821), 215–29 and 18 (1821), 294–318.
32 Mark Ratcliff, The Quest for the Invisible. Microscopy in the Enlightenment (London, 2009).
33 Jutta Schickore, The Microscope and the Eye. A History of Reflections, 1740–1870, (Chicago, 2007), quoted on p. 254. On microscopic research on blood globules, see pp. 149–51. More details in Pauline Mazumdar, ‘Johannes Müller on the Blood, the Lymph, and the Chyle’, Isis, 66 (1975), 242–53.
34 Alfred Donné, Recherches physiologiques et chemico-microscopiques sur les globules du sang, du pus, et sur ceux des humeurs de l’œil (Paris, 1831).
35 See Ann La Berge, ‘Medical Microscopy in Paris, 1830–1855’, in French Medical Culture in the Nineteenth Century edited by Ann La Berge and Mordechai Feingold (Amsterdam, 1994), 296–327; Ann La Berge, ‘Dichotomy or Integration? Medical Microscopy and the Paris Clinical Tradition’, in Constructing Paris Medicine, edited by Caroline Hannaway and Ann La Berge (Amsterdam, 1998), 275–313; Ann La Berge, ‘Debate as Scientific Practice in Nineteenth-Century Paris: The Controversy over the Microscope’, Perspectives on Science, 12 (2004), 424–53. See also James Cassedy, ‘The Microscope in American Medical Science, 1840–1860’, Isis, 67 (1976), 76–97.
36 Giovanna Amici Grossi, ‘I Diari dei viaggi e altri documenti della vita e dell'attività di Giovan Gattista Amici’, Atti della Fondazione Giorgio Ronchi, 6 (1996), 873–919, ‘Diario di Viaggio di Vincenzo Amici’, quoted on p. 900. The mentioned author is William-Frédéric Edwards (1777–1842).
37 Archives of the Académie Royale de Médecine. Procès-verbaux, Section de Médecine, n. 164 (Session 21 August 1827).
38 Mateu Orfila, ‘Sur les caractères des taches de sang, considérés en médecine légale’, Journal général de médecine, 100 (1827), 402–04.
39 Orfila (note 38), 404. Cf. ‘On sait en effet combien les recherches microscopiques sont difficiles, et quelle habitude elles exigent dans ceux qui s'y livrent’.
40 Mateu Orfila, ‘Note sur le sang, considéré sous le point de vue médico-légal’, Journal de chimie médicale, de pharmacie et de toxicologie, 3 (1827), 413–19, quoted on p. 419.
41 Mateu Orfila, ‘Du sperme, considéré sous le point de vue médico-légal’, Journal de chimie médicale, de pharmacie et de toxicologie, 3 (1827), 469–80. Orfila claimed that he could see the spermatozoa when semen was dried on a glass slide (‘in this case spermatozoa couldn't have been more visible’), even in ‘semen dried eighteen years before’, but spermatozoa were ‘no longer appreciable when, after desiccation of the semen on linen’, that is, in the common situation of legal-medicine research, it was ‘diluted in water for examination by microscope’.
42 Mateu Orfila, Traité de médecine légale, (Paris, 1836), II, 694.
43 See Antonio Cattaneo, ‘Considerazioni sul sangue rappresentato sotto il punto di vista medico-legale’, Giornale di chirurgia pratica, 5 (1828), 148–56.
44 François-Vincent Raspail, ‘Premier mémoire sur la structure intime des tissus de nature animale’, Répertoire général d'anatomie et de physiologie, 4 (1827), 148–60. See Pickstone (note 25).
45 Jean-Baptiste Dumas, ‘Réclamation de M. … ’, Bulletin des sciences médicales, 14 (1828), 104–07.
46 Raspail (note 27), 349. For further details about the debate on the microscope in other countries, see Golan (‘Blood Will Out’, note 5).
47 Jean-Pierre Barruel, ‘Mémoire sur l'existence d'un principe propre à caractériser le sang de l'homme et celui des diverses espèces d'animaux’, Annales d'hygiène publique et de médecine légale, 1 (1829), 267–77. In April 1828, he presented with Nicolas Vauquelin a report on bloodstains found in clothes. See Jean Champagnac, Chronique du crime et de l'innocence (Paris, 1833), 5, 78–79, and Journal de chimie médicale, de pharmacie et de toxicologie, 4 (1828), 117 and 254–55. On Barruel, see Archives Nationales de France, LH/124/73.
48 Barruel (note 47), quoted on pp. 275–76. See Nicolas Vauquelin, ‘Note sur le principe colorant du sang des animaux’, Annales de chimie et de physique, 1 (1816), 9–16.
49 Antoine-Augustin Parmentier and Nicolas Deyeux, Mémoire sur le sang… (Paris, 1791), 13–16, quoted on p. 16. See Le Guérer (note 12), 117–18.
50 See also Antoine Fourcroy, Système des connaissances chimiques (Paris, 1800), vol. 5, 115–16. Further studies about the nature of the odorous principle were published by Francesco Orioli and Gaetano Sgarzi, ‘Sperimenti intorno al modo scoperto dal sig. Barruel di distinguire uno dall'altro il sangue de’ diversi animali’, Giornale di Farmacia-Chimica e Science Accessorie, 6 (1829), 69–75; M. C. Matteucci, ‘Sur l'odeur développée par l'action de l'acide sulfurique sur le sang’, Annales de chimie et de physique, 52 (1833), 137–38, which regarded the odorous principle as a ‘volatile fatty acid’ similar to those recently discovered by Michel-Eugène Chevreul. In his influential books on chemical analysis, Chevreul largely discussed the ‘organoleptic properties’ of organic substances. He also included a review about the debates on the ‘odorous principle’ of plants. Cf. Michel-Eugène Chevreul, Considérations générales sur l'analyse organique et sur ses applications (Paris, 1824), 177–80. I am grateful to one of the anonymous reviewers for this last information.
51 Gaston Bachelard, La Formation de l'Esprit Scientifique (note 12), 139–40. He affirmed: ‘le réalisme du nez est bien plus fort que le réalisme de la vue’.
52 See Barruel (note 47).
53 See William F. Bynum and Roy S. Porter, Medicine and the Five Senses (Cambridge, 1993).
54 Lissa Roberts, ‘The Death of the Sensuous Chemist: The New Chemistry and the Transformation of Sensuous Technology’, Studies in History and Philosophy of Science, 26 (1995), 503–29, at 507.
55 See Mateu Orfila, ‘Mémoire sur l'acide hydrocianique’, Annales d'hygiène publique et de médecine légale, 1 (1829), 487–531, at 492. Another famous example was ‘the unbearable bitter taste of strychnine’. Cf. Mateu Orfila, Leçons de médecine légale (Paris, 1821), II, 257.
56 Mateu Orfila, Traité des poisons (Paris, 1826), vol. I, 357. See also Mateu Orfila ‘Rapport médico-légal servant de base à une accusation d'empoisonnement par l'arsenic’, Annales d'hygiène publique et de médecine légale, 2 (1829), 405–30.
57 ‘Exposé sommaire d'une accusation d'homicide, suivi d'un rapport relatif à des taches de sang’, Annales d'hygiène publique et de médecine légale, 1 (1829), 548–56. See Gazette des Tribunaux, 14 and 16 June 1829.
58 Archives of the Académie Royale de Médecine. Procès-verbaux, n. 185, (Session 27 June 1829). See also Archives générales de médecine, 20 (1829), 455.
59 François-Vincent Raspail, ‘Examen critique des recherches que M. Barruel vient de publier… ‘, Annales des sciences d'observation, 2 (1829), 133–43; François-Vincent Raspail, ‘Sur la nécessité d’être prudent en médecine légale’, Annales des sciences d'observation, 2 (1829), 285–87.
60 Archives of the Académie Royale de Médecine. Procès-verbaux, n. 175, (Session 18 August 1829). The paper by Souberain was presented at the section of Pharmacy of the Paris Academy of Medicine Cf. Archives of the Académie Royale de Médecine. Procès-verbaux, Section of Pharmacy, n. 189, (Session 8 August 1829).
61 Journal de pharmacie, 15 (1829), 492–93: ‘un principe odorant particulier à l'animal qui les produit et qui est le même que celui qui peut être dégage du sang’. The author published his results in Jean-Pierre Couerbe, ‘Réflexions sur le procédé de M. Barruel pour reconnaître la source de sang et le principe volatil qu'a observé l'auteur’, Journal de pharmacie, 15 (1829), 592–601. The paper included a final section reviewing contemporary views on the chemistry of smell.
62 Alphonse Chevallier and Ansèlme Payen, Traité élémentaire des réactifs…. Supplément (Paris, 1841), 162.
63 Alphonse Devergie, Traité de médecine légale (Bruxelles, 1837), 186.
64 This issue was discussed many years later by the Italian physician Taddei de Gravina ‘Alcune ricerche sull'odore specifico del sangue, considerato come tema di medicina legale’, Annali universali di medicina, 93 (1840), 262–71.
65 See Eugène Souberain, ‘Observations sur un moyen nouvellement proposé de distinguer le sang de divers animaux’, Journal de pharmacie, 15 (1829), 447–55, pp. 451–54.
66 Chevallier performed several experiments on dirty clothes. See Chevallier (note 63), 162.
67 Raspail (note 59).
68 See Burney and Pemberton (note 9), 54–55 and Golan (Laws of Man, note 5), 169–70.
69 Medizinisch-Chirurgische Zeitung, 3 (1831), 103: ‘eine besondere, eine Barruel’sche Nase’. Quoted by Bernhard Ritter, ‘Zur Geschichte der gerichtsärztlichen Ausmittelung der Blutflecken’, Zeitschrift für die Staatsarzneikunde, 80 (1860), 31–100, p. 41. See also Archives of the Académie Royale de Médecine. Procès-verbaux, n. 175, (Session 18 August 1829).
70 François Leuret ‘Sur le principe aromatique du sang’, Annales d'hygiène publique et de médecine légale, 2 (1829), 217–22; ‘Taches de sang. Rapport médico-légal’, Annales d'hygiène publique et de médecine légale, 14 (1835), 349–70. Barruel and Orfila were members of the editorial board.
71 Prosper-Sylvain Denis, ‘Du principe aromatique du Sang’, Annales d'hygiène publique et de médecine légale, 5 (1831), 467–69; Prosper-Sylvain Denis, Recherches expérimentales sur le sang humain… (Commercy, 1830).
72 Annales d'hygiène publique et de médecine légale, 2 (1829), 479–80.
73 Devergie (note 63), 186.
74 Excerpts were published very soon in German popular journals: ‘Über das Vorhandenfern eines eigenen riechbaren Prinzip, welches das Blut des Menschen so wie das verschiedenen Arten von Tieren charakterisiert’, Notizen aus dem Gebiete der Natur- und Heilkunde, 518 (May 1829), 179–80. See also Baron de Wedekind, ‘Sur le moyen de distinguer le sang humain du sang des animaux’, Annales d'hygiène publique et de médecine légale, 11 (1834), 205–10.
75 Orioli and Sgarzi (note 50). See also Francesco Orioli and Gaetano Sgarzi, ‘Sull'uso dell'acido solforico per la manifestazione dell'odor proprio d'ogni animale ne’ suoi solidi, e liquidi, e per altre chimique operazioni’, Giornale di Farmacia-Chimica e Science Accessorie, 6 (1829), 75–81. The conclusions were so similar to those published by Jean-Pierre Couerbe, that they asserted their priority in the discovery by sending a note to a medical journal published in Paris Cf. Gazette médicale, 1 (11), p. 99, 13 March 1830. See also Auguste Dumeril, Des odeurs, de leur nature et de leur action physiologique (Paris, 1844), 59–62.
76 Alphonse Chevallier ‘Du Sang’, Journal de chimie médicale, 5 (1839), 427–34, 490–98 and 537–52, quoted on 548–49.
77 Adolphe Trebuchet, Jurisprudence de la médecine, de la chirurgie et de la pharmacie en France (Paris, 1834), 45–50, at 50.
78 On Chevallier, see Alex Berman, ‘J.B.A. Chevallier, Pharmacist-Chemist: A Major Figure in 19th-Century French Public Health’, Bulletin of the History of Medicine, 52 (1978), 200–14.
79 Alphonse Chevallier, ‘Examen comparatif des taches faites avec du sang d'homme avec du sang sucé par des punaises’, Journal de chimie médicale, 6 (1830), 526–30, quoted on 529. However, the editors of the Annales d'hygiène publique et de médecine légale summarized his results claiming that they ‘confirmed the discovery of the odorous principle of blood’ made by Barruel. Cf. Annales d'hygiène publique et de médecine légale, 1 (1830), 434.
80 Jean-Pierre Barruel and Alphonse Chevallier, ‘Taches de sang’, Annales d'hygiène publique et de médecine légale, 10 (1833), 160–67, quoted on 167.
81 Mateu Orfila, Alphonse Chevallier, and Jean-Pierre Barruel, ‘Taches de sang. Rapport médico-légal’, Annales d'hygiène publique et de médecine légale, 14 (1835), 349–70.
82 Alphonse Chevallier, Ossian Henry, and Jean-Pierre Barruel, ‘Affaire Gilbert et Rodolphe inculpés d'assassinat sur la personne de Jobert’, Annales d'hygiène publique et de médecine légale, 23 (1840), 387–409, quoted on 396.
83 Gazette des Tribunaux, 1 February 1838, 338.
84 Gazette des Hôpitaux, 17 February 1838, 81.
85 ‘De la possibilité de distinguer dans une expertise les différentes espèces de sang’, Gazette des Tribunaux, 15 February 1838, 386–87.
86 See Amy W. Forbes, The Satiric Decade: Satire and the Rise of Republicanism in France, 1830–1840 (Plymouth, 2010).
87 Antoine-François Fabre, Némésis médicale illustrée, recueil de satyres (Paris, 1840), 61: ‘Soit que sous les ciseaux dont tu [Orfila] l'as déchiré, Hurle péniblement Thénard défiguré; soit qu'avec Barruel d'un sang de femme ou d'homme, tu penses en flairant distinguer un atôme [sic], tandis qu’à tous les yeux un linge desséché, de garance rougi, d'albumine taché, essayé par l'acide, à s'y tromper simule, le sang que tu voudrais répandre sans scrupule’. Madder and albumin were the substances suggested by Raspail as showing equal results to blood when tested with Orfila's reagents for bloodstain detection. See above.
88 The trial was fully reported in several issues of the judicial journal Le Droit from 28 February to mid-March 1839. It was also mentioned in many other newspapers and later described in books on famous trials like Armand Fouquier, Causes célèbres de tous les peuples (Paris, 1858–1867).
89 Le Droit, 14 March 1839.
90 Gravina (note 64).
91 Josep-Émile Humbert, Essai sur l'examen chimico-légal des taches de sang (Paris, 1856), 28–29.
92 See Ursula Klein, Experiments, Models, Paper Tools: Cultures of Organic Chemistry in the Nineteenth Century (Stanford, 2003). See Tomic (note 20).
93 Alfred Donné and Léon Foucault, Cours de microscopie complémentaire des études médicales (Paris, 1844), 1, 3. Donné discussed the advantages of microscopy over chemical test when dealing with many medical issues (17–21), including among them ‘legal-medicine questions concerning sperm’ (20). His first four lectures were focused on blood (39–141). Many other chapters were devoted to milk and Donné's new ‘galactoscope’. See Atkins (note 24), 66.
94 See La Berge (note 35).
95 Henri Bayard, ‘De l'examen des tâches diverses qui peuvent être l'objet de recherches médico-légales dans les expertises judiciaires’, Annales d'hygiène publique et de médecine légale, 29 (1843), 162–84.
96 Louis Mandl, Recherches médico-légales sur le sang (Paris, 1842). On his relationship with Orfila, see London Wellcome Archive, Ms. 7375/99. Letter by Orfila to Mandl, 16 May 1840.
97 Quotation from Louis Mandl, ‘Use of the Microscope in Medico-legal Researches’, Provincial Medical and Surgical Journal, 10 (1842), 455–58.
98 Mandl (note 96), 9. ‘Nous savons bien qu'il y aura toujours des gens qui s’élèveront contre l'emploi du microscope [dans la médecine légale], en se fondant surtout sur les diverses illusions auxquelles sont exposées les personnes qui n'ont pas l'habitude de cet instrument; mais la réponse à cette objection est bien simple: si ces médecins n'ont pas l'habitude du microscope, qu'ils la prennent; leur paresse ou leurs occupations ne peuvent être un obstacle aux progrès de la science’.
99 See Golan (note 5).