Mathieu Orfila

Mathieu Joseph Bonaventure Orfila.

Mathieu Joseph Bonaventure Orfila (Catalan Mateu Josep Bonaventura Orfila i Rotger) (April 24, 1787 – March 12, 1853) was a Spanish-born French toxicologist and chemist, the founder of the science of toxicology.

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Role in Forensic Toxicology

If there is reason to believe that a murder or attempted murder may have been committed using poison, a forensic toxicologist is often brought in to examine pieces of evidence such as corpses and food items for poison content. In Orfila's time the primary type of poison in use was arsenic, but there were no reliable ways of testing for its presence. Orfila created new techniques and refined existing techniques in his first treatise, Traité des poisons, greatly enhancing their accuracy.

In 1840, Marie LaFarge was tried for the murder of her husband using arsenic. Mysteriously, although arsenic was available to the killer and was found in the food, none could be found in the body. Orfila was asked by the court to investigate. He discovered that the test used, the Marsh Test, had been performed incorrectly, and that there was in fact arsenic in the body, allowing LaFarge to be found guilty.

Publications

Orfila's chief publications are:

• Traité des poisons or Toxicologie générale (1813)
• Eléments de chimie médicale (1817)
• Leçons de médecine légale (1823)
• Traité des exhumations juridiques (1830)
• Recherches sur l'empoisonnement par l'acide arsénieux (1841)

He also wrote many valuable papers, chiefly on subjects connected with medical jurisprudence.

His fame rests mainly on the first-named work, published when he was only in his twenty-seventh year. It is a vast mine of experimental observation on the symptoms of poisoning of all kinds, on the appearances which poisons leave in the dead body, on their physiological action, and on the means of detecting them. Few branches of science, so important on their bearings on every-day life and so difficult of investigation, can be said to have been created and raised at once to a state of high advancement by the labours of a single man.

References

General

• J. R. Bertomeu-Sánchez, A. Nieto-Galan (2006). Chemistry, medicine and crime: Mateu J B Orfila (1787–1853) and his times (PDF). Sagamore Beach, MA: Science History Publications. p. 311. ISBN 0-88135-275-6. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)

External links

• Forensic Toxicology, how it solves cases and the major cases it solved
• Bibliothèque Interuniversitaire de Médecine de Paris: Books, biography and studies on Orfila

• This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. {{cite encyclopedia}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)