Popularizing Controversial Science: A Popular Treatise on Poisons by Mateu Orfila (1818)

In the nineteenth century toxicologists participated as experts in criminal poisoning trials and wrote reports at the request of judges and lawyers. In court, they were expected to provide expert advice to lay audiences (juries, judges, lawyers) and, as their conclusions could be decisive in establishing the final verdict, their reports had to be written in a way that was comprehensible to “the unscientific minds of a criminal court and jury”. Magistrates and judges thus became potential readers of popular toxicology books. Some of the poisoning trials gained notoriety and were reported in newspapers or reproduced in fiction, thus spreading the interest in toxicology still further. From a more practical point of view, popular books on poisons and antidotes were aimed at a general audience because it was widely acknowledged that appropriate first aid could limit the harm in cases of accidental poisoning. As first aid was usually provided by the family or friends of the unfortunate victim, physicians wrote many books on the subject, explaining to a lay audience what they should do if someone was poisoned. All in all, nineteenth-century toxicologists developed a broad range of popularization practices intended both for the academic community and for the general public. The aim of this paper is to analyse some problematic issues associated with these practices, by focusing on a very popular nineteenth-century book on toxicology written by Mateu Josep Bonaventura Orfila i Rotger (1787–1853): Secours a donner aux personnes