Events Leading To Ingestion of Poison
In January 1783, Price returned to his laboratory in Guildford, ostensibly to start production of the miraculous powders. In fact, he set about the distillation of laurel water (which contained prussic acid). He wrote his will at the same time, but it was another six months before he returned to London to invite members of the Royal Society to witness the experiment on 3 August in his laboratory in Guildford.
Despite the success of his initial demonstrations and the furor they had caused, only three members turned up in Guildford on the appointed day. Although clearly disappointed by the poor turnout, Price welcomed the three men and then, stepping to one side, drank the flask of laurel water he had prepared. The three men immediately noticed a change in his appearance, but before they could do anything, Price was dead.
Read more about this topic: James Price (chemist)
Famous quotes containing the words events, leading and/or poison:
“We have defined a story as a narrative of events arranged in their time-sequence. A plot is also a narrative of events, the emphasis falling on causality. “The king died and then the queen died” is a story. “The king died, and then the queen died of grief” is a plot. The time sequence is preserved, but the sense of causality overshadows it.”
—E.M. (Edward Morgan)
“Despair, feeding, as it always does, on phantasmagoria, is imperturbably leading literature to the rejection, en masse, of all divine and social laws, towards practical and theoretical evil.”
—Isidore Ducasse, Comte de Lautréamont (1846–1870)
“In poison there is physic, and these news,
Having been well, that would have made me sick,
Being sick, have in some measure made me well.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)