ESHS/HSS Annual Meeting

Ars-umptions are Deadly: An Autopsy of the Trial of Jeanne Catherine

• In Event: Forensic Science in Transtemporal Perspective

English Abstract

In 17th century Geneva, Jeanne Catherine was hanged as a poisoner. Sarah Beam’s 2021 book, The Trial of Jeanne Catherine, presents the account of her trial, where she was convicted of poisoning her young daughter and the child of her daughter’s nursemaid with arsenic. The prosecution’s case largely uses Jeanne’s testimony, but their key physical evidence is provided by four doctors, who autopsied the deceased. These doctors, however, have a vested interest in the trial’s result. This trial coincided with the beginning of medical testimony in criminal cases, and these professionals were thus personally interested in proving their indispensability. Their experiments to determine the presence of arsenic, however, contain noticeable errors – not just to a modern scientist, but differing substantially from scientific practices of the time. With more probing, their testimony unravels further: they reference implied connections between high-class women and poisonings, using sensationalized reports of the arsenic poison aqua tofana to imply Jeanne’s guilt. Combined, these factors show how forensics may have artificially swayed the court’s decision, calling the verdict of Jeanne’s trial into question.

This paper uses Jeanne Catherine to investigate the advent of autopsies in judicial practices, and to introduce self-interest into the otherwise neutral origins of medical testimony in legal contexts. It uses this trial as a starting point to investigate other cases of 17th century arsenic poisoning, and analyses gendered implications of women as poisoners, even when men of science could not validate their guilt. In the spirit of this conference, this work is uniquely interdisciplinary, as it encompasses the histories of medicine, chemistry, and criminology. In so doing, it investigates the complicated, human elements of scientific innovation, and shows how the history of science is just as much the history of self-interested people as it is of selfless innovation.

Author

• Madeleine Schmuckler, University of Toronto