The Death of Helen Potts: Part 1

In 1891, Helen Potts took some pills for a headache given to her by a medical student, to whom she was secretly married. Within twelve hours she was dead. Was she murdered? Sources and resources: Six Capsules: The Gilded Age Murder of Helen Potts by George R. Dekle Sr. 2019, Kent State University Press, Kent, Ohio Wikipedia Poisoning Crimes and Forensic Toxicology Since the 18th Century, Katherine D. Watson, MA, DPhil, FRHistS, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7495674/#:~:text=Poison%20murders%20remained%20relatively%20sporadic,hanged%20in%201809%20for%20a University of Michigan postcards collection for Carlyle Harris trial. https://findingaids.lib.umich.edu/catalog/umich-wcl-M-7353.1har Marquis test: https://www.oxfordreference.com/display/10.1093/oi/authority.20110803100135825 Morphine tests: https://www.ojp.gov/pdffiles1/nij/183258.pdf Reproductive realities in modern China : birth control and abortion, 1911-2021 by Sarah Mellors Rodriguez, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK, 2023. Photo: public domain.