Mathieu Orfila

Orfila was born in Minorca and went on to study medicine in Valencia, Barcelona, and finally Paris.^[1] Orfilla was appointed as the royal physician to Louis XVIII in 1816.^[1] Orfilla became a professor of chemistry at the Athénée of Paris in 1817.^[1] In 1819 he received French citizenship, having been born a Spanish subject.^[1] In 1830 he was appointed as the dean of the faculty of medicine, and later removed in 1848 during the revolution.^[1] In 1851 he became the president of the Academy of Medicine.^[1]

If there is reason to believe that a murder or attempted murder may have been committed using poison, a forensic toxicologist pharmaceutical is often engaged 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 not any reliable ways of testing for its presence. Orfila created new techniques, refined existing techniques and described them in his first treatise, Traité des poisons (1813), greatly enhancing their accuracy.

In 1840, Marie Lafarge was tried for the murder of her husband. Although she had had access to arsenic, and arsenic had been found in the victim's food, none could be found in the corpse. 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; LaFarge was subsequently found guilty.