Abstract: By the end of the Napoleonic Empire, the science of poison was well and truly underway. Toxicology could not be confused with the only legal sort of chemistry, however, and had to preserve its link with the body. If the various substances contained in the guts elicited attention, the living remains were what needed to be examined. Nevertheless the « physiological properties of poison » were the object of polemics and controversies in technical works as well as tribunals until 1914.
