Les gestes des empoisonneurs sous le regard de la justice (France, xx^e siècle)

Based on legal and journalistic sources, this study concerns the methods employed by poisoners and their attitudes towards victims of poisoning. Poisoning is reputed to be a crime without violence but these texts reveal the complex reality of the ill treatment and brutality inflicted on victims. New forms of poisoning appear throughout the century but scarcely alter the legal definition of the incrimination.