Milk and Water Detection

New Zealand Listener, Volume 13, Issue 319, 3 August 1945, Page 11

Milk and Water Detection

[t is difficult to justify an interest in bloodstained knives, or strands of human hair on blunt instruments, or the microscopic inspection of the dust from a murderer’s pocket, but when we saw

scheduled from 2YA a DSLR. Winter Course talk called "The Detective in the Laboratory," our minds ran hopefully on topics such as_ these. "Holmes dipped into this bottle or that, drawing out a few | drops of each with his glass pipette, and

finally brought a test tube containing a solution over to the table. In his right hand he had a slip of litmus paper. ‘You come at a crisis, Watson,’ said he. ‘If this paper remains blue, all is well. If it turns red it means a man’s life." We remembered, too, that tense moment in "The Documents in The Case," when in a darkened Laboratory Peter Wimsey waits while expert hands conduct an experiment which will show whether the mushroom poison used was in natural form (accident) or synthetic form (murder). Then there was Dr. Thorndyke who dived into his laboratory too often for the reader’s satisfaction. Such were our expectations, and it is no doubt a great reflection on our mental health that when we arrived a little late at 2YA’s session, owing to an inconsiderate telephone call, and found that the conversation had drifted around to the testing of milk samples, our feelings were a mixture of disappointment and nausea.