ADMINISTERING POISON. An offence of an aggravated character, punishable un der the variouestatutes defining the offence.
The stat. 9 G. IV. c. 31, s. 11, enacts "that if any person unlawfully and maliciously shall administer, or attempt to administer, to any person, or shall cause to be taken by any person, any poison or oth er destructive thing," etc., every such offender, etc. In a case under this statute, it was decided that, to constitute the act of administering the poison, it was not absolutely necessary that there should have been a delivery to the party poisoned, but that if she took it from a place where it had been put for her by the defendant, and any part of it went into her stomach, it was an administering; 4 Carr. & P. 369; 1 Mood. Cr. Cas. 114; Brown v. State, 88 Ga. 257, 14 S. E. 578 ; Bell v. Com., 88 Va. 365, 13 S. B. 742 ; Blackburn v. State, 23 Ohio St. 146; La Beau v. People, 34 N. Y. 223.
The statute 7 Will. IV. & 1 Vict. c. 85 enacts that
"Whosoever, with intent to procure the miscarriage of any woman, shall unlawfully administer to her, or cause to be taken by her, any poison, or other noxious thing," shall be guilty of felony. Upon an indictment under this section, it was proved that the woman requested the prisoner to get her some thing to procure miscarriage, and that a drug was both given by the prisoner and taken by the woman with that intent, but that the taking was not in the presence of the prisoner. It was held, nevertheless, that the prisoner had caused the drug to be taken within the meaning of the statute; 1 Dears. & B, 127, 164. It is not sufficient that the defendant merely imagined that the thing administered would, have the effect intended, but it must also appear that the drug administered was either a "poison" or a "noxious thing." See ACCESSORY; ABORTION.