ABSTRACT
A number of unrelated poisons are in gaseous form. Though there are many gaseous poisons in existence, especially in an industrial environment, only a few are seen frequently in forensic practice.
In many urbanized countries, ‘coal gas’ or ‘town gas’ used to be easily available in almost every home and, as it contained between 7 per cent and 20 per cent carbon monoxide (CO), it was a potent poison and was commonly used as a method of suicide, it also caused many accidental deaths. When natural gas became generally available, especially throughout Europe and North America, the number of deaths due to poisoning by CO was drastically reduced.
