ABSTRACT
Corrosive and metallic poisons used to be quite common in Westernized countries as both suicidal and homicidal agents. Severe restrictions on their availability and the increasing ease with which these poisons are detected have markedly limited their use. However, in other parts of the world they are still used sufficiently frequently to ensure their continued inclusion in a forensic textbook. It is also important to remember these poisons whenever a death occurs, as lack of recent experience of them may lead the death investigator or the pathologist to assume that this type of poisoning could not happen in their country and so incorrectly dismiss it as a possibility.
