All was quiet in the Bodle home in Plumstead village on the morning of 2 November 1833. In the large farmhouse, the maid Sophia Taylor began preparing breakfast while, at the cottage down the track, Mary Higgins came down to set the fire. When the local doctor was summoned several hours later he found four women suffering from severe vomiting and stomach pains whilst the master of the house was delirious with pain. His suspicions raised, the doctor contacted Michael Faraday at his laboratory in Woolwich. So began a chain of events that would grip the entire nation as the race to find the definitive test began.