Dr. Greathouse said descriptions of Taylor's violent intestinal disorder after he ate a bowl of iced cherries and iced milk on July 4, 1850, seemed consistent with the symptoms of arsenic poisoning. Dr. Greathouse said he investigated the case as if it was any other possible homicide in his county.

Before removing Taylor's remains, Dr. Greathouse had to get permission for entering the crypt from the Department of Veterans Affairs, which administers the Zachary TaylorNational Cemetery in which the Taylor and his wife, Margaret, are entombed. Remains Removed 8 Days Ago

Taylor's body was returned to his crypt about five hours after it was removed eight days ago.

As for what will happen to the samples of mostly hair and shredded finger and toe nails taken from Taylor's remains, that decision will be left to the family, Dr. Nichols said.

Dr. Rising, who is conducting research for a book about Taylor, had offered to pay for the exhumation, whose cost was estimated at $1,200. But Dr. Nichols said today that the testing would fall under his normal duties.

Despite the Medical Examiner's findings, Dr. Rising said the investigation into Taylor's death had been worth the effort.

For months, she had maintained that pro-slavery factions troubled by Taylor's attempts to containslavery could have given his political foes with a powerful motive to assassinate him.

While most historians have accepted Taylor's death as natural, Dr. Rising said the suddenness of his illness was suspicious for a man whose health was widely known to have been robust. With secessionist fervor reaching a breaking point in 1850, pro-slavery factions desperately wanted to silence Taylor, a Southerner who opposed the extension of slavery and who wanted to bring California and New Mexico into the Union as free states. How History Might Have Changed