Part 25

Re-examined by Mr. GROVE: What is the smallest quantity of strychnia that your process is capable of detecting?--I am perfectly sure I could detect the 50,000th part of a grain if it was unmixed with organic matter. If I put 10 grains in a gallon or 70,000 grains of water I could discover its presence in the 10th part of a grain of that water. It is more difficult to detect when mixed with organic matter. If a person had taken a grain a very small quantity would be found in the heart, but no doubt it could be found. I made four experiments with a large dog to which I had given the eighth part of a grain. I have discovered it by change of colour in the 32d part of the liver of a dog.

Mr. GROVE said he believed his Lordship was of opinion that experiments could not be shown.

Lord CAMPBELL: We have intimated that that is our clear opinion.

Mr. ROGERS, examined by Mr. GRAY: I am Professor of Chemistry at St. George’s School of Medicine, in London. I have made experiments upon one animal (a dog) poisoned by strychnia. The experiments commenced at the close of last December, and ended about ten days since. I gave it two grains of pure strychnia in meat. Three days after death I removed the stomach and contents, and some of the blood. The blood became putrid in about 10 days, and I then analysed it with a view to find strychnine. I separated the strychnine by colour tests. I cannot say how much it was by weight. In a month or five weeks, when the matter had putrefied, I analysed the stomach and its contents. I treated it with acidulated distilled water, and succeeded in discovering strychnia in large quantities about 10 days ago. I never analysed a human subject with a view to find strychnia, but I have many times done so to find other poisons. Strychnia must unquestionably have been discovered in this case if it had been present and the proper tests had been used.

Cross-examined by the ATTORNEY-GENERAL: I have only made one experiment. If the contents of the stomach were lost it would make a difference, but not if they were only shaken up. The operation would then be more difficult. I am a medical man. I did not analyse the tissues of the body of the dog. If I had tried the tissues of Cook’s body it might have been found if it was there, notwithstanding the time that had elapsed since he died. I don’t say that the time would prevent its discovery if there.

Re-examined by Mr. GRAY: If strychnia were in the stomach a portion would probably be smeared over the mucous membrane, and then I should expect to find it on the surface.

Dr. HENRY LETHEBY, examined by Mr. KENEALY: I am a Bachelor of Medicine, Professor of Chemistry and Toxicology in the London Hospital of Medicine, and Medical Officer of Health to the City of London. I have been engaged for a considerable time in the study of poisons and their action on the living animal economy. I have also been frequently engaged on behalf of the Crown in prosecutions in cases of this nature during the last 14 years. I have been present during the examination of the medical witnesses, and have attended to the evidence as to the symptoms which have been described as attending the death of Cook. I have witnessed many cases of animals poisoned by strychnine, and many cases of poisoning by nux vomica in the human body, one of which was fatal. The symptoms described in this case do not accord with the symptoms I have witnessed in the case of those animals. They differ in this respect:--In the first place I never witnessed the long interval between the administration of the poison and the commencement of the symptoms which is said to have elapsed in this case. The longest interval I have known has been three-quarters of an hour, and then the poison was administered under most disadvantageous circumstances. It was given on a very full stomach and in a form uneasy of solution. I have seen the symptoms begin in five minutes. The average time in which they begin is a quarter of an hour. In all cases I have seen the system has been in that irritable state that the very lightest excitement, such as an effort to move, a touch, a noise, a breath of air, would send the patient off in convulsions. It is not at all probable that a person, after taking strychnia, could pull a bell violently. Any movement would excite the nervous system, and bring on spasms. It is not likely that a person in that state could bear to have his neck rubbed. When a case of strychnia does not end fatally, the first paroxysm is succeeded by others, gradually shaded off, the paroxysms becoming less violent every time, and I agree with Dr. Christison that they would subside in 12 or 16 hours. I have no hesitation in saying that strychnine is of all poisons, either mineral or vegetable, the most easy of detection. I have detected it in the stomach of animals in numerous instances, also in the blood and in the tissues. The longest period after death in which I have detected it is about a month. The animal was then in a state of decomposition. I have detected very minute portions of strychnia. When it is pure the 20,000th part of a grain can be detected. I can detect the tenth part of a grain, most easily in a pint of any liquid, whether pure or putrid. I gave one animal half a grain, and I have the strychnia here now within a very small trifle. I never failed to detect strychnine where it had been administered. I have made _post-mortem_ examinations on various animals killed by it. I have always found the right side of the heart full. The reason is that the death takes place from the fixing of the muscles of the chest by spasms, so that the blood is unable to pass through the lungs, and the heart cannot relieve itself from the blood flowing to it, but therefore becomes gorged. The lungs are congested and filled with blood. I have administered strychnia in a liquid and a solid form; I agree with Dr. Taylor that it may kill in 6 or 11 minutes when taken in a solid state in the form of a pill or bolus. I also agree with him that the first symptom is that the animal falls on its side, the jaws are spasmodically closed, and the slightest touch produces another paroxysm. But I do not agree with him that the colouring tests are fallacious. I do not agree that it is changed when it is absorbed into the blood, but I agree with its absorption. I think it is not changed when the body is decomposed. The shaking about of the contents of the stomach with the intestines in a jar would not prevent the discovery of strychnia if it had been administered. Even if the contents of the stomach were lost the mucous membrane would, in the ordinary course of things, exhibit traces of strychnia. I have studied the poison of antimony. If a quantity had been introduced into brandy and water, and swallowed at a gulp, the effect would not be to burn the throat. Antimony does not possess any such quality as that of immediate burning. I have turned my attention to the subject of poison for 17 or 18 years.

Cross-examined by the ATTORNEY-GENERAL: I am not a member of the College of Physicians or of Surgeons. I do not now practise. I have been in general practice for two or three years. I gave evidence in the last case of this sort, tried in this court in 1851. I gave evidence of the presence of arsenic. The woman was convicted. I stated that it had been administered within four hours of death. I was the cause of her being respited, and the sentence was not carried into effect, in consequence of a letter I wrote to the Home Office. Other scientific gentlemen interfered, and challenged the soundness of my conclusions before I wrote that letter. I have not since been employed by the Crown.

By Mr. Justice CRESSWELL: I was present at the trial. I perfectly remember it.

Cross-examination continued: I detected the poison. I said in my letter that I could not speak as to possibilities, but merely as to probabilities. I have experimented on animals for a great number of years: on five recently. I have never given more than a grain, and it has always been in a solid form--in pills or bread. In the case where poison was administered under disadvantageous circumstances, it was kneaded up into a hard mass of bread.

Mr. Baron ALDERSON: Did the animal bolt it or bite it?

Witness: I opened the mouth and put it into the throat. About half an hour elapsed before the symptoms appeared in one case in which half a grain had been given. In another case death took place within 13 minutes. I have noticed twitching of the ears, difficulty of breathing, and other premonitory symptoms. There are little variations in the order in which the symptoms occur. I have known frequent instances in which an animal has died in the first paroxysm. I heard the evidence of Mrs. Smyth’s death, and I was surprised at her having got out of bed when the servant answered the bell. It is not consistent with the cases I have seen. That fact does not shake my opinion. I have no doubt that Mrs. Smyth died from strychnine. Cook’s sitting up in the bed and asking Jones to ring the bell is inconsistent with what I have observed in strychnine cases.

If a man’s breath is hurried, is it not natural for him to sit up?--It is. I have seen cases of recovery of human subjects after taking strychnine. There is a great uniformity in its effects; that is, in their main features, but there is a small variation as to the time in which they are produced.

What do you attribute Cook’s death to?--It is irreconcilable with everything with which I am acquainted.

Is it reconcileable with any known disease you have ever seen or heard of?--No.

Re-examined by Mr. Serjeant SHEE: We are learning new facts every day, and I do not at present conceive it to be impossible that some peculiarity of the spinal cord, unrecognizable at the examination after death, may have produced symptoms like those which have been described. I, of course, include strychnia in my answer, but it is irreconcileable with everything I have seen or heard of. It is as irreconcileable with strychnia as with everything else; it is irreconcileable with every disease that I am acquainted with, natural or artificial. Touching an animal during the premonitory symptoms will bring on a paroxysm. Vomiting is inconsistent with strychnia. The Romsey case was an exceptional one, from the quantity of the dose. The ringing of the bell would have produced a paroxysm. I am still of opinion that the evidence I gave on the trial in 1851 is correct. I am not aware that there is any ground for an imputation upon me in respect of that evidence. I have no reason to think Government was dissatisfied with me. I have since been employed in Crown prosecutions. After that case Dr. Pereira came to my laboratory and asked me, as an act of mercy, to write a letter to him to show to the Home-office, admitting the possibility of the poison which I found in the stomach having been administered longer than four hours before death. I wrote the letter, drawing a distinction between what was possible and probable, and the woman was transported for life.

Mr. R. E. GAY, examined by Mr. Serjeant SHEE: I am a member of the Royal College of Surgeons. I attended a person named Forster for tetanus in October, 1855. He had sore throat, muscular pains in the neck, and in the upper portion of the cervical vertebræ. He was feverish, and had symptoms ordinarily attending catarrh. I put him under the usual treatment for catarrh, and used embrocations externally to the muscles of the neck and throat, and also gargles. About the fourth day of my attendance the muscular pains extended to the face, difficulty of swallowing came on, the pains in the cervical vertebræ increased, also those of the muscles of the face, particularly the lower jaw. In the evening of the same day the jaw became completely locked, the pains came on in the muscles of the bowels, the legs, and the arms. He became very much convulsed throughout the entire muscular system, had frequent involuntary contractions of the arms, and hands, and legs, his difficulty of swallowing increased, and not a particle of food, solid or liquid, could be introduced into the mouth. Attempting to swallow the smallest portions brought on violent convulsions; so strong were they throughout the system that I could compare him to nothing but a piece of warped board. The head was thrown back, the abdomen thrust forward, and the legs frequently drawn up and contracted; the attempt to feed with a spoon, the opening of a window, or placing the fingers on the pulse brought on violent convulsions. While the patient was suffering in this manner he continually complained of great hunger, and repeatedly exclaimed that he was hungry, and could not eat. He was kept alive to the fourteenth day entirely by injections of a milky and farinaceous character. He screamed repeatedly, and the noises that he made were more like those of a wild man than anything else. On the twelfth day he became insensible, and continued in that state until he died, which was in the fourteenth day from the commencement of the attack of lockjaw. The man was an omnibus driver, and when I first attended him he had been suffering from sore throat for several days. There was no hurt or injury of any kind about his person that would account for the symptoms I have mentioned. His body was not opened after death, because it was considered unnecessary. I consider his disease was inflammatory sore throat from cold and exposure to the weather, and that the disease assumed a tetanic form on account of the patient being a very nervous, excited, and anxious person. His condition in life was that of an omnibus conductor. He was a hardworking man, and had a large family dependent upon him, and this, no doubt, acting upon his peculiar temperament, tended to produce tetanic symptoms. The witness, in conclusion, said he had not heard all the evidence in this case, but he thought it right to communicate to the prisoner’s solicitor the particulars of the case to which he had now referred, as he considered it had an important bearing upon the charge against the prisoner.

Cross-examined by the ATTORNEY-GENERAL: The case I have mentioned was undoubtedly one of idiopathic tetanus. It is the only one of the kind I ever had to deal with. It arose from exposure to cold acting upon a nervous and irritable temperament. I have a good many patients who are nervous and irritable, but I never met with such another case. The disease was altogether progressive from the first onset, and, although for a short time there was a remission of the symptoms, they invariably recurred. The locking of the jaw was one of the very first symptoms that made their appearance.

Serjeant SHEE then addressed the Court, and said that the next witness he proposed to call would occupy some time in examination, and, as it was now nearly 6 o’clock, he suggested that it would be better to adjourn the examination to the next day.

The LORD CHIEF JUSTICE said he had no objection to the course proposed by the learned Serjeant, and he then inquired of him how much time the case for the defence was likely to occupy.

Serjeant SHEE said he hoped to conclude the defence to-morrow; and he should endeavour to do so if he possibly could.

The LORD CHIEF JUSTICE said there was no desire to hurry him. It was most essential in so important an inquiry that the most ample opportunity should be allowed for a full and satisfactory investigation.

The Court then adjourned till the following morning, at 10 o’clock.

NINTH DAY, MAY 23.

There was as great a crowd as usual in court this morning, long before the commencement of the proceedings.

The Duke of Wellington, the Earl of Albemarle, Lord Donoughmore, Lord Dufferin, Lord Feversham, Sir J. Pakington, Mr. Harcourt Vernon, General Peel, Mr. Tollemache, Mr. S. Warren, and other Members of Parliament, were present.

The learned Judges, Lord Campbell, Mr. Baron Alderson, and Mr. Justice Cresswell, took their seats upon the bench at about ten o’clock, and, the prisoner having been placed at the bar, the examination of witnesses for the defence was resumed. No alteration has taken place in the prisoner’s demeanour.

Counsel for the Crown: The Attorney-General, Mr. E. James, Q.C., Mr. Welsby, Mr. Bodkin, and Mr. Huddleston; for the prisoner, Mr. Serjeant Shee, Mr. Grove, Q.C., Mr. Gray, and Mr. Kenealy.

Mr. J. B. ROSS, examined by Mr. GROVE: I am house-surgeon to the London Hospital. I recollect a case of tetanus being brought into the hospital on the 22d of March last. A man, aged thirty-seven, was brought in about half-past seven o’clock in the evening. He had had one paroxysm in the receiving-room; his pulse was rapid and feeble, his jaws were closed and fixed, there was an expression of anxiety about the countenance, the features were sunken, he was unable to swallow, and the muscles of the abdomen and the back were somewhat tense. After he had been in the ward about ten minutes he had another paroxysm, and his body became arched; it lasted about a minute. He was afterwards quieter for a few minutes, and then had another attack and died. The whole lasted about half an hour. There was an inquest held on the body. It was examined, and no poison was found. I think tetanus was the cause of death. There were three wounds on the body, two at the back of the right elbow, each about the size of a shilling, and one on the left elbow, about the size of a sixpence. The man had had those wounds for twelve or sixteen years. They were old chronic indurated ulcers, circular in outline, the edges thickened and rounded, and covered with a white coating, without any granulation. I am unable to say what was the origin of those ulcers, but I have seen other wounds like them. I have seen old chronic syphilitic wounds like them in other places. Those wounds were the only things which would account for tetanus.

Cross-examined by the ATTORNEY-GENERAL.--I ascertained that poultices had been applied to the wounds a day or two before, but I am not certain as to the exact time. The man’s wife had objected to their application. They were made of linseed meal. The man’s jaws were fixed so as to render him perfectly incapable of swallowing anything. He said he had first been taken with symptoms of lockjaw at eleven o’clock--as he told me, at dinner,--but, as he told my colleague, at breakfast. He was able to speak, but could not open the jaw. That is a symptom of tetanus. There were symptoms of rigidity about the abdominal and lumbar muscles. He did not say how long he had felt that rigidity. I gathered that some other medical man, a surgeon, had seen him in the afternoon before he came to the hospital, but I am not certain as to that; he was a labouring man.

Have you any doubt that the disease had been coming on since the morning?--No doubt at all. The sores were ugly sores of a chronic character--ulcers. There was an integument which connected the two on the right arm, so that they would be likely to run into one another. The wounds continued under the skin, and there were no signs of healing. They had the appearance of old neglected sores. They were at the seat of the ulnar nerve--a very sensitive nerve,--that which is commonly called the “funny-bone.” I believe he had successive paroxysms all the afternoon before he came to the hospital. I think his attack arose from tetanus. My opinion is founded upon the facts that he had had wounds, that he had died of spasms, that he had lockjaw, that the muscles of the abdomen and back were rigid, and that he complained of pain in the stomach. I did not hear the account of the symptoms of Cook’s death. An affection of the ulnar nerve was peculiarly liable to produce tetanus.

Re-examined by Mr. GROVE.--Strychnine was suspected in that case. The nerves of the tongue are very delicate, as are also those of the throat and fauces. I have read descriptions of tetanus in the books. The case described by Mr. Gay was idiopathic, having been caused by a cold. An injury to any delicate nerve would decidedly be a cause of tetanus.

Mr. RYNERS MANTELL, examined by Mr. GRAY.--I am a house-surgeon at the London Hospital. I saw the case mentioned by Mr. Ross, and his statement with respect to the symptoms is correct. In my judgment, the disease of which the patient died was tetanus, produced by the sores on the arms.

Dr. WRIGHTSON, examined by Mr. KENEALY: I was a pupil of Liebig, at Giessen. I am a teacher of chemistry in a school in Birmingham. I have studied the nature and acquired a knowledge of poisons, and I have been engaged by the Crown in the detection of poison in a prosecution. I have experimented upon strychnia. I have found no extraordinary difficulties in the detection of strychnia. It is certainly to be detected by the usual tests. I have tested and discovered it both pure and mixed with impure matter after decomposition has set in. I have detected it in a mixture of bile, bilious matter, and putrifying blood. Strychnia can be discovered in the tissues. I have discovered it in the viscera of a cat, in the blood of one dog, and in the urine of another dog, both of them having been poisoned by strychnia. I am of opinion that strychnia does not undergo decomposition in the act of poisoning or in entering into the circulation. If it underwent such a change, if it were decomposed, I should say it would not be possible to discover it in the tissues; it might possibly be changed into a substance, in which, however, it would still be detectable. It can be discovered in extremely minute quantities indeed. When I detected it in the blood of a dog, I had given the animal two grains. To the second dog I gave one grain, and I detected it in the urine. Half a grain was intended to have been given to the cat, but a considerable portion of it was lost. Assuming that a man was poisoned by strychnine, and if his stomach were sent to me for analyzation within five or six days after death, I have no doubt that I should find it generally. If a man had been poisoned by strychnine, I should certainly expect to detect it.

Cross-examined by the ATTORNEY-GENERAL: Supposing that the whole dose were absorbed into the system, where would you expect to find it?--In the blood.

Does it pass from the blood into the solids of the body?--It does; or, I should rather say, it is left in the solids of the body. In its progress towards its final destination, the destruction of life, it passes from the blood, or is left by the blood in the solid tissues of the body.

If it be present in the stomach, you find it in the stomach; if it be present in the blood, you find it in the blood; if it be left by the blood in the tissues, you find it in the tissues?--Precisely so.

Suppose the whole had been absorbed?--Then I would not undertake to find it.

Suppose the whole had been eliminated from the blood, and had passed into the urine, should you expect to find any in the blood?--Certainly not.

Suppose that the _minimum_ dose which will destroy life had been taken, and absorbed into the circulation, then deposited in the tissues, and then a part of it eliminated by the action of the kidneys, where should you search for it?--In the blood, in the tissues, and in the ejections; and I would undertake to discover it in each of them.

Re-examined by Mr. Serjeant SHEE: Suppose you knew a man to have been killed by strychnia, administered to him one and a-half hours before he died, in your judgment would that strychnia certainly be detected in the stomach in the first instance?--Yes.

Suppose it to have been administered in the shape of pills, and completely absorbed and got out of the stomach, would it still be found?--I can’t tell. If it were found, it would be in the liver and kidneys.