Chapter X: Part 10

Mr. Serjeant SHEE: Just so, my lord, or in other words, tetanus not referable to any known cause. But, in truth, idiopathic means in a general sense “unaccountable.” Not that constitutional tetanus is always and invariably so, but that cases of tetanus do continually occur of which you can only suspect the cause, and attribute it by hypothesis to a “cold,” or some other vague accident. In such cases you say that the disease is idiopathic, and not traumatic. The Crown will have it that Cook’s was the tetanus of poison, but it is almost an assumption to say that it was tetanus at all. That he died of convulsions, or immediately after them, is certain, and that they were convulsions similar to those from which he suffered on the preceding night, is beyond all doubt. But what pretence is there for positively asserting that they were tetanus at all? The evidence of Mr. Jones, fairly interpreted, cannot be construed otherwise than as intimating an impression that they were convulsions which partook of the tetanic character. That might be, and yet the malady might not be tetanus. It is bad reasoning--most defective logic--to argue without positive proof of the fact that the disease was tetanus, and no other tetanus in the world than that produced by poison. Following in the trail dragged for them by the toxicologists, the Crown have thought proper to impute the death of this man to the poison of strychnine. It is for them to prove the fact. We contest it; but it by no means follows that we should be bound to explain the death on other grounds. If we can satisfy you that this man was assailed by any one of the numerous kinds of convulsions to which humanity is liable, and that he was asphyxiated or deprived of life when writhing in some sudden spasm or paroxysm, we shall have done all that can in fairness be demanded of us, unless, indeed, the Crown shall be prepared to prove that Cook’s symptoms were irreconcilable with any other doctrine than that of death by strychnine. This they have not done and cannot do. I propose to call your attention to the statements of the witnesses Mills and Jones, with respect to the symptoms which they observed in Cook on the evenings of Monday and Tuesday; and having done so, I will submit to your candid judgment whether those symptoms may not be more naturally accounted for by attributing them to convulsions which are not tetanic at all, and most assuredly not tetanic in the distinctive character of strychnine, but which may rather be classed under those ordinary convulsions by means of which it constantly pleases Providence to strike men down without leaving upon their bodies the faintest indications from which the cause of death may be inferred. You have it upon the authority of medical men of the highest distinction, that it sometimes occurs that men in the prime of life and in the full vigour of health, are smitten to death by convulsions that leave no trace upon the body of the sufferer. The statements Mills and Jones are such as to render it entirely unnecessary to resort to the hypothesis of any kind of tetanus, much less to that of strychnine, in accounting for the death of Cook. Regard being had to the delicate state of his health, and to the continually recurring derangement of his constitution, it is far safer to conclude that he died of ordinary convulsions than of any description of tetanus, whether traumatic, idiopathic, or that produced by poison. Nor must we omit to inquire into the state of his mind. He went to Shrewsbury races in the imminent peril of returning from thence a ruined man. His father-in-law, Mr. Stevens, assured Palmer that there would not be four thousand shillings for those who had claims on his estate. From the necessity he was under of raising money at an enormous discount, we may easily infer that he was in desperate difficulties; and that, unless some sudden success on the turf should retrieve his fortunes, his case was hopeless. His health shattered, his mind distracted, he had long been cherishing the hope that “Polestar” would win, and so put him in possession of a sum, amounting in stakes and winnings, to something like a thousand guineas. The mare, it is true, was hardly his own, she had been mortgaged, and if she should lose, she would become the property of another person.

Picture to yourself what must have been the condition, mental and bodily, of that young man when he rose from his bed on the morning of the races. It is scarcely possible that as he went down to breakfast this thought must not have crossed his mind, “My fate is trembling in the balance: this is the crisis of my destiny; unless my horse shall win and give me one chance more of recovering myself, to-night I am a beggar.” With these feelings he repairs to the race-course. Another race is run before Polestar is brought out. His impatience is extreme. He looks on in a state of agonising excitement. Will the minutes never fly? At last arrives the decisive moment. The time has come for his race. The flag is dropped; the horses start; his mare wins easily, and he, her master, has won a thousand guineas! For three minutes he is not able to speak, so intense is his emotion. Slowly he recovers his utterance, and then how rapturous is his joy! He is saved, he is saved! Another chance to retrieve his position, one chance more to recover his character! As yet, at all events, he will not be a disgrace to his family and his friends. Conceive him to be, with all his faults an honourable young man, and you may easily imagine what his ecstacy must have been. He loves the memory of his dead mother--he still reverences the name of his father--he is jealous of his sister’s honour, and it may be that he cherishes silently in his heart the thought of some other being dearer still than all, to whom the story of his ruin would bring bitter anguish. But he is not ruined; he will meet his engagements like an honourable man. There is now no danger of his being an outcast, an adventurer, a black-leg. He will live to redeem his position, and to give joy to those who love him. With such thoughts in his heart, he returns to his inn in a state of indescribable elation, and with a revulsion from despair that must have convulsed--though not in the sense of illness--every fibre of his frame. His first idea is to entertain his friends, and he does so. The evidence does not prove that he drank to excess, but he gave a champagne dinner, and we all know that is a luxurious entertainment, at which there is no stint and not much self-respect. That evening he did not spend in the society of Palmer; indeed, it is not clear in whose company he spent it. But we find him on the evening of Wednesday at the “Unicorn,” with Saunders, his trainer, and a lady. On Thursday he walks upon the course, and Herring remonstrates with him for doing so, as the day is damp and misty, and the ground wet. That night he is seized with illness, and he continues ailing until his death at Rugeley.

Arrived at Rugeley, it is but natural to suppose that a reaction of feeling may have set in. Then the dark side of the picture may have presented itself to his imagination. The chilling thought may have come upon him that his winnings were already forestalled, and would scarcely suffice to save him from destruction. It is when suffering from a weakened body, and an irritated and excited mind, he is attacked with a sickness which clings to his system, leaves him without any rest, incapacitates him from taking food, distracts his nerves, and places him in imminent danger of falling a victim to any sudden attack of convulsions to which he may have a predisposition. He relished no society so much as that of Palmer, whose residence was immediately opposite the Talbot Arms Inn, where he was lying on his sick bed. For two nights he had been taking opiate pills, prescribed by Dr. Bamford. On Sunday night, at twelve o’clock, he started as from a dream in a state of the utmost excitement and alarm. He admitted afterwards that for two minutes he was mad, but he could not ascribe it to anything unless to his having been awakened by a squabble in the street. But do no such things happen to people of sound constitutions and regular habits? Do no such people awaken in agony and delirium because there is a noise under their windows? No, these are the afflictions of the dissipated and the anxious, whose bodies are shattered, and whose minds are distracted. Next day, Monday, he was pretty well, but not so well as to mount his horse, or to take a walk in the fields. He could converse with his trainer and jockey, but he took no substantial food, and drank not a drop of brandy-and-water. You will bear in mind that Palmer was not with him that day. In the middle of the night he was seized with an attack similar in character to that of the night preceding, but manifestly much milder, for he retained his consciousness throughout it, and was not mad for a moment. The evidence of Elizabeth Mills is conclusive on the point. [The learned Serjeant read some passages from the deposition of the witness in question.] At three o’clock on the following day (Tuesday) Mr. Jones, the surgeon, of Lutterworth, arrived, and spent a considerable time--probably from three to seven o’clock--in his company. They had abundant opportunity for conversing confidentially, and they were likely to have done so, for they were very intimate, and Jones appears to have been on more familiar terms with Cook than was any other person, not even excepting Mr. Stevens. Nothing occurred, in the entire and unbounded confidence which must have existed between Mr. Cook and Mr. Jones, to raise any suspicions in the mind of Mr. Jones; and at the consultation which took place between seven and eight o’clock on Tuesday evening, between Jones, Palmer, and Bamford, as to what the medicine for that evening should be, the fit of the Monday night was not mentioned. That is a remarkable fact. The Crown may say that it is remarkable, inasmuch as Palmer knew it, and said not a word about it; but I think that it shows that the fit was so little serious in the opinion of Cook that he did not think it worth mentioning to his intimate friend Jones. If Cook had not given to Elizabeth Mills a rather exaggerated description of what had occurred, would he not have said to Mr. Jones, when he came from Lutterworth to see him, “You can’t judge of my condition from my appearance now, for I was in a state of perfect madness over night, and in fact, I thought that I was going to die?” Evidently he would have said something of that sort, and if he had, Mr. Jones would have mentioned it at the consultation.

My inference, then, is that the first statement which was made by Elizabeth Mills was the correct statement of what occurred. Palmer, in the presence of Jones, administered two pills to Mr. Cook, which it is supposed poisoned him--which contained a substance which sometimes does its deadly work in a quarter of an hour--which has done it in less, and which rarely exceeds half an hour; and we are asked to believe that, in spite of Cook’s objecting in the presence of his friend to take the pills, Palmer positively forced them down his throat at the imminent peril of the man falling down in a few minutes in convulsions evidently tetanic. As in the course of the examination of Mr. Jones the word “tetanus” was used, it is right that I should say a word upon that subject. The word “tetanus” is not in his deposition; but I tell you what is in it, and it is one of the most remarkable features in this case, because it shows how people, when they get a theory into their heads, will fag that theory,--how they will stretch it to the very utmost, and make it fit into the exact place in which they wish to put it. We have it now in the evidence of Dr. Taylor that at the inquest he sat next to Mr. Deane, the attorney’s clerk, and suggested the questions which it was necessary in his judgment to put in order to elicit the truth as to the symptoms of Mr. Cook’s disease. Now, fancy Dr. Taylor, who had had a letter telling him that there was a suspicion of strychnine, and who had all but made up his mind at that time to state positively upon oath his opinion that the pills given on Monday and Tuesday nights contained strychnine; fancy----

THE ATTORNEY-GENERAL.--I am sorry that my learned friend should be misled upon a matter of fact; but I am told that Dr. Taylor was not present when Mr. Jones was examined.

Mr. SHEE continued: Then the observation which I was about to make does not apply; and all I can say is, that Mr. Jones had probably in his mind’s eye, when he gave that evidence, a recollection of what he had seen on the Tuesday night. He could not have seen very accurately, however, for he said that there was only one candle in the room, and that he had not light enough to see the patient’s face, and that he could not tell whether there was much change in the countenance of the deceased--a very important fact, when the doctors all say that Cook’s disease cannot have been traumatic tetanus, because there is always a peculiar expression of the countenance in those cases, which was not observable in Cook. However, Mr. Jones, who is a competent professional man, gave his evidence, and it is quite clear that the notion of tetanus must have entered into his mind, because I find in the depositions that the coroner’s clerk first put down “tetinus;” and the probability, I think, is that that disease did occur to Mr. Jones at the time, and that he used the word, because the clerk never could have invented it. Then “tetinus” is struck out; then the word “convulsions” is written, and also struck out; and, as the sentence stands, it is, “There were strong symptoms of violent convulsions.” What is the fair inference from that? Why, that the man who saw Cook in the paroxysm did not think himself justified in saying that it was a tetanic convulsion at all, though it was very like tetanus. Now, I will just call your attention to the features of general convulsions, as described in cross-examination by the medical witnesses, in order to show that the convulsions of which Cook died were not tetanic, properly speaking, but were of that strong and irregular kind which cannot be classed under the head of tetanus, either traumatic or idiopathic, but under the head of general convulsions. I propose upon this part of the case to read an extract from the work of Dr. Copland, which will enable you to judge whether Cook’s complaint bears a greater resemblance to general convulsions than to traumatic tetanus or strychnine tetanus. Before doing so, however, I would observe that the only persons who can be supposed to know anything of tetanus not traumatic are physicians, and that not one of that most honourable class of men (who see the attacks of patients in their beds, and not in the hospital), has been called by the Crown, with the exception of Dr. Todd, who is a most respectable man, and who gave his evidence in such a way as to command the respect of everyone; but even his practice appears to be not so much that of a physician as of a surgeon. I am instructed that I shall be able to show, by the most eminent men in the profession, that the description which I am about to read from Dr. Copland’s book, the _Dictionary of Practical Medicine_, is the true description of general convulsions. In that book I find the following, under the head of “Convulsions:”--

“Definition.--Violent and involuntary contractions of a part or of
the whole of the body, sometimes with rigidity and tension (tonic
convulsions), but more frequently with tumultuous agitations,
consisting of alternating shocks (clonic convulsions), that come on
suddenly, either in recurring or in distant paroxysms, and after
irregular and uncertain intervals.”

The article then goes on:--

“If we take the character of the spasm in respect of permanency,
rigidity, relaxation, and recurrence as a basis of arrangement of
all the diseases attended by abnormal action of voluntary muscles,
we shall have every grade, passing imperceptibly from the most
acute form of tetanus through cramp, epilepsy, eclampsia,
convulsions, &c., down to the most atonic states of chorea and
tremor.”

As to the premonitory symptoms, it says:--

“The premonitory signs of general convulsions are (_inter alia_),
vertigo and dizziness, irritability of temper, flushings, or
alternate flushing and paleness of the face, nausea, retching or
vomiting, or pain and distension of stomach and left hypochondrium,
unusual flatulence of the stomach and bowels, or other dyspeptic
symptoms.”

In further describing these convulsions, the article says:--

“In many instances the general sensibility and consciousness are
but very slightly impaired, particularly in the more simple cases,
and when the proximate cause is not seated in the encephalon; but
in proportion as this part is affected, primarily or consecutively,
and the neck and face tumid and livid, the cerebral functions are
obscured, and the convulsions attended by stupor, delirium, &c., or
rapidly pass into, or are followed by, these states.”

Then, it adds:--

“The paroxysm may cease in a few moments or minutes, or continue
for some or even many hours. It generally subsides rapidly, the
patient experiencing, at its termination, fatigue, headache, or
stupor; but he is usually restored in a short time to the same
state as before the seizure, which is liable to recur in a person
once affected, but at uncertain intervals. After repeated attacks
the fit sometimes becomes periodic (the _convulsio recurrens_ of
authors.)”

And, in detailing the origin of these convulsions, it says:--

“The most common causes are (_inter alia_), all emotions of the
mind which excite the nervous power, and determine the blood to the
head, as joy, anger, religious enthusiasm, excessive desire, &c.,
or those which greatly depress the nervous influence, as well as
diminish and derange the actions of the heart, as fear, terror,
anxiety, sadness, distressing intelligence, frightful dreams,
&c.--the syphilitic poison and repulsion of gout or rheumatism.”

Do you believe, if Dr. Taylor had read that before the inquest, that he would have dared to say that the man died from strychnine? Is there one single symptom in the statement made in the depositions by Elizabeth Mills and Mr. Jones which may not be classed under one of the varieties of convulsions which Dr. Copland describes? It is not for me to suggest a theory; but the gentlemen whom I shall call before you--men of the highest eminence in their profession, and not mere hospital surgeons, who have seen nothing of this nature but traumatic tetanus--will tell you that Mr. Cook’s symptoms were those of general convulsions, and not of tetanus. My belief is--and I hope you will confirm it by your verdict--that Mr. Cook’s complaint was not tetanus at all, although it may well have been--according to the descriptions to which I shall call your attention--some form of traumatic or idiopathic tetanus, there being no broad, general distinction or certain confine between idiopathic, or self-generating tetanus, and many forms of convulsions. The tetanic form of convulsions is pretty much the same thing as idiopathic tetanus; and when we are told by medical witnesses that they never saw a case of idiopathic tetanus, my answer to that is that they must have had a very limited experience. It is not a disease of very frequent occurrence, it is true; but there are gentlemen here who have seen cases of idiopathic tetanus, and they are by no means of that rare occurrence which has been represented to you by the witnesses for the prosecution. There is one gentleman here, of very large practice at Leeds, whom I shall call before you, who attended at the bedside of Mrs. Dove, who has himself seen four cases of idiopathic tetanus. Traumatic tetanus very frequently occurs in hospitals--in fact, it often supervenes upon the operations of the surgeon; but the persons to give you correct information upon idiopathic tetanus are the general practitioners who enjoy the confidence of families, and who have the opportunity of visiting at their dwellings, both rich and poor, when they are attacked by any of those convulsive diseases or fits which heads of families and brothers and sisters are so careful not to disclose to the world at large. Dr. Watson is a general practitioner, and he says in his _Lectures on the Principles and Practice of Physic_, that most cases of tetanus may be traced to one of two causes--which are, exposure to the cold or sudden alternations of temperature, and bodily injury. “It has been known to arise,” he says, “from causes so slight as these,--the sticking of a fishbone in the fauces, the air caused by a musket shot, the stroke of a whip-lash under the eye, leaving the skin unbroken, the cutting of a corn, the biting of the finger by a tame sparrow, the blow of a stick on the neck, the insertion of a seton, the extraction of a tooth, the injection of a hydrocele, and the operation of cupping.” He goes on to say that when the disease arises from exposure to the cold or damp it comes on earlier than on other occasions--often in a few hours--so that if the exposure takes place in the night, the complaint may begin to manifest itself next morning. He also says that, although tetanus may be occasioned by a wound, independently of exposure to cold, or by exposure to cold without bodily injury, there is good reason for thinking that in many instances one of the causes would fail to produce it where both together would call it forth.

Dr. Watson adds that, although the pathology of tetanus is obscure, we may fairly come to the conclusion that the symptoms are the result of some peculiar condition of the spinal cord, produced and kept up by irritation of the substance, and that the brain is not involved in the disease; the modern French writers upon the disease hold that it is an inflammable complaint, and that it consists essentially of inflammation of the spinal marrow. Now, who shall say that those symptoms which were spoken to on the day of the inquest by Elizabeth Mills and Mr. Jones may not be ranged under one of those forms of tetanus? Idiopathic tetanus is so like general convulsions that in many cases it cannot be distinguished from them; and to such an extent is this so that Dr. Copland states that convulsions frequently assume a tetanic appearance. It is true that traumatic tetanus begins in four cases out of five by a seizure of the lower jaw; but then in the fifth case it does not so commence; and Sir B. Brodie mentions two instances in which it began in the limb which was wounded. Now, having gone so far, and having endeavoured to satisfy you that the symptoms which were spoken to by those two witnesses in their depositions may be, as I am told and instructed that they are, rather referable to a violent description of general convulsions than to any form of tetanus, let us proceed to inquire whether or not the symptoms are consistent with what we know of tetanus produced by strychnine; because, if you shall be satisfied, upon full investigation, that they are not consistent with the symptoms, which are the unquestionable result of strychnia tetanus, then the hypothesis of the Crown entirely fails and John Parsons Cook can’t have died of strychnine poison. Whether that be so or not will depend in a great degree, as it strikes me--although, of course, that will be for you to decide upon what you think of the evidence of Elizabeth Mills; but, before I go to that evidence, I will call your attention to the description of strychnia tetanus as given by two very eminent gentlemen, Dr. Taylor and Dr. Christison, who were called for the Crown the other day; and, if you find from their description that strychnia tetanus is a different thing from the picture first given of the attack and paroxysms by Elizabeth Mills and Mr. Jones, you will, I think, have great difficulty in determining that Mr. Cook died from strychnine.

Let us first take Dr. Taylor’s description of strychnia tetanus. I am not sure whether he stated that he had ever seen a case of strychnia tetanus in a human subject; but we must be just to Dr. Taylor. He has had large and extensive reading on the subject on which he writes, and it is not to be supposed that he has set down in his book what he has not found established upon respectable authority. Therefore, although we have it secondhand in the book, we must suppose that Dr. Taylor knows something of the subject. In his work upon strychnia poisoning, Dr. Taylor says, “that in from five to twenty minutes after the poison has been swallowed the patient is suddenly seized with tetanic symptoms affecting the whole of the muscular system, the body becoming rigid, the limbs stretched out, and the jaws so fixed that considerable difficulty is experienced in introducing anything into the mouth.” But, according to the statement of the witnesses, Mr. Cook was sitting up in bed, beating the bedclothes, talking, frequently telling the people about him to go for Palmer, asking for “the remedy,” and ready to swallow whatever was given him. There was no “considerable difficulty in introducing anything into the mouth,” and the paroxysm, instead of beginning within “from five to twenty minutes after the poison was supposed to have been swallowed” did not begin for an hour and a half afterwards. Dr. Taylor further on states, “After several such attacks, increasing in severity, the patient dies asphyxiated.” Now I submit, although there are some of these systems in this case, as there will be in every case of violent convulsions, that this is not a description of the case of John Parsons Cook.

The other medical authority to whom I said I should refer is Dr. Christison. He says that the symptoms produced by strychnine are very uncommon and striking--the animal begins to tremble, and is seized with stiffness and a starting of the limbs. Those symptoms increase, till at length the animal is attacked by general spasms. The fit is then succeeded by an interval of calm, during which the senses are impaired or are unnaturally acute; but another paroxysm soon sets in, and then another and another, until at last a fit occurs more violent than any that had preceded it, and the animal perishes suffocated. Now, who can say that that description at all tallies with the account of Mr. Cook’s symptoms? I know exactly what Dr. Christison means by this description, because I have had the advantage of having had several experiments performed in my presence by Dr. Letheby, which enable me to understand it. One of these experiments was this:--A dog had a grain of strychnine put into his mouth, and for about 20 or 25 minutes he remained perfectly well. Suddenly he fell down upon his side, and his legs were stretched out in a most violent way. He was as stiff as it was possible to be. In that state the dog remained, with an occasional jerk, for two or three minutes. In a short time he recovered and got up, but he appeared to be dizzy and uncomfortable, and was afraid to move. If you touched him he shrunk and twitched, and after another minute down he went again. He got up again and fell down again, and at last he had a tremendous struggle, and then he died. That is what Dr. Christison means by his description. If the dose had not been sufficient to kill the dog it would have been longer in producing an effect; the paroxysms would have occurred at more distant intervals, and they would have been less and less severe until the animal recovered. But if the dose be strong enough to kill, the interval between the paroxysms is short, and at last one occurs which is strong enough to kill. Just before the animal dies the limbs become as supple and free as it is possible to conceive the limbs of an animal to be. Whichever way you put the limbs of the animal after it is quite dead, the rigor mortis comes on after a time, and they remain in any position in which they are placed. I saw an experiment performed also upon two rabbits. The symptoms were substantially the same; the limbs of both of them were quite flaccid immediately upon death; and during the intervals between the paroxysms the animals shuddered and were extremely “touchy.” Now, gentlemen, I will give you my reasons for saying that, according to their own principle, as adduced in evidence by the Crown.

Mr. Cook’s death cannot have resulted from strychnia poison. I object to the theory of it having resulted from strychnia poison--first, on the ground that no case can be found in the books, in which, while the paroxysms lasted, the patient had so much command over the muscles of animal life and voluntary motion as Mr. Cook had upon Monday and Tuesday night. The evidence is, that he was sitting up in his bed beating the bedclothes, calling out, and that, so far from being afraid of people touching him, he actually asked to have his neck rubbed; and it was rubbed. I now come to the next reason why we say that death in this case did not result from strychnine poison; and I assert that there is no authentic case of tetanus from strychnine in which the paroxysm was delayed so long after the ingestion of the poison as it was in Mr. Cook’s case. Dr. Taylor says, in page 74 of his book, that from five to twenty minutes after the poison has been swallowed the tetanic symptoms commence; and then, in support of this statement, he proceeds to cite a number of cases. One young lady was “instantly deprived of the power of walking, and fell down.” In the next case, which was that of a girl, “tetanic symptoms came on in half an hour.” The next is a German case, taken from the _Lancet_, and there a young man, aged 17, was “attacked in about a quarter of an hour.” Then there is the case of Dr. Warner, who took half a grain of sulphate of strychnine, and died in fifteen minutes. Then there is the case of a young woman who took two or three drachms of _nux vomica_, and died in between thirty and forty minutes. Another case is given by Dr. Watson in his book, which he himself observed in the Middlesex Hospital, where strychnine pills, intended for paralytic patients, were taken by mistake. One-twelfth of a grain was intended to be administered every six hours; but unluckily a whole grain was given at one time, about 7 o’clock in the evening, and in half an hour it began to exhibit its effects. Dr. Watson says, that “any attempt at movement--even touching the patient by another person--brought on a recurrence of the symptoms.” It is clear, then, from all these cases, that the interval which elapsed between the supposed ingestion of the poison and the commencement of the paroxysm was much too long--three times too long to warrant the supposition that strychnia poison had been taken in this case. Thirdly, I submit--and I shall prove--that there is no case in which the recovery from a paroxysm of strychnine poison has been so rapid as it was in Cook’s case upon Monday night, or in which a patient has endured so long an interval of repose or exemption from its symptoms afterwards. In this case of Mr. Cook, according to the theory of the Crown, the paroxysms would not have been repeated at all if a second dose had not been given. There was an end of it when Elizabeth Mills left Palmer sleeping by the side of his friend in an arm-chair; how easy would it have been then, if he had been so disposed, to administer another dose, and to have hurried into Elizabeth Mill’s room, and called out that Cook was in another fit?

Dr. Taylor says in his book, that the patient is suddenly seized with spasms affecting the whole system, and that after several such attacks, increasing in severity, the patient dies asphyxiated. Dr. Christison holds precisely the same language; but I submit that here there is a broad distinction between the case of Cook and that which these gentlemen state to be the distinguishing feature of the disease. I now come to the _post-mortem_ examination. Dr. Letheby was good enough to dig up from his garden, in order that I might see it, an animal which had been killed by strychnine, with a view to this inquiry, a month before, and to examine the heart before me. The heart of that animal was quite full. The heart also of the dog that was killed in my presence was quite full, and so were the hearts of both the rabbits that I saw killed. Now, I am told by a gentleman, whom I shall call before you, who is not afraid of dogs--and remember that this is rather a matter for experiment than of theory,--I am told that the result of an enormously large proportion of such examinations--and, indeed, of all of them if they be properly conducted--is, that the heart is invariably full. At the same time, I am told that if the examiners do the thing clumsily, they may contrive to get an empty heart. If there be any doubt in your minds, however, as to the heart being full in these cases, I hope that some morning you will desire that a reasonable number of animals should be brought into one of the yards here, and that you will see them die by strychnine, and examine their hearts, and form an opinion for yourselves. I have now discussed what may be said to be the theory of these matters; but I have not yet met the strong point which was made by the Crown of the evidence of Elizabeth Mills. I, upon all occasions, am most reluctant to attack a witness who is examined upon his or her oath, and particularly if he be in a humble position of life. I am very reluctant to impute perjury to such a person; and I think that a man who has been as long in the profession as I have been must, in most cases, be put a little to his wits’ end when he rushes upon the assumption that a person whose statements have, after a considerable lapse of time, materially varied, is therefore necessarily, deliberately perjured.

The truth is, we know perfectly well that if a considerable interval of time occurs between the first story and the second story, and if the intelligent and respectable persons who are anxious to investigate the truth, but who still have a strong moral conviction--upon imperfect information--of the guilt of an accused person, will talk to witnesses and say, “Was there anything of this kind?” or “anything of that kind?” the witnesses at last catch hold of the phrase or term which has been so often used to them, and having in that way adopted it, they fancy that they may tell it in court. This might have been the case with Elizabeth Mills; and let me point out to you what occurs to me to be the right opinion that you should form of that witness. I submit to you that in this case of life and death--or, indeed, in any case involving a question of real importance to liberty or to property--that young woman’s evidence would not be relied on. In the ordinary administration of justice in the civil courts, if a person has upon material points told two different stories juries are rarely willing to believe that person; and in criminal cases the learned judges, without altogether rejecting the evidence, point out to the jury the discrepancies which have taken place, and submit whether, under all the circumstances, it would be safe to rely upon the testimony last given, differing from the statement which was made when the impression was fresh upon the witness’s mind. It cannot be said in this case that Elizabeth Mills was not fully and fairly examined. I submit that my learned friend the Attorney-General really made a false point--the most unfortunate in the course of the prosecution--in attacking, upon this ground, the coroner, Mr. Ward. Just place yourselves, gentlemen, for a moment in the position of the coroner; and, to enable you the better to do so, just recollect what has passed in the course of this trial in this court; recollect, if you can, how many questions have been put by my learned friends and by me on account of which it has been necessary for counsel to interpose and to ask the learned judges whether the question was a proper one. Our rules of examination are strict, but they are most beneficial, because they exclude from the minds of the jury that loose and general sort of information which, in country towns especially, is the subject of pot-house stories and market gossip, and substitute for it the evidence of actual facts which have been seen and are deposed to by the witnesses. Imagine the coroner in a large room at a tavern, just under the bed-room where poor Cook died--a crowd of excited villagers in the room, all full of suspicion produced by the inquiries of the Prince of Wales Insurance-office about Walter Palmer--and Inspector Field there, and Inspector Simpson--and all impressed with the belief that whatever the London doctor said must be true, and that if Dr. Alfred Swayne Taylor had made up his mind that it was poison, poison it was. The whole town was in a state of uproar and excitement. Every question that occurred to everybody must be put before the coroner--“Didn’t you hear so and so?” “Didn’t somebody tell you that some one had said so and so?” and so on. How is it possible under such circumstances to conduct an inquiry with the dignity and decorum that are observed in the superior courts?

There was a celebrated trial some years ago in France, in which I remember to have taken great interest, of the ministers of King Charles X. Upon that occasion one witness actually proved that he had read all the pamphlets that had been published on the subject, and he came forward to state what, upon the whole, was the result which those pamphlets had made upon his mind. It is true that that was in revolutionary times, but it shows to what an extent the introduction of a loose system of questioning may go. I don’t say that Dr. Taylor suggested any but proper questions, but you must consider the difficulties under which the coroner had to labour, and I am told that he is an exceedingly good lawyer and a most respectable man. Dr. Taylor said that the coroner’s omission to ask questions arose, in his opinion, rather from want of knowledge than from intention. Of course the coroner would not be likely to know the proper questions to put in such a case, but when he did know them he seems to have put them. He was right in refusing to put irrelevant questions to gratify an inquisitive juryman; we are ourselves constantly being rebuked by the learned judges, and told to adhere to the rules, and not to put questions which are irrelevant. I have now pointed out such discrepancies in the evidence given by Mills before the coroner and before you as will, I think, make it clear to you that you cannot rely upon her testimony. Since she first gave her evidence she has had the means of knowing what is the case on the part of the Crown. I do not mean to say she has been tutored by the Crown; I believe that my learned friend would not have called her if he thought she had; but she has had an opportunity of discovering by interviews with several different people that the case for the prosecution is, that Palmer having first prepared the body of Cook for deadly poison by the poison of antimony, afterwards despatched him with the deadly poison of strychnine. Their case is, that there was an administration of something which had the effect of producing retching, nausea, and irritation of the stomach. Those symptoms are therefore attributed to the persevering intention of the prisoner to reduce Cook to such a state of weakness that, when once ingestion of the poison occurred, he was sure to be carried off. In her evidence before the coroner she was asked whether she had tasted the broth? She said she had, and she thought it very good. She did not then say anything about the ill effects the broth had produced; but she has since learnt that it is part of the case of those out of whose hands the Crown has taken the prosecution, and that it is the theory of Dr. Taylor that all this retching and vomiting was the result of a constant dosing with antimonial poison. She has probably been frequently asked whether she was not sick after drinking the broth; perhaps she may have been sick on some Sunday or another, and she has persuaded herself--for I do not wish to impute perjury to her--that she was made sick by the two table-spoonfuls of broth which she drank.

Is it not to the last degree incredible that a shrewd, intelligent man like Palmer should have exposed himself to such a chance of detection as sending broth which he had poisoned from his house, to stand by the kitchen fire of the Talbot Arms, when, sure as fate, the cook would taste it? Did you ever know a cook who would not taste broth sent by another person and said to be particularly good? It is not in the nature of things. A cook is a taster, she tastes everything, and Palmer must have known that as sure as ever he sent into the kitchen broth containing antimony the cook would take it and be ill. Her statement is not credible and cannot be relied on. Then she said in her evidence before the coroner that on Saturday Cook had coffee and vomited directly he swallowed it, and that up to the time she gave him the coffee she had not seen Palmer. She was not then aware that the theory of the gradual preparation of the body by antimony was to fit into the theory of death from strychnine, but by the time she came here she had become acquainted with that part of the case. My learned friend stated that, “Palmer ordered him coffee on Saturday morning; it was brought in by the chambermaid Elizabeth Mills, and given to the prisoner, who had an opportunity of tampering with it before giving it to Cook.” There is all the difference between this statement of my learned friend and that first made by Mills before the coroner. But the young woman did not go quite so far as that. She went however to this extent:--“Palmer came over at 8 o’clock and ordered a cup of coffee for Cook. I gave it to him. I believe Palmer was in the bedroom at the time. I did not see him drink it. I observed afterwards that the coffee had been vomited.” Her statement was not so strong as that of my learned friend, but a great deal stronger than the one she made before the coroner. The two statements are essentially different, and the difference between them consists in this--the one supports the theory suggested by the prosecution, the other is totally inconsistent with it. Can you rely on a woman who makes such alterations in her testimony? That is not all. The case suggested for the Crown now is, that Cook expressed reluctance to take the pills ordered for him, and that his reluctance was overruled by Palmer. Mills’s first statement was that Cook said the pills made him ill. Here she said that the pills which Palmer gave him made him ill. Before the coroner, too, she did not say that Palmer was in the bedroom between 9 and 10 on Monday night, as she has stated here. She makes him more about the bedside of the man, she gives him a greater opportunity of administering pills and medicine, she shows an _animus_, the result, according to the most charitable construction that can be put upon it, of a persuasion that Palmer must be guilty, but still an _animus_ which shows that she is not to be relied on. How easily may persons in her condition make mistakes without intending to deceive! It is the just punishment of all falsehood that when a lie has once been told it cannot be retracted without humiliation, and when once this young woman had been induced to vary her statement in a material particular she had not the moral courage to set herself right.

But the particulars I have mentioned are nothing to those to which I will now call your attention. I impeach her testimony on the ground that she here gesticulated and gave her evidence in such a manner that if it had been natural and she had adopted it at the inquest it must have attracted the attention of Dr. Taylor. The remarkable contortions into which she put her hands, her mouth, and her neck would, if they had been observed at the inquest, have been reduced to verbal expression, and recorded in the depositions. I am told by Dr. Nunneley, Dr. Robinson, and other gentlemen, that the symptoms she described are inconsistent with any known disease. There was an extraordinary grouping of symptoms, some of them quite consistent with tetanus produced by strychnine administered under peculiar circumstances, others quite inconsistent with it. Now, in the last week in February a frightful case of strychnine occurred in Leeds. A person having the means of access to the bedside of a patient, was supposed to have administered small doses, day by day, and after keeping her for some time in a state of irritation, to have at last killed her. The person who attended the patient spoke of her symptoms for about a week before her death, and said she had “twitchings” in the legs, that she was alarmed at being touched in the intervals between the spasms. I will now call your attention to the evidence of Mills. She states:--“Cook said, ‘I can’t lie down; I shall be suffocated if I lie down. Oh, fetch Mr. Palmer!’ The last words he said very loud. I did not observe his legs, but there was a sort of jumping or jerking about his head and neck and the body. Sometimes he would throw back his head upon the pillow, and then raise it up again. He had much difficulty in breathing. The balls of his eyes projected very much. He screamed again three or four times while I was in the room. He was moving and knocking about all the time. He asked me to rub his hands. I did rub them, and he thanked me. I noticed him ‘twitch.’ I gave him toast-and-water. His body was still jerking and jumping. When I put the spoon to his mouth, he snapped at it and got it fast between his teeth, and seemed to bite it very hard. In snapping at the spoon he threw forward his head and neck. He swallowed the toast-and-water, and with it the pills. Palmer then handed him a draught in a wineglass. Cook drank this. He snapped at the glass as he had done at the spoon. He seemed as though he could not exactly control himself.”

The expressions she used, particularly the word “twitching,” are remarkable. It may well be that when this case became public she may have had her attention called to it, and then had questions put to her with regard to the symptoms of Cook which induced her to alter the evidence she had before given. I cannot otherwise account for the remarkable variance in her evidence. From the time she left the Talbot Arms till she came here she seems to have been a person of remarkable importance. She went to Dolly’s, where Stevens visited her five or six times. What for? Stevens was unquestionably--and within proper limits he is not to be blamed for it--indignant at the circumstances of Cook’s death. He is not in the same condition of life as Mills. Why did he call on her? Why did he converse with her in a private room? He came, she said, to inquire after her health and see how she liked London. Mr. Gardner also saw her in the street, but he only asked her how she was and talked of other things. I do not say that these gentlemen went to her with the deliberate intention of inducing her to say what was false; but they did go with the deliberate intention of stimulating her memory upon points as to which they thought it required stimulating. Mr. Hatton, the police officer of Rugeley, also saw her a few times. They could have gone to her for no purpose but that of taking her evidence. I may mention a circumstance which shows how differently minor matters may be stated by witnesses who do not wish to assert what is false. When Palmer went into the bedroom after being called up, he remarked, “I do not think I ever dressed so quickly in my life,” and it is suggested that he never went to bed, but waited up for the commencement of the paroxysm. Mills answered the question I put to her upon that point pretty fairly; she said, “He came in his dressing-gown, and I do not recollect that there was anything like a day shirt about his neck.” On the other hand, Lavinia Barnes, who gave her evidence in a most respectable manner, said that he was quite dressed; that he wore his usual dress. People get talking about what they have witnessed, the real image of what occurred becomes confused or altogether obliterated from their minds, and they at last unconsciously tell a story which is very different from the truth. Mills was examined three times before the coroner, and if that officer acted improperly on those occasions it was quite competent for the Crown to bring him here and give him an opportunity of vindicating himself, but he ought not to be blamed upon the evidence of a witness like her. In the course of her examination, however, there came out a fact which is worthy of remark. Is there not something extraordinary in the periodicity of the attacks she described in their recurrence on three nights nearly at the same hour? There are numerous cases in the books in which attacks of this kind occurred at the same distance of time after the patient had gone to bed.