Chapter XIII: Part 13

tetanus, we must see, in the first place, whether it admits of any doubt that he did die of tetanus. I have listened with attention to every form in which that disease has been brought under your consideration, whether by the positive evidence of witnesses, or by reference to the works of scientific authors; and I assert deliberately that no case either of a human subject, or of any animal, has been brought under your notice in which the symptoms of tetanus have been so marked as they are in this case; from the moment the paroxysm came on, of which this unhappy man died, the symptoms were of the most marked and of the most striking character. Every muscle, says the medical man who was present at the time, of his body was convulsed; he expressed the most intense dread of suffocation; he entreated them to lift him up lest he should be suffocated, and when they stooped to raise him every muscle of his body, from the crown of his head to the sole of his foot, was so stiffened that the flexibility of the trunk and limbs was gone, so that they could have raised him as you would raise a dead corpse or a lifeless log. It was found to be impossible, and the man prayed to be turned over in order to escape from the sense of the imminent risk of suffocation; they turned him over, and in the midst of doing so a fearful paroxysm, one mighty spasm, seems to have seized upon his heart, to have pressed from it the life blood, so that in a moment vitality ebbed, and the man was dead before them; when dead, the body exhibited the most marked symptoms of this most fearful disease; it was bowed from head to foot, and it would have rested, if it had been so placed, says the witness, upon the back of the head and the heels; the hands were clenched with a grasp which it required power to overcome, and the feet were curved till they assumed the appearance of a natural malformation. It is impossible to conceive symptoms more striking of tetanus; nor is it possible to conceive evidence more dishonest than that which has attempted to represent it as any other than as a case of tetanus.

[Sidenote: Attorney-General]

Well, then, if it was a case of tetanus, as to which I will not waste your time with any further observations, was it a case of tetanus from strychnia? I will confine myself for the moment to the exhibition of the symptoms as they have been described by the witnesses. Tetanus may proceed from natural causes as well as from the administration of poison. While the symptoms last they are the same, but in the course of the symptoms before the disease reaches its consummation in the death of the patient the distinction between the two is marked by characteristics which will enable any one conversant with the subject to distinguish between the two. We have been told upon the highest authority that the distinctions are these--Natural tetanus is a disease not of minutes, not even of hours, but of days. It takes, say several of the witnesses, from three to four days, and will extend to a period of even three weeks, before the patient is destroyed. Upon that point we have the most abundant and conclusive evidence. We have the evidence of gentlemen who have made it their especial study, like Mr. Curling and Dr. Todd. We have the evidence of one of the most eminent practitioners who ever adorned that profession or any other, I mean Sir Benjamin Brodie. We have the evidence of Mr. Gordon, who for twenty-eight years was surgeon to the Bristol Hospital; we have the evidence of Mr. Daniel, who saw twenty-five or thirty of these cases of natural tetanus; we have the evidence of a gentleman who practised for twenty-five years in India, where, owing to the particular character of the climate, those cases are infinitely more frequent than they present themselves here, and he gives exactly the same description of the course of symptoms through which this disease runs. Idiopathic or traumatic tetanus are therefore, upon the evidence, out of the question; but traumatic tetanus is out of the question for a very different reason. Traumatic tetanus is tetanus brought on by lesion of some part of the body. What is there in this particular case to show that there was lesion in any part of the body at all? We have had the most singular representations upon the subject of Mr. Cook’s health made by the witnesses who have come here on behalf of the defence, and who appear to have come into that box with the determination as far as possible to misconceive every fact which they could pervert to their purpose. We call before you for the purpose of showing what Cook’s health was an eminent physician who had had him under his care. It seems that in the spring of 1855 Cook, having found certain small spots manifest themselves in one or two parts of his body, and having something of ulcers under his tongue, or in his throat, conceived that he was labouring under symptoms of a particular character, and he addressed himself to Dr. Savage, who found the course of medicine he had been pursuing, founded upon this belief, was, in his judgment, an erroneous one; he altered it altogether; he enjoined the discontinuance of mercury, and was obeyed in his injunction; and the result was that the deceased, who was suffering, not from disease, but from the treatment, rapidly grew well. Nevertheless, lest there should be the possibility of mistake, Dr. Savage made him come to him from time to time that he might see that things were going on right, and he sees, long before the summer had advanced, the very unsatisfactory symptoms had entirely gone, and that there was nothing about him except that affection of the throat to which sometimes people are subject, some abnormal condition of one of the tonsils, but in other respects the man was better than he had been, and might be said to be perfectly convalescent. On the very day he left London to go into the country about a fortnight before the races, his stepfather accompanied him to the station, and congratulated him upon his healthy and vigorous appearance, and the young man, in the consciousness of the possession of health, struck his breast, and said he was well, and he felt so.

[Sidenote: Attorney-General]

Well, he goes to Shrewsbury, and shortly afterwards came those matters to which I shall have to call your attention presently, more particularly that ended in his death. I want to know upon what part of this evidence there is the slightest pretence for saying that this man had any affection about him from which traumatic tetanus could ensue. It is said at some former time he had exhibited his throat to some of the witnesses who were called, and that he had applied to Palmer for some mercurial wash to apply to his throat, or some of those ulcers. The precise period of it is not fixed, but it is perfectly clear that though he had at one time adopted that course, under the recommendation of Dr. Savage, he had got rid of it; and there is not the slightest pretence for saying that this man was suffering under a syphilitic affection of any kind; nevertheless that fact was distinctly and unequivocally negatived by a man of the highest authority--a medical gentleman of eminence--under whose treatment the man got so rapidly well. That fact is assumed by the witnesses for the defence as the ground upon which to suggest that there was traumatic tetanus in this case. It is a pretence, gentlemen, which has not the shadow of a foundation, and which I should be shrinking from my duty if I did not denounce as altogether unworthy of your attention. There was nothing about the man, according to the statement of all those who were competent to give you an opinion, which would warrant for a single moment the supposition that there was anything in any part of the man’s body which could justify the notion of traumatic tetanus; even if there were, the character which his symptoms assumed when the tetanus set in is utterly incompatible, according to the evidence of all the witnesses, with a case of traumatic tetanus. One or two cases of traumatic tetanus have been adduced in evidence on the part of the defence. We had the case of a man who was brought to the London Hospital in the evening, and who died the same night. Yes, but what were the facts of that case? The facts are that he had had before he was brought in repeated paroxysms; that he felt premonitory symptoms early in the morning; he was suffering from ulcers of a most aggravated description; and that the symptoms had run their course, rapidly it is true, but still the disease was not a matter of minutes, but a matter of hours. There is no other case that I am aware of. There is the case of the boy who was brought in, if it be necessary to allude to it. But there again we have the disease existing for some time before it ends in death. It is a matter there again of hours, and not of minutes, and not a single paroxysm like this was observed. But it is then suggested that this may have been a case of idiopathic tetanus. Idiopathic tetanus proceeding from what? They say that Mr. Cook was a man of delicate constitution--subject to excitement--that he had something the matter with his chest--that in addition to having something the matter with his chest, he had this diseased condition of the throat--and, putting all these things together, they say that the man, if he took cold, might get idiopathic tetanus. We are launched into a sea of speculation and of possibilities. Mr. Nunneley, who comes forward here for the purpose of inducing you to believe that there was anything like idiopathic tetanus, goes through a bead-roll of the supposed infirmities of Mr. Cook and talks about his excitability--talks about his delicacy of chest--talks about the affection of his throat--goes through those various heads, and says that those things may have predisposed him to idiopathic tetanus if he took cold. What evidence is there that he ever did take cold? Not the slightest in the world. The man, from the beginning to the end of the symptoms, was never treated for cold by anybody, or ever complained that he had taken cold. I cannot help saying, to me it seems that it is a scandal upon a learned, a distinguished, and a liberal profession, that men should come forward and put forward such speculations as these, perverting the facts, and drawing from them sophistical and unwarranted conclusions with the view of deceiving a jury. I have the greatest respect for science--no man can have more; but I cannot repress my indignation and abhorrence when I see it thus perverted and prostituted to the purposes of a particular cause in a Court of justice. Do not talk to me about excitement, as Mr. Nunneley did the other day, being the occasion of idiopathic tetanus. You remember the sorts of excitement he spoke of. They are unworthy of your notice, and they were topics discreditable to be put forward by a witness as worthy of the attention of sensible men constituting such a tribunal as you are.

[Sidenote: Attorney-General]

But suppose for a single moment that excitement of this kind could produce any such effect or influence, where is the excitement manifested by Cook as leading to this supposed disease? They say that the man, when his mare won at Shrewsbury, was full of excitement; and well he might be--his fortunes depended upon the result of that race; and I do not deny for a few minutes he was overpowered by the emotions that the joy of the moment excited in his breast. But that subsided, and we have no further trace of it from that time to the moment of his death. The man passed the rest of the day with his friends in ordinary conversation and in ordinary enjoyment. No trace of emotion was left about him. He is taken ill; he goes to Rugeley; he is taken ill there again; is there the slightest symptom of excitement about the man, or, on the other hand, of depression? Not the slightest in the world. When he is ill, like most other people, he is low; but as soon as he gets a little better he is cheerful and happy; he admits his friends, and he converses with them; the very night of his death, so far from any excitement, his conversation is full of cheerfulness and mirth--he is laughing and happy, little thinking, poor wretch, of the fate that was impending over him. He is cheerful and happy, talking of the future, not in the language of excitement on the one hand, or of depression on the other. What pretence is there for this idle story of excitement and depression? Not the slightest shadow of foundation in the world. But if there were--if those things were capable of producing that form of tetanus which goes by the term “idiopathic,” the character of the disease is so essentially different that it is impossible to mistake the two. What are the cases which they attempt to set up against it? They have brought you the case of Mary Watson, which a gentleman came all the way from Scotland to tell us about. The girl had been ill all day. She was taken with cramps in the night, probably originating in the stomach, extending to all other parts of her body. She gets well in a very short time, and goes about her business. Is that case to be compared for a single instant to the death agony of that wretched man, and the paroxysm that destroyed him? Those are the sort of cases with which they attempt to meet such symptoms as those which are spoken to by the witnesses as accompanying the decease of Mr. Cook.

[Sidenote: Attorney-General]

Gentlemen, I venture, upon the evidence, to assert boldly that the cases of idiopathic tetanus and traumatic, or what I may call natural tetanus, are marked by clear and distinct characteristics, distinguishing them from the tetanus produced by strychnia; and I say that the tetanus which accompanied Mr. Cook’s death is not referable to either of those forms of tetanus. You have upon that point the evidence of witnesses of the highest competency and of the most unquestionable integrity; and upon their evidence I am quite satisfied you can come to no other conclusion but that this was not a case either of idiopathic or of traumatic tetanus. But, then, they say it may have been something else; and various attempts have been made to set up different causes as capable of producing this tetanic disease. And, first, we have the theory of general convulsions; and Mr. Nunneley, having gone through the bead-roll of the supposed infirmities of Mr. Cook, says, “Oh, this may have been a case of general convulsions. I have known general convulsions to assume a tetanic character.” “Well, but pause a moment, Mr. Nunneley, have you ever seen one single case in which death arising from general convulsions, accompanied with tetanic symptoms, has not ended in the unconsciousness of the patient before death!--No, I never knew such a case--not one. But in some book or other, I am told that there is some such case reported”; and he cites, not for that purpose, I think, but he cites, with reference to general convulsions being sometimes accompanied with tetanic symptoms, and ending in death, a very eminent author of the present day. I mean Dr. Copland. Dr. Copland is living, and Dr. Copland might have been called. The author of the book, I apprehend, would stand before you as a higher authority than a man who merely quotes the book as the foundation of his knowledge. Dr. Copland might have been called. Dr. Copland was not called, notwithstanding the challenge which I threw out. Why? Because it is infinitely better in such a case to call together from the east and from the west practitioners of more or less obscurity, instead of bringing to bear upon the subject the light of science which is treasured up in the breasts of the eminent practitioners with whom this great city abounds. Dr. Copland is not called; but I say, as regards general convulsions, the distinction is plain, that where they destroy the patient they destroy consciousness; and here it is unquestionably the fact, that to the last moment of Mr. Cook’s existence, until his burst heart ceased to beat, his consciousness remained.

[Sidenote: Attorney-General]

But then comes another supposed condition from which death in this form may be said to have resulted, and that is the case which was intended to be set up by a very eminent practitioner, I mean Mr. Partridge. It seems that in the post-mortem examination of Mr. Cook, when the spinal marrow was investigated, certain granules were found, and this is seized upon. It is said, “Oh, those granules may have occasioned tetanic convulsions similar to those which were found in Mr. Cook’s case,” and a very eminent gentleman is called to give his opinion upon that subject. I admit him to be not only a man of great eminence, but a man of the highest honour and the most perfect veracity. I allude to Mr. Partridge. I must distinguish between him and other of my learned friend’s witnesses. Some there were who would not be induced, for any consideration in the world, to swerve from what they believed to be the truth. Mr. Partridge is called here to prove that this was a case of what he called arachnitis--inflammation of the arachnoid in consequence of the granules, or some other abnormal condition. I asked him the symptoms which he would find in such a case. I called his attention to what evidently had not been done before, namely, the symptoms of Mr. Cook’s case; and I asked him, in simple, straightforward terms, whether, looking at those symptoms, he would pledge his opinion, in the face of the medical world and the Court, that this was a case of arachnitis, and he candidly admitted that he would not assert that this was in his opinion a case of arachnitis.

Then we have the gentleman who comes all the way from Scotland to inform us, as the next proposition, that Mr. Cook’s was a case of epileptic convulsions with tetanic complications. Now, I asked him this question, “Did you ever know a case of epilepsy, with or without tetanic convulsions, in which consciousness was not destroyed before the patient died?” He said, “No; I cannot say that I ever did, but I have read in some book that such a case has occurred.” “Is there anything to make you think that this was epilepsy?--Well, it may have been epilepsy, because I do not know what else to ascribe it to; but I must admit that epilepsy is characterised generally by a loss of consciousness.” “Well, then, what difference would tetanic complications make?” That he is unable to explain. I remind you of that species of evidence in which the witnesses resorted to the most speculative reasoning, and put forward the barest possibilities without the shadow of a foundation. But this I undertake to assert, and I refer to the evidence to prove it, that there is not a single case either to which they have spoken as coming within their own experience, or of which they have spoken as the result of reading, in which there were the formidable and decisive symptoms of marked tetanus which existed in this case of Mr. Cook.

[Sidenote: Attorney-General]

Having gone through this evidence, I think we have four sets of diseases--general convulsions, arachnitis, epilepsy proper, and epilepsy with tetanic complications. I expected that we had pretty well exhausted the whole of those scientific theories, but we were destined to have another that assumed the formidable name of angina pectoris. I do not know whether it struck you as remarkable that when my learned friend opened this case for the defence he never ventured to assert what would be the nature of the disease to which he would endeavour to refer the symptoms of Mr. Cook; and it must, I think, have struck you as a very remarkable thing that no less than four or five distinct and separate theories are set up by the witnesses who appear on the part of the defence--general convulsions, arachnitis, epilepsy with tetanic complications, and, lastly, angina pectoris. My learned friend had, however, this advantage in not stating to you what was the theory that his medical witnesses would endeavour to set up, because, one after another, I must admit they took me entirely by surprise. The gentleman who was called yesterday at the last moment, and who talked of angina pectoris, would not have escaped quite so easily if I had had the books to which he referred under my hand, and had been able to expose, as I would have done, the ignorance or the presumption of the assertion which he dared to make. I say ignorance or presumption, or, what is worse, an intention to deceive. I assert it in the face of the whole medical profession, and I am satisfied I shall have their verdict in my favour.

[Sidenote: Attorney-General]

But it is a fact which I am entitled to dwell upon, that all those medical witnesses, one and all, differed in the views which they take in this case. There is this remarkable coincidence between the views of some of them and the views of the witnesses whom I called--Mr. Partridge and Dr. Robinson, two of the most respectable witnesses they called, ay, and Dr. Letheby himself, strongly as he was biassed in favour of the defence, being three of the most eminent of the witnesses whom my learned friend brought forward, agreed with the statement made by Sir Benjamin Brodie, and supported by other witnesses whom I brought before you, that in the whole of their experience, in the whole range of their learning and information, they knew of no known disease to which the symptoms of Mr. Cook could possibly be referred. When such men as those tell us such a fact, I cannot but submit to you that it is impossible to exaggerate its importance. But, then, if it be the fact that no known disease can account for such symptoms as those of Mr. Cook, and that they are referable to poison alone, can any one entertain a doubt that that poison was the poison of strychnia? The symptoms, at all events from the time the paroxysm set in, are precisely the same. Distinctions are sought to be made by the subtlety of the witnesses for the defence between some of the antecedent symptoms and some of the appearances after death; but I think I shall show you beyond all possibility of contradiction, that those distinctions are imaginary, and have no foundation in fact. I think I may take this, however, along with me as I go on, that the witnesses called for the defence admit this fact, that from the time the paroxysm set in, of which Mr. Cook died, until the time of the death, the symptoms are precisely similar to the symptoms of tetanus from strychnia. But, then, they say, and this is worthy of your most attentive consideration, that there are points of difference which have led them to the conclusion, or some of them at all events, that those symptoms could not have resulted from strychnia. Let us see what they are. In the first place, they showed that the period which elapsed between the supposed administration of the poison and the first appearance of the symptoms was longer than they have ever observed in animals upon which they have experimented. Now, the first observation which arises there is this, that there is a known difference between animal and human life, in the power with which specific things act upon its organisation, and it may well be that the poison administered to a rabbit will produce its effect in a given time; it by no means follows that it will produce effect in the same time upon an animal of a different description, and still less does it follow that it will exercise its baneful influence in the same time upon a human subject. The whole of the evidence on both sides tends to establish this fact, that not only in individuals of different species, but between individuals of the same species, the same poison and the same dose will produce effects different in degree, different in duration, and different in power. But, again, it is perfectly notorious that the rapidity with which the poison begins to work depends materially upon the mode of its administration. If it is administered as a fluid, it acts with great rapidity; if it is administered in a solid state, its effects come on more slowly; and if it is administered in some indurated substance, it will act with still greater tardiness; and if that substance is difficult of solution, then the period will be still longer before the substance, having become dissolved, is acted upon by the absorbents and taken up into the system.

[Sidenote: Attorney-General]

Now, what was the period at which this poison began to act after its administration, assuming it to have been poison for the purpose of argument? It seems, from Mr. Jones’ statement, that the prisoner came and administered these pills; he saw him administer the pills somewhere about eleven o’clock, so that they were not administered upon his first arrival. The patient, as though with an instinctive sense of the peril which impended, strenuously resisted the attempt to make him take them, and no doubt those remonstrances and the endeavour to overcome them occupied some period of time. The pills at last were taken, and, assuming them to have contained strychnia (which I only do now for the purpose of argument), how soon did they begin to operate? Mr. Jones says he went down after this and had his supper, and came back about twelve o’clock. Upon his return to the room, after a word or two of conversation with Cook, he proceeded to undress and go to bed; and he had not been in bed ten minutes before the warning came that another of these paroxysms was about to take place. The maid-servants put it still earlier; they say that about ten minutes before twelve the first alarm was given, which would make the interval little more than three-quarters of an hour from the taking of the pills and the first manifestation of the symptoms. When, therefore, my learned friend’s witnesses tell us that it took an hour and a half or two hours, we have here another of those exaggerated determinations to see the facts only in the way that will make most for the view which they think proper to put forward. I say it certainly was not more than an hour, and I find in some of the experiments that have been made that the duration of time before which the poison began to work has been little less, if any less, than an hour. Mr. Morley, who is as much entitled to your attention as Mr. Nunneley--indeed, when I contrast the way in which the two men gave their evidence, I am paying him but a poor compliment when I say that he is as worthy of attention as Mr. Nunneley--Mr. Morley says in his evidence that five or six minutes, or something less than an hour, is the period which he observed the poison required to produce its effects upon animals, and in every one of the cases which we have got it will be seen that more than an hour was necessary. In the case of the girl at Glasgow, though I see the medical gentleman speaks of twenty minutes when he was called in, he could have only had that information from the statement of some of the people about. I see the nurse says it was three-quarters of an hour before the pills began to work upon the girl. There may have been some cause for the pills not beginning to take effect within a certain time after their administration; it would be very easy to mix them with some substance that should render them difficult of solution; nay, which might retard their action. I cannot for a single moment bring myself to believe, if in all other respects you are perfectly satisfied that the symptoms, the consequences, and effects were analogous and similar to those produced by strychnia, it is not because those pills may have taken a quarter of an hour or a longer time to manifest their working, it is not on that account you will hesitate to come to the conclusion that strychnia was administered in this case. But then they say, yes, but the premonitory symptoms were wanting here. They tell us in animals they observed that the animal manifests first some uneasiness, shrinks, and gathers itself into itself, as it were, avoids movement, and then certain involuntary twitchings about the head come, those being the premonitory symptoms before the paroxysms set in. They say there were no premonitory symptoms in Cook’s case; I utterly deny that proposition--I say there were premonitory symptoms of the most marked character, though he did not describe them in language. He is lying in bed--he suddenly starts up in an agony of alarm. What made him do that? Was there nothing premonitory, nothing that warned him that the paroxysm was coming? It is clear there must have been. He jumps up in his bed, and says, “Fetch me Palmer, I am going to be ill, as I was last night.” What was it but that he knew the symptoms that attended him on the previous evening were now warning him of what he might expect in a short period, unless succour could be obtained? He sits up, and he prays to have his neck rubbed. What was the feeling about the neck but a premonitory symptom which was to precede the paroxysm which presently supervened? He says, “Rub my neck, it gives me comfort to have it done.”

[Sidenote: Attorney-General]

But here again they take exception, and they say this could not have been tetanus from strychnia, because animals cannot bear to be touched; a touch brings on the paroxysm; not only a touch but a breath of air, a sound, a word, a movement of any one near, will bring on a recurrence of the paroxysm. True; but that is after the paroxysm has once been set up, or when it is just about to begin. It is quite clear that those witnesses who come and say that the fact of Mr. Cook having desired to have his neck rubbed is a fact to prove that this could not be a death from tetanus, have either wilfully suppressed the knowledge in their own minds of the evidence they had heard, or they had paid no attention to it; because in two cases of death from strychnia we have shown the patient endured the touching of the limbs, and found satisfaction from it. In Mrs. Smyth’s case, when her legs were distorted, in the agony of the convulsion she prayed and entreated to have them straightened; she found no additional pain from that operation. The lady at Leeds, in the case which Mr. Nunneley himself attended, implored her husband, between the spasms, to rub her legs and her arms, in order to overcome and subdue their rigidity. That case was under his own knowledge, and, in spite of it, although he detected afterwards strychnia in the body of that unhappy woman, he dares to come forward here and say that the fact of Mr. Cook having before the paroxysm tolerated rubbing, and found comfort in it, proves that this could not have been a death from strychnia. What think you of the honesty of such a witness? But there is a third case, which is the case of Mr. Clutterbuck, spoken to by Mr. Moore. That gentleman had taken an overdose of strychnia, and he suffered from all the pains of tetanus; his only comfort was having his limbs rubbed; and therefore, I say, to contend and to endeavour to persuade a jury that the fact of Cook’s having had his neck rubbed proved that this was not tetanus from strychnia, proves, I say, nothing but the dishonesty and insincerity of the witnesses who can dare to put forward such a pretence.

But, then, they go further, and they say that Mr. Cook was able to swallow. So he was, before the paroxysm came on. Nobody ever pretended that he could swallow after the paroxysm came on. He swallowed the pills, and, what is very curious, and, as they think, bears out and illustrates a part of their theory, is this. It was the act of attempting to swallow the pills--the sort of movement that must have taken place in raising his head and neck for the purpose--that immediately brings on the violent paroxysm of which he died. So far from that in the slightest degree militating against the supposition that this was a case of poisoning by strychnia, it is strongly and decisively conclusive in its favour.

[Sidenote: Attorney-General]

But then they take us to the appearances after death, and they say that there are circumstances to be found which militate against this being a case of strychnia poisoning. Let us see what they are. In the first place, they say the limbs became rigid either at the time of death or immediately after, and that ought not to be found in a case of tetanus from strychnia. Mr. Nunneley says, “In all cases upon which I have experimented I have found the animals become flaccid before death, and they do not become again rigid after it.” I can hardly believe that statement, and I certainly was not a little surprised when the very next witness who got into the box (Mr. Herapath, of Bristol) told us he had made two experiments upon cats, and killed them both. He described them as “indurated and contorted.” Those were his expressions when he found them some hours after death. The presence of rigidity in the body at or immediately after death here is put forward on the part of Mr. Nunneley as one of the grounds upon which he says this was not a death by strychnia, although Dr. Taylor had told us that in the case of one of the cats he killed the rigidity after death was such that upon taking the animal by the hind legs and holding it up in the air, the body maintained its horizontal natural position, as though the animal had been upon its four legs upon a plain surface. Notwithstanding that evidence, Mr. Nunneley had the audacity to say that he did not believe this was a case of poisoning by strychnia, because there had been rigidity of the limbs--because the feet were distorted, the hands clenched, and the muscles rigid as the unhappy man exhibited prior to his death. The very next witness called upon the other side produced two instances in which the animals were indurated from one end of their bodies to the other. As he says they were contorted in all their limbs, and so they remained, it shows what you are to think of the honesty of this sort of evidence, in which facts are selected because they make in favour of the particular hypothesis of the party who brings them forward.

[Sidenote: Attorney-General]

Then the next thing that is said is that the heart in this case was empty. In the animals Mr. Nunneley and Dr. Letheby have operated upon I think the heart has been found full. I do not think that applies to all the cases; I think they make some exceptions; and, as I said at the outset, it is a remarkable fact connected with the history of this particular poison, that you never can rely upon the precise form or order which the symptoms before death and the appearances after it will assume. There are only certain great, leading, marked characteristic features--the collateral incidents are capable of infinite variety. We have here the main marked characteristic features, and we have, what is more, collateral incidents similar to the cases in which the administration of strychnia and the fact that death was caused by it are beyond the possibility of dispute. In the very evidence which has been adduced of two cases of poisoning, Mrs. Smyth’s and the Glasgow girl, in both the heart had been found contracted and emptied; and it is obvious to any one who reflects for a single moment that the question whether the heart shall be found congested or the lungs congested must depend upon the immediate cause of death, and we know that in cases of tetanus death may result from more than one cause. All the muscles of the body are subject to the exciting action of this powerful poison, but no one can tell in what order those muscles will be affected, or where the poisonous influence will put forth the fulness of its power. If it act upon the respiratory muscles, and arrest the play of the lungs, and with it the breathing of atmospheric air, the result will be that the heart will be left full; but if some spasm seizes on the heart, contracting it and expelling from it the blood that it contains, and so produces death, why the result will be that the heart will be found empty, and the other vessels gorged with blood. So that you have never perfect certainty as to how those symptoms will manifest themselves after death; but that is again put forward as if the fact of the heart having been found empty is a conclusive fact against death having in this case taken place from strychnia. Yet those men who came here to make those statements as witnesses under the sanction of scientific authority must have heard both those cases spoken to by the medical gentlemen who examined those two unfortunate patients after death, and who told us that in both cases the heart was found empty. That gets rid of that matter. And so again with regard to the congestion of the brain and other vessels the same observation applies. If instead of being killed by the action of the poison upon the respiratory muscles or by its action upon the heart, death is the result of a long series of paroxysms exhausting the vital power of the victim, then you expect to find the brain and other vessels congested by those series of convulsions and spasms. As death takes place from one or other of those causes, so will be the appearance of the heart, the brain, and the body after death. There is nothing, I say, in this for a single moment to negative the conclusion which you would otherwise arrive at from the symptoms which appeared in this man’s body at the time of his death and immediately afterwards--that those are the symptoms of tetanus of the strongest and most aggravated kind; that is a proposition about which, I think, you can entertain no doubt. If so, are they referable to tetanus of any other description? Certainly not; because, as Sir Benjamin Brodie told you, the course of the symptoms is marked by characteristics of unquestionable difference.

[Sidenote: Attorney-General]

Is it not then preposterous to contend that this was not a case of tetanus? And if every one of the distinctions they have attempted to set up I show you to have really nothing to do with the case (because I produce you at once an undoubted case in which the administration of strychnia is beyond the reach of question, in which those particular symptoms and appearances were manifested and observed) I get rid at once of all those vain, futile attempts to distinguish this case, either in its premonitory symptoms or in the appearances either before or upon post-mortem examination. I get rid of all those difficulties, and I come back to the symptoms which attended this unhappy man’s demise. I ask whether you can doubt that, when I have excluded all those cases of tetanic convulsions, epilepsy, and arachnitis, or angina pectoris, which occurred, you recollect, in a young girl after an attack of scarlet fever--in all human probability the scarlet fever had been thrown back upon the system, and had produced all those consequences--when I exclude all those cases, and then, lastly, exclude traumatic or idiopathic tetanus, what remains? The tetanus of strychnia, and the tetanus of strychnia only. I pray your attention to the cases of which evidence has been given, in which there was no question as to strychnia having been administered, there not being the shadow of a doubt about it, and in which the circumstances were so similar, and the symptoms so analogous, that I think you cannot hesitate to come to the conclusion that this was death by strychnia. Medical witnesses of the highest authority, both on the part of the Crown and on the part of the defence, agree that in the whole range of their experience and knowledge they know of no natural disease to which these remarkable symptoms can be referred. If that be so, and there is a known poison that will produce them, how strong, how cogent, how irresistible becomes the inference that to that poison, and to that poison alone, are those symptoms and this death to be ascribed!

[Sidenote: Attorney-General]

Nevertheless, gentlemen, on the other hand, the case is not without its difficulties; and I will not shrink from the discussion of them, nor from the candid recognition of these difficulties, so far as they in reality exist. Strychnia was not found in this body; and we have it, no doubt upon strong evidence, that in a variety of experiments which have been tried upon the bodies of animals killed by strychnia, strychnia has been detected by the tests which science places at the disposition of scientific men. If strychnia had been found, of course there would have been no difficulty, and we should have had none of the ingenious theories which gentlemen from a variety of parts have been brought forward to propound in this Court. The question for your consideration is, whether the absence of its detection leads conclusively to the view that this death could not have been caused by the administration of that poison. Now, in the first place, under what circumstances was the examination made of which Dr. Taylor and Dr. Rees have spoken? They tell you that when the stomach of this man was brought to them for the purpose of analysis, it was presented to them under the most unfavourable circumstances. They say that its contents had been lost, and that they had no opportunity of experimenting upon them. It is very true that those who put up the jar make a statement somewhat different. They say that the contents of the stomach were emptied into the jar, but there appears (at all events I will not put it higher than accident), by accident, to have been some spilling of the contents; and there is, I think, the clearest and most undeniable evidence of very considerable bungling in the way in which the stomach was cut, and the way in which it was emptied into the jar. It was cut from end to end, says Dr. Taylor. It was tied up at both ends; it had been turned inside out into the contents of the intestines, and lay there in a mass of fœculent matter, and was therefore in a condition the most unsatisfactory for analysis and experiment. It is very true that the witnesses upon the other side--Mr. Nunneley, Mr. Herapath, and Dr. Letheby--say that, no matter how contaminated or how mixed with impurities, they would have been able to ascertain the presence of strychnia in the stomach, if strychnia ever had been there. I own I should have more confidence in the testimony of those witnesses if their partiality and partisanship had not been so much marked as they are. I should have more confidence in the testimony of Mr. Herapath if he had not been constrained to admit to me a fact which had come to my knowledge, that he has again and again asserted that this case was a case of poisoning by strychnia, but that Dr. Taylor had not known how to find it out--he admits that that is a statement he has again and again made.

Mr. SERJEANT SHEE--It was in the newspapers, he said.

[Sidenote: Attorney-General]

Mr. ATTORNEY-GENERAL--He did not venture to say that the newspaper statement in any way differed from the fact which he admitted in this Court. I have seen that gentleman not merely contenting himself with coming forward, when called upon for the purposes of justice, to state that which he knew as a matter of science or of experiment, but I have seen him mixing himself up as a thoroughgoing partisan in this case, advising my learned friend, suggesting question upon question, and that in behalf of a man whom he has again and again asserted he believed to be a poisoner by strychnia. I do not say that alters the fact; but I do say that it induces one to look at the credit of those witnesses with a very great amount of suspicion. I reverence a man who, from a sense of justice and a love of truth--from those high considerations which form the noblest elements in the character of man--comes forward in favour of a man against whom the world may run in a torrent of prejudice and aversion, and who stands and states what he believes to be the truth; but I abhor the traffic in testimony to which I regret to say men of science sometimes permit themselves to condescend. I ask you therefore to look at the statements of those witnesses with dispassionate consideration before you attach implicit credit to them. But let me assume that all they say is true, that it is the fact that they in their experiments have succeeded in discovering strychnia when mixed with other impurities, and contaminated, no matter by what cause--they say that no extent of putrefaction, no amount of decomposition, will alter the character of that vegetable matter, so that it may not be detected if it is in the human stomach. Be it so. But then must it always be found in every case where death has ensued? Professor Taylor says no; and he says it would be a most dangerous and mischievous proposition to assert that that must necessarily be so--that it would enable many a guilty man to escape who, by administering the smallest quantity whereby life can be affected and destroyed, might by that means prevent the possibility of the detection of the poison in the stomach of the individual. All the witnesses seem to agree in this, or, at all events, the great bulk of them agree in this, that the poison acts after it has been absorbed into the system; taken up by the absorbents of the stomach, it is carried into the blood; passing by means of the circulation through the tissues, it is deposited there; at some stage or other of its progress it affects the nervous system; and as soon as the nerves affecting the muscles of motion become influenced by its baneful power, then come on those muscular spasms and convulsions of which we have heard so much. If the minimum dose be given, and that operates by absorption, it is perfectly clear--and must be clear--that the whole must be taken up by absorbents and pass into the blood, and that none therefore will be found in the stomach. Nay, a further proposition is also clear. If it is necessary that it should be first passed by means of the circulation into the solid tissues of the body, before it acts upon the nervous system, it will cease to be found in the blood. Again, a portion of it, if in excess, will be eliminated in the kidneys, and pass off in watery excretion. You do not know, therefore, in what part of the human body to put your hand upon it. But this is undoubtedly the fact, if there has been an excess over the quantity necessary to destroy the life of a particular individual, then, as soon as the absorbents have taken up the necessary quantity, the nervous system will at once be affected and life destroyed; you will find the excess in the stomach, if you adopt the proper means of seeking for it. Now, what did these gentlemen do? They gave never less than a grain--often as much as two grains; and yet we now know that a quarter of a grain is enough to destroy a small animal like a rabbit, and that no man could venture to hope for life who took half a grain or three-quarters of a grain of it. Therefore in the cases of their experiments, and experiments made, allow me to say, for the purpose of this case, after those parties had been retained--I use the word “retained,” for it is the appropriate word; no parties can be more thoroughgoing partisans than scientific men who have once taken up a case--after they have been retained for this case, and desire that their experiments should have a certain result, they take good care to have doses large enough to leave a small portion in the stomach. But be this as it may, I have only now to deal with the experiments of Professor Taylor and Dr. Rees; they may, for aught I know, be a pair of bunglers; it is no part of my business to uphold them if their professional reputation will not do it; but they tell us that they tried its effects upon four animals of the same species with fully adequate doses. Where they administered two grains they reproduced the poison in abundance; where they administered one grain they found a small indication of it; and when they administered half a grain to two rabbits they found no traces of the poison at all. It may well be that that may result, as Mr. Herapath says, from Professor Taylor not knowing the right way of going about it. It may be, if Mr. Herapath had had the stomach under his more scientific manipulation, he would have produced the strychnia. It is enough for my purpose when, as I show, the man who did in this case experiment upon the stomach of Mr. Cook, in two cases out of four when he had given a smaller dose to rabbits failed to reproduce the poison. What is the conclusion I draw from it? Why, that although I cannot have the advantage here which the positive detection of the strychnia would have afforded if it had been found, there is no room for the opposite conclusion--the converse of the proposition for which my learned friend and his witnesses contend--that the fact of the strychnia not having been reproduced or discovered affords negative conclusive proof that the death was not produced by strychnia. I have no positive proof on the one hand, but on the other hand my learned friend is in the same predicament--he cannot say that he has negative proof conclusive of the fact of this death not having taken place by strychnia.

[Sidenote: Attorney-General]