Page:Medical jurisprudence (IA medicaljurisprud03pari).pdf/477

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A. I really don't know that they are.

Q. I do not mean to give you any offence, but I beg leave to ask whether you have been much used to anatomical dissection?

A. I have been as far as persons not particularly intended for anatomical pursuits—I am not a professor of anatomy.

Q. Did you ever attend the dissection of a human body that was poisoned, or suspected to have been poisoned?

A. Never.

Q. From the external appearances of the different parts of the body you draw no kind of conclusion or inference, and form no opinion?

A. No, I don't form any strong opinion from them.

Q. How were the appearances when the cavity of the abdomen was opened?

A. I have described them in general.

Q. Not being an anatomical man it has slipped my memory, will you please to repeat it?

A. I believe I did not before mention the omentum or caul, that was suffused with blood of a brownish red, the stomach and bowels appeared in general red, which is vulgarly called an inflammation.

Q. Might not that be owing to a transfusion of the blood?

Dr. Rattray. From what cause?

Mr. Newnham. From putrefaction.

Dr. Rattray. Do you, by a transfusion of the blood, mean the passage of the blood from the arteries into the veins?

Mr. Newnham. Yes.

Dr. Rattray. I cannot think it could arise from putrefaction.

Q. That is your opinion?

A. It is.

Q. Did you look at the stomach?

A. Yes.

Q. As Sir Theodosius Boughton is represented to have died in a few minutes after taking this medicine, did you with correctness and attention examine the stomach?

A. The contents of the stomach were about a spoonful