from which about five drachms of the medicinal prussic acid had been taken, and which was corked and wrapped in paper. There naturally arose a question, whether the deceased, after drinking the poison out of such a vessel, could, before becoming insensible, have time to cork up the phial, wrap it up, and adjust the bed-clothes?[1] To settle this point, experiments were made at the request of the judge, by Mr. Macaulay, Mr. Paget, and several other medical men of Leicester; and on the trial they, with the exception of Mr. Paget, gave it as their opinion, founded on the experiments, that the supposed acts of volition, although within the bounds of possibility, were in the highest degree improbable. The chief experiments were three in number, from which it appeared that one dog was killed with four drachms in eight seconds, another with four drachms in seven seconds, and another with four drachms and a half in three seconds; but in other experiments the interval was greater.—For these particulars I am indebted to Mr. Macaulay.
In the first edition of this work I expressed my concurrence with the majority of the witnesses. But some facts, which came subsequently under my notice, led me to think that this concurrence was given rather too unreservedly. I still adhere so far to my original views as to think it improbable that, if the deceased, after swallowing the poison, had time to cork the phial, wrap it in paper, pull up the bed-clothes, and place the bottle at her side, the progress of the symptoms could have been so rapid and the convulsions so slight, as to occasion no disorder in the appearance of the body and the bed-clothes,—and I still likewise think, that after swallowing so large a dose it was improbable she could have performed all the successive acts of volition mentioned above—with ordinary deliberation. But I am informed on good authority, that some gentlemen interested in the case found by actual trial, that all the acts alluded to might be accomplished, if gone about with promptitude, within the short period, which, in some of their experiments, the witnesses found to elapse, before the action of the poison commenced. And such being the fact, we ought not perhaps to attach too great importance to the other argument I have employed,—the probability of disorder in the body and bed-clothes from the convulsions; for if the poisoning commenced very soon, the convulsions might have been slight. The results of my own experiments related in p. 582, although on the whole confirmatory of those of Mr. Macaulay and his colleagues, are never-*. I have nevertheless thought it right to retain my original statement of the evidence, as it was derived from what I still consider the best authority,—the medical witness, who mentions the special fact on which he founded the most important, indeed the only important professional opinion in the case, and to which therefore his attention must have been more pointedly turned than that of any Law-Reporter. The Report alluded to by Professor Amos was afterwards published in the Medical Gazette, viii. 759.]
- ↑ Professor Amos of the London University, in criticizing in his Lectures what I have said of this case in the first edition of the present work, has accused me of misstating the evidence, and grounds the charge on a Report by a professional Reporter, where no notice is taken of the phial having been wrapped up in paper, or of the bed-clothes having been pulled up to the chin, or of the arms being crossed over the trunk [Lond. Med. Gazette, viii. 577
