So far, so good; then the egregious Professor Taylor mounted into the witness box. He had at first diagnosed antimony as the cause of death, though discovering only half a grain, which is no more than most of us healthy modern men carry about in our vitals, without trouble or hazard. He conveyed this opinion to Mr Gardiner in the letter which Cheshire, the Rugeley Postmaster, intercepted and opened at Dr Palmer's request; but hearing then that Cook had been overcome by a convulsion shortly before he died, and that Dr Palmer had bought the strychnia from Messrs Hawkins's shop, the Professor changed his mind. Death, he now decided, must have resulted from strychnine poisoning, because the human body can absorb up to sixty grains of antimony and suffer no fatal consequences. To us this seems a non sequitur. As a wag has put it:
In antimony, great though his faith,
The quantity found being small,
Taylor's faith in strychnine was yet greater,
For of that he found nothing at all.
When Professor Taylor laid stress on this negative evidence, the Lord Chief Justice remarked, with a challenging look at Serjeant Shee: 'Of course, upon this the whole defence rests.' Since it had yet to be proved that Cook did not die of natural causes, the absence of strychnia in the organs examined struck many judicious persons as a most feasible defence! But Professor Taylor led the hanging-party with the contention: 'Though no strychnia was found, it would be very improper to believe that none had been administered.' 'Then why trouble to analyze for strychnia?' some asked, 'if its presence and its absence may alike point to its having caused death?' Others remembered the Professor's strange message, unwarrantably presuming murder, which he addressed to a daily newspaper some weeks before the trial: 'Society demands a victim in this case!' They commented: 'We may legitimately doubt whether Dr Palmer fell a victim to the demands of society in general, rather than to those of the race-horse owners whom he had dishonoured, and the insurance-company shareholders whom he had defrauded. But certain it is that British Justice has likewise fallen a victim.'
The Professor's admission on his volte-face deserves particular scrutiny. A plain question was put to him: 'Can you say upon your oath that, from the traces of antimony found in Cook's body, you were justified in concluding death to have been caused by this poison?' He answered: 'Yes, perfectly and distinctly.' We fail to see what sophistical process can divest so direct, so positive, and so unqualified a statement of its simple meaning. Professor Taylor did believe that Cook died from the effects of antimony; and he arrived at that belief not merely from finding slight traces of the poison in Cook's remains, but from the reports given him of Cook's vomitings and convulsions. Then, when a new light shone within, and the claims of strychnia made him a renegade, his rational powers were severely taxed to satisfy the needs of this sudden change. He knew well that the healthiness of Cook's brain was quite inconsistent with strychnine poisoning; and that so was the length of time-one and a half hours-between the alleged administration of the strychnine pills and the tetanic paroxysms. Yet, for the jury, his total conversion from antimony to strychnia seemed a proof that here was an honest man who cheerfully admitted former error.
Let us now briefly summarize and compare some of the theories and views held by the medical witnesses.
Dr Monckton's post-mortem examination of Cook's spinal cord revealed the presence of certain granules, which he read as indicating organic disease. Dr Devonshire and Dr Harland, it appears, had discounted them during the preliminary examination; and at the trial several shades of opinion marked the medical evidence on 'this head. For instance, Dr Todd, physician at King's College Hospital, asserted that such granules would be unlikely to produce tetanus; while Professor Partridge, who lectures on anatomy at the same College, quoted cases where they had heralded fatal attacks of tetanus. Professor Nunnely of the Leeds School of Medicine, Dr Macdonald of the Royal College of Surgeons at Edinburgh, and Dr Robinson of the Newcastle-on-Tyne Fever Hospital, confidently supported Professor Partridge. Other doctors, however, saw in the granules no sufficient cause to produce either tetanus or death.
Dr Todd held that the state of a person suffering from tetanus is identical with that induced by strychnine poisoning-an opinion roundly rejected by all other witnesses for the Crown. Dr Harland remarked that, though he found the spinal cord softened, this condition would not cause tetanus; and, so far as he knew, no disease of the spinal cord could do so. Then young, plain-speaking Mr Devonshire declared that tetanic convulsions do result from derangements of the spinal cord; but was dismissed by Mr Baron Alderson as an ignoramus. Sir Benjamin Brodie, no less skilled a physician than he is cautious of his opinions, would not commit himself here; and Professor Alfred Taylor, though holding that strychnia acts on the spinal cord, also seemed to be in the dark on this subject.
Nor was there agreement about muscular rigidity after death. Dr Monckton stated that Cook's muscles were not more rigid than is usual; Dr Francis Taylor of Romsey, that distortion from rigidity generally continues when death has supervened; Professor Taylor, that it sometimes does. Professor Nunnely related that, in two cases of strychnine poisoning which had come to his attention, there was no such rigidity.
That epileptic convulsions occasionally assume tetanic features was a doctrine held by Dr Jones of Lutterworth and others; Dr Macdonald, Dr Robinson, and Dr Richardson (a London physician) concurred in saying that this is invariably the case.
Cook had suffered from locked-jaw, according to Elizabeth Mills's new evidence; but locked-jaw, as a primary symptom of tetanus, was another dogma that invited dispute. Nearly all cases commence with locked-jaw, said Dr Curling, Surgeon to the London Hospital; and Dr Todd agreed that it is an early symptom; but Dr Macdonald contradicted all his colleagues by testifying that locked-jaw is generally a late symptom.
Cook had suffered from an ulcerated throat, and that ulcerations cause tetanus was yet another theory productive of no little discord. Dr Curling quoted two such cases from the records of the London Hospital; Sir Benjamin Brodie, however, had never heard of tetanus proceeding from ulcers or sores.
Opinion was also divided on the question of Cook's heart, which had contained no blood. Dr Todd observed that the heart is rarely full after death by strychnine poisoning. Sir Benjamin Brodie could not say whether it would be full or not. Dr Morley asserted that it is generally very full.
Cook had shrieked on the Sunday night. Shrieking, as a special symptom accompanying attacks of convulsions, found no greater identity of views.
Cook had remained conscious to the end. Dr Solly, of St Thomas's Hospital, stated that epileptic convulsions are not always attended with want of consciousness; Professor Nunnely agreed with him. Dr Robinson and others, on the contrary, asserted that consciousness is lost in almost every instance.
What do we learn from The Times report on the subject of paroxysms and the several causes that stimulate them? Dr Corbett, the Glasgow physician, denies that touching produces paroxysms in cases of strychnine poisoning. Dr Morley of Leeds asserts that they are so induced. Professors Taylor and Letheby, opposed on so many points, agree that the very slightest touch or exertion induces paroxysms, and that the symptoms of strychnine poisoning are: irritability, aversion to touch, noise, light, or currents of cool air; also dilated pupils, with continuous twitchings and jerkings. But the intolerance to touch, they say, is the truly diagnostic, the leading symptom, and touch invariably produces paroxysms. Yet Cook had rung the bell, and suffered no paroxysm in consequence. He had, moreover, invited Dr Jones to rub his neck; and Dr Bamford deposed to having gently applied his hand to Cook's abdomen without occasioning the least discomfort or paroxysm.
'Asphyxia,' Dr Curling rules, 'does not produce death in these cases.' Professor Taylor states exactly the opposite. Dr Todd here differs from Professor Taylor, and supports Dr Curling. Professor Christison of Edinburgh University thinks that death may arise from asphyxia, but leaves the question open.
Cook's attacks, which in each case occurred at midnight, after a day comfortably spent, were attributed by some doctors to tetanus. Drs Todd and Watson hold that the symptoms of tetanus are intermittent; Professor Christison and Sir Benjamin Brodie insist that they are continuous.
On the question of what immediately caused death, we find a grand mělée of disputants. Their arguments and counterarguments fog every uninitiated mind, and damp all hope of reaching a just verdict. We are left with one consolation only-that we never ourselves won a professorship in a science offering facilities for such profound discord!
That Cook died of strychnine poisoning is affirmed by Professors Taylor, Brodie, Rees, and Christison; and Drs Todd, Daniel and Solly. Here are seven eminences on one side. That Cook died of some other cause is affirmed by Professors Rodgers (of the St George's School of Medicine), Partridge, Letheby, Herapath, and Nunnely; also by Drs Macdonald, Robinson, Bamford, Jones, Bainbridge of St Martin's Work House, and Richardson of, we believe, Stepney. Thus eleven eminences range themselves in opposition. Eleven more venture no opinion at all.
The jury perhaps drew inspiration from the modern proverb 'The minority are always in the right', for to make any choice based on a clear perception that the seven strychnine-minded doctors had incontestably proved their case, leaving the eleven champions of natural causes to wander in the illusive moonshine of gratuitous speculation, was as far beyond the power of this stolid jury as it was to raise John Parsons Cook from the dead. Yet somehow the Lord Chief Justice expected the atmosphere of science, murky from the vapours of twenty-nine discursive intellects, to be irradiated and resolved into a pure sky of truth by the miraculous intervention of twelve respectable traders!
In what way were the opinions of the Crown's medical witnesses to be judged sounder than those held by the opposite side? Not one of the seven had ever seen a single case of strychnine poisoning in the human subject-some had never even witnessed an experiment on animal life-and several confessed to but very limited experience of simple tetanus. Yet no less than three of the medical witnesses called by the Defence had been present at numerous post-mortem examinations, where death had been admittedly due to strychnia. Professor Nunnely, the target of so much of the Attorney-General's abuse and the victim of the Lord Chief Justice's privileged, courteous insults, had made post-mortem examinations of two persons carried off by this poison; had experimented with strychnine on forty animals; and with other poisons on two thousand more; thus claiming a body of experimental research one hundredfold greater than that possessed by all the other doctors and professors together. Nevertheless, his evidence was spoken of by the Prosecution in terms well calculated to excite contempt.
Professors Taylor and Rees, called for the Crown, pronounced that the fiftieth part of a grain of strychnia cannot be detected. Yet Professor Herapath of the Bristol Medical School, and Professor Letheby, Medical Officer of Health to the City of London, stated for the Defence that the fifty-thousandth part can!
Professor Taylor's testimony was, without doubt, the mainspring acting so powerfully on the minds of the jury. Some twenty-three years ago, he had experimented with strychnia on twelve wild rabbits-'which is the only personal knowledge that I have of strychnia, as it affects animal life'-but had never seen any human being exposed to its influence. And 'though I met a case of tetanus in the human subject years ago, I have not had much experience in such matters.' He constantly failed to detect the presence of strychnia after poisoning animals, even when the dose was as much as a grain and a half; and had never thought to conduct experiments on dogs or cats, though they resemble man far more closely in that they vomit, whereas rabbits do not. Professor Taylor has published The Principles and Practice of Medical Jurisprudence-in part a treatise on poisons-and there one may find listed experimental facts and the reports of several deaths by strychnia. But none of this is the product of his own research-the Professor's light shines with borrowed rays, like the deceptive Moon.
Of Sir Benjamin Brodie little need or can be said. Though he had considerable experience of tetanus, he also excelled in tact and avoided any positive statement that could contradict other people's opinions, qualifying his evidence with such phrases as 'according to my knowledge', 'so far as I have seen', 'at least so it has been in my experience', 'I believe I remember cases'-and so forth. He took the safe course of a man who, being himself benighted, will not pretend to set a neighbour's foot on the right path. But Professor Taylor's forthright evidence was even at variance with itself. In reply to the question: 'Were the symptoms and appearances in Cook's case the same as those you have observed in the animals which you poisoned with strychnia?' he declared: 'They were.' Yet he had repeatedly laid down that no prognosis of the symptoms likely to ensue from the human consumption of strychnia can rest on those observed in lower animals similarly poisoned; so that even his youthful experiments with rabbits were irrelevant here.
To quote a tithe of the evidence on the above subjects would protract our comment far beyond convenient limits. Indeed, we find so much that is criticizable in the evidence, the addresses of Counsel, and the charge to the jury, that our own patience as well as that of our readers would soon suffer exhaustion. However, a letter written to The Times by F. Crage Calvert, Esq., F.C.C., a Cheshire chemist, about his discovery of strychnia in the bodies of several wilfully poisoned hounds-at least three weeks after death-convinces us that Professor Taylor's theory of 'perfect absorption' is quite fallacious. So does another written to the same newspaper by Professor Herapath, the greatest analytic chemist now alive among us, whom the Attorney-General browbeat and flustered during the trial. He once found strychnia in a fox dead for over two months.
How Professor Herapath came to be subpoenaed by the Prosecution is a curious story. According to an anonymous letter received by the Crown lawyers from Keynsham in Somersetshire, the Professor had publicly declared: 'I have no doubt that there was strychnia in Cook's body, but Professor Taylor could not find it.' Professor Herapath was known to be at loggerheads with Professor Taylor, whom he looked upon as an ignorant theorist, and seems to have incautiously made some such remark to Mr Twining, the Mayor of Bristol, and a party of his friends. It was, however, based on partial newspaper accounts of the case, including a most inaccurate one printed by The Illustrated Times. This anonymous letter also reported him as saying: 'A word from me would hang that man!'-yet the remark was, in effect, made by Mr Twining. The Attorney-General eagerly seized on Professor Herapath's observation which he had read as meaning that strychnine might evade the analysis of even the most experienced analyst; whereas, in truth, the Professor had merely referred to Professor Taylor's incompetence. At the trial, the Attorney-General realized his mistake, and was skilful enough to repair it with Pharisaic ingenuity by entangling Professor Herapath in his talk.
If we may give our studied opinion for what it is worth, founding it upon that of Mr John Robinson, the well-known lecturer on Medical Jurisprudence, and others, equally distinguished, we will say that the sore on Cook's body-where, according to the evidence, excoriation of a syphilitic scar had been rubbed off-was well capable of inducing tetanus, especially in one who frequented stables; for stables breed the disease. To this we will, however, add that the nightly recurrence of Cook's attacks rather suggests an obscure nervous disorder-'epileptic convulsions with tetanic symptoms', as Dr Bamford called it-which, in his weakened state, Cook could not resist. Dr Palmer, in all probability; had assisted this weakness, for a felonious object, possibly by introducing tartar emetic into Cook's toast-and-water; but never, we are convinced, did he foresee or desire that it should have a fatal ending.
It may be objected that epilepsy seldom makes its first appearance in mature persons and that, if Cook had previously experienced epileptic seizures, this fact would surely have come out in the trial. But such epileptic seizures as occur only late at night, when the patient is suffering from gastric disturbances, or has worked himself up to an anxious frame of mind, often escape general remark; and if Dr Jones, a capable physician and Cook's country neighbour, diagnosed epilepsy, he must have suspected a proneness to this unusual disorder. The suggestion that Dr Palmer procured three grains, and then another six grains of strychnia-in his own home town, too-for the purpose of murdering his friend, afterwards adjusting the dose so nicely as to leave no vestige of the crime-this seems to us one of the most far-fetched that we have ever heard.
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