A Toxicological Study

So positive were Dr. Tidy and Dr. Macnamara of their position as to the effect of arsenic on the human system, that they subsequently published “A Toxicological Study of the Maybrick Case,” thus challenging medical critics the world over to refute them. From this study the following, in tabular form, is taken, in order to contrast the symptoms from which Mr. Maybrick suffered with those which, it will be generally admitted, are the usual symptoms of arsenical poisoning:

Arsenical Poisoning	Mr. Maybrick’s Case
Countenance tells of severe suffering.	Not so described.
Very great depression an early symptom.	Not present until toward the end.
Fire-burning pain in stomach.	Not present.
Pain in stomach increased on pressure.	Pressure produced no pain.
Violent and uncontrollable vomiting independent of ingesta.	“Hawking rather than vomiting;” irritability of stomach increased by ingesta.
Vomiting not relieved by such treatment as was used in Mr. Maybrick’s case.	Vomiting controlled by treatment.
During vomiting burning heat and constriction felt in throat.	Not present.
Blood frequently present in vomited and purged matter.	Not present.
Intensely painful cramps in calves of the legs.	Not present.
Pain in urinating.	Not present.
Purging and tenesmus an early symptom.	Not present until twelfth day of illness, and then once only.
Great intolerance of light.	Not present.
Eyes suffused and smarting.	Not present.
Eyeballs inflamed and reddened.	Not present.
Eyelids intensely itchy.	Not present.
Rapid and painful respiration an early symptom.	Not present.
Pulse small, frequent, irregular, and imperceptible from the outset.	Not so described until approach of death.
Arsenic easily detected in urine and fæces.	Not detected, although looked for.
Tongue fiery red in its entirety, or fiery red at tip and margins and foul toward base.	Tongue not red; “simply filthy.”
Early and remarkable reduction of temperature generally.	Temperature normal up to day preceding death.

“Maybrick’s symptoms are as unlike poisoning by arsenic as it is possible for a case of dyspepsia to be. Everything distinctive of arsenic is absent. The urine contained no arsenic. The symptoms are not even consistent with arsenical poisoning.

“Regarding the treatment adopted by the medical men, and more especially Dr. Carter’s action with regard to the meat juice, we are justified in assuming that the doctors themselves, even after a certain suggestion had been made to them, did not come to the conclusion that the illness of Maybrick was the result of arsenic.

“It is noteworthy (1) that none was found in the stomach; (2) that Maybrick was in the habit of taking drugs, and among them arsenic.

“Thus two conclusions are forced upon us:

“(1) That the arsenic found in Maybrick’s body may have been taken in merely medicinal doses, and that probably it was so taken.

“(2) That the arsenic may have been taken a considerable time before either his death or illness, and that probably it was so taken.

“Our toxicological studies have led us to the three following conclusions:

“(1) That the symptoms from which Maybrick suffered are consistent with any form of acute dyspepsia, but that they point away from, rather than toward, arsenic as the cause of such dyspeptic condition.

“(2) That the post-mortem appearances are indicative of inflammation, but that they emphatically point away from arsenic as the cause of death.

“(3) That the analysis fails to find more than one-twentieth part of a fatal dose of arsenic, and that the quantity so found is perfectly consistent with its medicinal ingestion.”