Misdirections Regarding the Medical Testimony
As to the cause of James Maybrick’s death, there was a most remarkable conflict of medical opinion. It was not until the post-mortem examination, held on Monday, the 13th of May, by Drs. Carter and Humphreys (the medical men who had attended the deceased during his illness), and Dr. Barron, that the cause of death was ascertained, and it was then found to be exhaustion, caused by gastro-enteritis or acute inflammation of the stomach and intestines, which, in their opinion, had been set up by an irritant poison, but might have been set up by his getting wet through.
These doctors agreed that by the phrase “irritant poison” they meant any unwholesome food or drink.
Up to the time of death the doctors, Messrs. Humphreys and Carter, had supposed and treated the patient for dyspepsia, notwithstanding that suggestions had been made to them by Michael Maybrick that the patient was being poisoned; and they said in their evidence that but for the discovery of arsenic on the premises, they would have given a certificate of death from natural causes.
At the post-mortem examination they selected such portions of the body for analysis as they considered necessary, including, among other things, the stomach and its contents; and the analyst employed by the police (Mr. Davies) found no arsenic in the stomach or its contents, and was unable to discover any weighable traces of arsenic in any other portions of the body.
About three weeks afterward the body was, by order of the Home Secretary, exhumed, and fresh portions of it were taken for analysis, some of which were examined by Mr. Davies and other parts by Dr. Stevenson, one of the Crown analysts.
In those portions taken at the exhumation, the total result of the search for arsenic in the body was that Mr. Davies actually found unweighable arsenic, 2/100 of a grain, in the liver, and Dr. Stevenson 76/1000 of a grain in the liver and 15/1000 in the intestines, making, when all added together, the total amount as found by Mr. Davies and Dr. Stevenson about one-tenth of a grain, made up of minute fractional portions of one-hundredths and one-thousandths.
It was shown in evidence that the smallest fatal dose of arsenic ever recorded was two grains, which was in the case of a woman, and who presumably was not an arsenic-eater.
It was shown in evidence that in the year 1888 Mrs. Maybrick had asked Dr. Hopper (who was at that time, and had been for many years, their regular medical attendant) to speak to Mr. Maybrick and prevent him taking certain medicines, which were doing him harm; that early in March she made the same appeal to Dr. Humphreys, suggesting at the time that Mr. Maybrick was taking a white powder, which she thought was strychnin.
At the magisterial inquiry Dr. Humphreys stated that Mrs. Maybrick had, on the occasion of his being called in to the patient on the 28th of April, also spoken to him about her husband taking this white powder, and that in consequence of this he asked Mr. Maybrick about taking strychnin and nux vomica.
Counsel will find proof, in the evidence given at the trial by Dr. Hopper, Mr. Heaton, Nicholas Bateson, Esq., Capt. Richard Thompson, Thomas Stansell, and Sir James Poole, ex-Mayor of Liverpool, as to the arsenic habit of James Maybrick and his opportunities for obtaining the drug. [To which must now be added the statutory declaration of Valentine Charles Blake, son of the late Sir Valentine Blake, M.P., that he, about two months prior to Mr. Maybrick’s death, had procured him 150 grains of arsenic.] It may be stated here that from the appearance of the little bottles in which the white arsenic was found, they had been in use for a long time and were such as would be found as sample bottles in the offices of business houses to which it is unlikely Mrs. Maybrick would have access.
It is submitted that the discovery of such a tiny quantity of arsenic in the body of a man addicted to such extraordinary habits might reasonably be accounted for by those habits.