The Doctors’ Doubt
The doctors who gave evidence in favor of death by arsenical poisoning all stated that they would not have felt certain on the subject if the one-tenth of a grain of arsenic had not been found in the body. Therefore, since the presence of that arsenic could be otherwise accounted for, I was entitled to an acquittal even on the evidence of the Crown medical witnesses. Moreover, the symptom on which two or three doctors for the prosecution laid most stress—continuous vomiting—was referred by the third to morphia administered by himself. All three were examined before any evidence of Mr. Maybrick’s habit of arsenic taking was given. Had they believed him to be an arsenic eater, they might have arrived at a different conclusion. The doctors for the defense, who declared that Mr. Maybrick’s symptoms were not those of arsenical poisoning, were men of far more experience as regards poisons than the Crown medical witnesses. The quantity of arsenic found in the body was, in their opinion, quite consistent with administration in medicinal doses, and might have been introduced a considerable time before.
The proved administration of poison with intent to kill is punishable by penal servitude, but not necessarily for life—sometimes for only three years; but the charge must be proved in open court to be a felonious attempt by some means actually used to effectuate the intent, and it remains with the prosecution to produce the necessary evidence that the means used were sufficient for the accomplishment of the effect.
The medical evidence proved that the quantity of arsenic—one-tenth of a grain—found in Mr. Maybrick’s body was not sufficient to have produced death.