The Most Extraordinary Trial of William Palmer, for the Rugeley Poisonings, which lasted Twelve Days

by Anonymous

THE ATTORNEY-GENERAL’S REPLY.

The Attorney-General, at ten minutes before three, commenced his reply, speaking occasionally in so low a tone that the conclusion of many of his sentences was inaudible. He said: May it please your lordships and gentlemen of the jury, the case for the prosecution and the case for the defence are now before you, and it now becomes my duty to address to you such observations upon the whole of the evidence as suggest themselves to my mind. I feel that I have a moral, solemn, and important duty to perform. I wish I could have answered the appeal made to me the other day by my learned friend (Serjeant Shee), and say that I am satisfied with the case which he submitted to you for the defence. But, standing here as the instrument of public justice, I feel that I should be wanting in the duty that I have to perform if I did not ask at your hands for a verdict of guilty against the prisoner. I approach the consideration of the case in, I hope, what I may term a spirit of fairness and moderation. My business is to convince you, if I can, by facts and legitimate arguments, of the prisoner’s guilt; and if I cannot establish it to your satisfaction, no man will rejoice more than I shall in a verdict of acquittal. Gentlemen, in the mass of evidence which has been brought before you, two main questions present themselves prominently for your consideration. Did the deceased man, into whose death we are now inquiring, die a natural death, or was he taken off by the foul means of poison? And if the latter proposition be sanctioned by the evidence, then comes the important—if possible, the still more important—question, whether the prisoner at the bar was the author of the death? I will proceed with the consideration of the subject in the order which I have mentioned. Did John Parsons Cook die by poison? I assert and contend the affirmative of that proposition. The case which is submitted to you on behalf of the Crown is this—that, having been first practised upon by antimony, Cook was at last killed by strychnine. The first question to be considered is—what was the immediate and proximate cause of his death. The witnesses for the prosecution have told you, one and all, that, in their judgment, he died of tetanus, which signifies a convulsive spasmodic action of the muscles of the body. Can there be any doubt that their opinion is correct? Of course it does not follow that, because he died of tetanus, it must be the tetanus of strychnia. That is a matter for after consideration. But, inasmuch as strychnine produces death by tetanus, we must see, in the first place, whether it admits of doubt that he did die of tetanus. I have listened with great attention to every form in which that disease has been brought under your consideration—whether by the positive evidence of witnesses, or whether by reference to the works of scientific writers; and I assert deliberately that no case, either in the human subject or in the animal, has been brought under your notice in which the symptoms of tetanus have been so marked as in this case.

From the moment the paroxysms came on of which the unhappy man died, the symptoms were of the most marked and of the most striking character. Every muscle, says the witness, the medical man who was present at the time—every muscle of his body was convulsed—he expressed the most intense dread of suffocation—he entreats them to lift him up lest he should be suffocated—and every muscle of his body, from the crown of his head to the soles of his feet, was so stricken—the flexibility of the trunk and the limbs was gone—and you could only have raised him up as you would have raised a corpse. In order that he might escape from the dread of suffocation, they turned him over, and then, in the midst of that fearful paroxysm, one mighty spasm seemed to have seized his heart, to have pressed from it the life blood, and the result was—death. And when he died, his body exhibited the most marked symptoms of this fearful disease. He was convulsed from head to foot. You could have rested him on his head and heels—his hands were clasped with a grasp that it required force to overcome, and his feet assumed an arched appearance. Then, if it was a case of tetanus—into which fact I will not waste your time by inquiry—the question arises, was it a case of tetanus produced by strychnia? I will confine myself for a moment to the exhibition of the symptoms as described by the witnesses. Tetanus may proceed from natural causes as well as from the administration of poisons, and while the symptoms last they are the same. But in the course of the symptoms, and before the disease reaches its consummation in the death of the patient, the distinction between the two is marked by characteristics which enable any one conversant with the subject to distinguish between them. We have been told on the highest authority that the distinctions are these—natural tetanus is a disease not of minutes, not of hours, but of days. It takes—say several other witnesses—from three to four days; and will extend to a period of even three weeks before the patient dies. Upon that point we have the most abundant and conclusive evidence of Dr. Curling; we have the evidence of Dr. Brodie; we have the evidence of Dr. Daniel, a gentleman who has seen something like twenty-five or thirty cases; we have the evidence of a gentleman who has practised twenty-five years in India, where these cases, arising from cold, are infinitely more frequent; and he gives exactly the same description of the course which this disease invariably takes. Idiopathic or traumatic tetanus is therefore out of the question, upon the evidence which has been given. But traumatic tetanus is out of the question for a very different reason. Traumatic tetanus is brought on by the lesion of some part of the body. But what is there in this case to show that there was anything like lesion at all. We have had several gentlemen called, who have come here with an evident determination to misconceive and misrepresent every fact. We have called before you an eminent physician, who had Cook under his care.

It seems that, in the spring of the year 1855, Cook, having found certain small spots manifest themselves in one or two parts of his body, and having something of an ulcerated tongue and a sore throat, conceived that he was labouring under symptoms of a particular character. He addressed himself to Dr. Savage, who found that the course of medicine he had been pursuing was an erroneous one. He enjoined the discontinuance of mercury. His injunction was obeyed, and the result was that the patient was suffering neither from disease nor wrong treatment. But lest there should be any possibility of mistake, Dr. Savage says that long before the summer advanced every unsatisfactory symptom had entirely gone; there was nothing wrong about him, except that affection of the throat, to which thousands of people are subject. In other respects, the man was better than he had been, and might be said to be convalescent. On the very day that he leaves London to go into the country, a fortnight before the races, his stepfather, who accompanied him to the station, congratulated him upon his healthy and vigorous appearance, and, the young man, conscious of a restored state of health, struck his breast, and said “He was well, very well.” Then he goes to Shrewsbury, and shortly afterwards arose those matters to which I am about to call your attention. I want to know in what part of the evidence there is the slightest pretence for saying that this man had an affection which might bring on traumatic tetanus? It is said that he had exhibited his tongue to witnesses, and applied for a mercurial wash, but it is clear that, although he had at one time adopted that course, he had, under the recommendation of Dr. Savage, got rid of it, and there is no pretence for saying he was suffering under any syphilitic affection of any kind. That fact has been negatived by a man of the highest authority and eminence. It is a pretence for which there was not a shadow of a foundation, and I should shrink from my duty if I did not denounce it as a pretence unworthy of your attention. There was nothing about the man which would warrant, for a single moment, the supposition that there was anything of that character in any part of his body when the tetanus set in. One or two cases of traumatic tetanus have been adduced in the evidence which has been brought forward for the defence. One is the case of a man in the London Hospital, who was brought into that institution one evening, and died the same night. But what are the facts? The facts are, that before he had been brought in he had had a paroxysm early in the morning—that he was suffering from ulcers of the most aggravated description. The symptoms had run their course rapidly, it is true, but the case was not one of minutes, but of hours. Another case has been brought forward in which a toe was amputated, but there we have disease existing some time before death. But then it is suggested that this may be a case of idiopathic tetanus proceeding from—what? They say that Cook was a man of delicate constitution, subject to excitement; that he had something the matter with his chest; that in addition to having something the matter with his chest, he had the diseased condition of throat; and putting all these things together, they say that if the man took cold he might get idiopathic tetanus.

We are here launched into a sea of speculations and possibilities. Dr. Nunneley, who comes here for the purpose of inducing you to believe there was something like idiopathic tetanus, goes through supposed infirmities, and talks about his excitability, his delicacy of chest, his affection of the throat, and he says these things would predispose to idiopathic tetanus if he took colds. But what evidence is there that he did take cold? Not the slightest in the world. There is not the smallest pretence that he ever complained of a cold, or was treated for a cold. I cannot help saying that it seems to me that it is a scandal upon a learned, and distinguished, and liberal profession, that men should come forward to put forth such speculations upon these perverted facts, and draw from them sophistical and unwarrantable conclusions, with a view to deceive you. I have the greatest respect for science. No man can have more. But I cannot repress my indignation and abhorrence when I see it perverted and prostituted for the purposes of a particular case in a court of justice. Dr. Nunneley talked to you about certain excitements being the occasion of idiopathic tetanus. You remember the sorts of excitement of which he spoke. They are unworthy of your notice. They were topics discreditable to be put forward by a witness as worthy of your consideration. But, suppose for a single moment that excitement at the time could produce any such effect, where is the excitement manifested by Cook as leading to the supposed disease? They say that the man, when he won his money at Shrewsbury, was for a moment excited. And well he might be. His fortunes depended upon the result of the race, and I will not deny that he was overpowered with emotions of joy. But those emotions subsided, and we have no further trace of them from that time to the moment of his death. The man passed the rest of the day with his friends in ordinary conversation and enjoyment. No trace of emotion was found. He is taken ill. He goes to Rugeley. He is taken ill there again. But is there the slightest symptom of excitement about him, or of depression? Not the least. When he is ill, like most people, he is low spirited. As soon as he gets a little better, he is cheerful and happy. He invites his friends and converses with them. On the night of his death his conversation is cheerful. He is mirthful and happy, little thinking, poor fellow, of the fate that was depending over him. He is cheerful, and talks of the future, but not in language of excitement.

What pretence is there for this idle story about excitement? None whatever. But even if there were excitement or depression—if these things were capable of producing idiopathic tetanus, the character of the disease is so essentially different that it is impossible to mistake the two. What are the cases which they attempt to set up against us? They brought forward a Mary Watson, who, with a gentleman, came all the way from some place in Scotland to tell us that a girl had been ill all day, that she is taken worse at night, that she gets well in a short time, and goes about her business. That is a case which they brought here to be compared with the death agony of this man. These are the sort of cases with which they attempt to meet such a case as is spoken to here. Gentlemen, I venture, upon the evidence which has been brought before you, to assert boldly, that the cases of idiopathic and traumatic tetanus are marked by clear and distinct characteristics distinguishing them from the tetanus of strychnine; and I say that the tetanus which accompanied Cook’s death is not referable to either of these forms of tetanus. You have, upon this point, the evidence of men of the highest competency and most unquestionable integrity, and upon their evidence, I am satisfied, you can come to no other conclusion than that this was not a case of either idiopathic or traumatic tetanus. But, then, various attempts have been made to set up different causes as capable of producing this tetanic disease. And first, we have the theory of general convulsions; and Dr. Nunneley having gone through the beadroll of the supposed infirmities of Cook, says, “Oh, this may have been a case of general convulsions—I have known general convulsions assuming a tetanic character!” I said to him, “Have you ever seen one single case in which death arising from general convulsions accompanied with tetanic symptoms has not ended in the unconsciousness of the patient?” He says, “No, I never heard of such a case, not one; but in some book or other, I am told, there is some such case reported,” and he cites, for that purpose, as an authority for general convulsions being accompanied with tetanic symptoms, Dr. Copland.

Now, Dr. Copland, I apprehend, would stand higher as an authority than the man who quotes him. Dr. Copland might have been called, but was not called, notwithstanding the challenge which I threw out, because it is, unfortunately, easier for the case to gather together from the east and from the west practitioners of more or less celebrity, than to bring to bear on the subject the light of science as treasured in the books of the eminent practitioners whom you have seen. But, I say, as regards general convulsions, the distinction is plain. If they destroy the patient, they destroy consciousness. But here, unquestionably, at the very last moment, until Cook’s heart ceased to beat, his consciousness remained. But then comes another supposed condition from which death in this form is said to have resulted, and that is the cause intended to be set up by a very eminent practitioner, Dr. Partridge. It seems that in the post-mortem examination of Cook, when the spinal marrow was investigated, some granules were found, and it is said these may have occasioned tetanic convulsions similar to those found in Cook. He is called to prove that this was a case of what is called arachnitis, arising from granules. I asked him the symptoms which he would find in such a case. I called his attention to what it had evidently not been called before—namely, the symptoms in Cook’s case; and I asked him, in simple terms, whether, looking at these symptoms, he would pledge his reputation, in the face of the medical world, and in the face of this court, that this was a case of arachnitis. He would not do so, and the case of arachnitis went. Then we have a gentleman who comes all the way from Scotland to inform us, as the next proposition, that Cook’s was a case of epileptic convulsions, with tetanic complications. Well, I asked him the question, “Did you ever know of epilepsy, with or without tetanic complications, in which consciousness was not destroyed before the patient died?” His reply was, “No, I cannot say that I ever did, but I have read in some book that such a case has occurred.” “Is there anything to make you think this was epilepsy?—It may have been epilepsy, because I don’t know what else it was.” “But you must admit that epilepsy is characterised generally by loss of consciousness; what difference would the tetanic complications have made?” That he was unable to explain. I remind you of this species of evidence, in which the witnesses have resorted to the most speculative reasoning, and put forward the barest possibilities without the shadow of foundation. But this I undertake to assert, that there is not a single case to which they have spoken from their experience, or as the result of their own knowledge, on which there were the formidable and decisive symptoms of marked tetanus which existed in this case.

Having gone through these three sets of diseases—general convulsions, arachnitis, epilepsy proper, and epilepsy with tetanic complications, I supposed we had pretty nearly exhausted the whole of these scientific theories. But we are destined to have another, and that assumed the formidable name of angina pectoris. It must have struck you when my learned friend opened his case, that he never ventured to assert the nature of the disease to which they refer the death of Cook; and it strikes me as most remarkable that no less than four distinct and separate theories are set up by the witnesses who have been called—general convulsions, arachnitis, epilepsy with tetanic complications, and lastly, angina pectoris. My learned friend had this advantage in not stating to you what his medical witnesses would set up, because I admit that one after another they took me by surprise. The gentleman who was called yesterday, and who talked of angina pectoris, would not have escaped so easily if I had been in possession of the books to which he referred, for I should have been able to expose the ignorance, the presumption, of the assertions he dared to make. I say ignorance and presumption, and what is worse, an intention to deceive. I assert it in the face of the whole medical profession, and I am sure I can prove it. These medical witnesses, one and all, differ in the views they take on the subject; but there is a remarkable coincidence between the views of some of them and the views of those who have been examined on the other side. Dr. Partridge, Dr. Robinson, and Dr. Letheby, the most eminent of the witnesses whom my learned friend has called, agreed with the statements of Dr. Brodie and other witnesses, that in the whole of their experience, and in the whole range of their learning and observations, they know of no known disease to which the symptoms in Cook’s case can be referred. When such men as these agree upon any point, it is impossible to exaggerate its importance. If it be the fact that there is no known disease which can account for such symptoms as those in Cook’s case, and that they are referable to poison alone, can you have any doubt that that poison was strychnia? The symptoms, at all events, from the time the paroxysms set in, are precisely the same. Distinctions are sought to be made by the sophistry of the witnesses for the defence between some of the antecedent symptoms and some of the others. I think I shall show you that these distinctions are imaginary and that there is no foundation for them. I think I may say that the witnesses called for the defence admit this, that, from the time the paroxysms set in, of which Cook died, until the time of his death, the symptoms are precisely similar to that of tetanus by strychnine. But then they say—and this is worthy of most particular attention—there are points of difference which have led them to the conclusion that these symptoms could not have resulted from strychnine.

In the first place, they say that the period which elapsed between the supposed administration of the poison and the first appearance of the symptoms is longer than they have observed in the animals on which they have experimented. The first observation which arises is this: that there is a known difference between animal and human life, in the power with which certain specific things act upon their organisation. It may well be that poison administered to a rabbit will produce its effect in a given time. It by no means follows that it will produce the same effect in the same time on an animal of a different description. Still less does it follow that it will exercise its baneful influence in the same time on a human subject. The whole of the evidence on both sides leads to establish this fact, that not only in individuals of different species, but between individuals of the same species, the same poison and the same influence will produce effects different in degree, different in duration, different in power. But, again, it is perfectly notorious that the rapidity with which the poison begins to work depends mainly upon the mode of its administration. If it is administered in a fluid state, it acts with greater rapidity. If it is given in a solid state, its effects come on more slowly. If it is given in an indurated substance, it will act with still greater tardiness. Then what was the period at which this poison began to act after its administration, assuming it to have been poison? It seems, from Mr. Jones’s statement, that the pills were administered somewhere about eleven o’clock. They were not administered on his first arrival, for the patient, as if with an intuitive sense of the death that awaited him, strongly resisted the attempts to make him take them; and no doubt these remonstrances, and the endeavours to overcome them, occupied some period of time. The pills were at last given. Assuming, which I only do for the sake of argument, that the pills contained strychnine, how soon did they begin to operate? Mr. Jones says he went down to supper, and came back again about twelve o’clock. Upon his return to the room, after a word or two of conversation with Cook, he proceeded to undress and go to bed, and had not been in bed ten minutes before a warning came that another of the paroxysms was to take place. The maid servant puts it still earlier, and it appears that so early as ten minutes before twelve the first alarm was given, which would make the interval little more than a quarter of an hour. When these witnesses tell us that it would take an hour and a half, or two hours, we see here another of those exaggerated determinations to see the facts only in the way that will be the most favourable to the prisoner. I find in some of the experiments that have been made that the duration of time, before the poison begins to work, has been little, if anything, less than an hour.

In the case of the girl at Glasgow, it was stated that it was three-quarters of an hour before the pills began to work. There may have been some reason for the pills not taking effect within a certain period after their administration. It would be easy to mix them up with substances difficult of solution, or which might retard their action. I cannot bring myself to believe that, if in all other respects you are perfectly satisfied that the symptoms, the consequences, the effects were analogous, and similar in all respects to those produced by strychnine, it is not because the pills have been taken only a quarter of an hour that you will say strychnine was not administered in this case. But they say the premonitory symptoms were wanting, and they say that in the case of animals, the animal at first manifests some uneasiness, shrinks, and draws itself into itself as it were, and avoids moving; that certain involuntary twitchings about the head come on—and they say there were no premonitory symptoms in Cook’s case. I utterly deny the proposition, I say there were premonitory symptoms of the most marked character. He is lying in his bed; he suddenly starts up in an agony of alarm. What made him do that? Was there nothing premonitory—nothing that warned him the paroxysm was coming on? He jumps up, says “Go and fetch Palmer—fetch me help—I am going to be ill as I was last night.” What was that but a knowledge that the symptoms of the previous night were returning, and a warning of what he might expect unless some relief were obtained? He sits up and prays to have his neck rubbed. What was the feeling about his neck but a premonitory symptom, which was to precede the paroxysms which were to supervene? He begs to have his neck rubbed, and that gives him some comfort. But here they say this could not have been tetanus from strychnia, because animals cannot bear to be touched, for a touch brings on a paroxysm—not only a touch, but a breath of air, a sound, a word, a movement of any one near will bring on a return of the paroxysm.