Mr. Serjeant Shee: Just so, my lord, or in other words, tetanus not referable to any known cause. But, in truth, idiopathic means in a general sense “unaccountable.” Not that constitutional tetanus is always and invariably so, but that cases of tetanus do continually occur of which you can only suspect the cause, and attribute it by hypothesis to a “cold,” or some other vague accident. In such cases you say that the disease is idiopathic, and not traumatic. The Crown will have it that Cook’s was the tetanus of poison, but it is almost an assumption to say that it was tetanus at all. That he died of convulsions, or immediately after them, is certain, and that they were convulsions similar to those from which he suffered on the preceding night, is beyond all doubt. But what pretence is there for positively asserting that they were tetanus at all? The evidence of Mr. Jones, fairly interpreted, cannot be construed otherwise than as intimating an impression that they were convulsions which partook of the tetanic character. That might be, and yet the malady might not be tetanus. It is bad reasoning—most defective logic—to argue without positive proof of the fact that the disease was tetanus, and no other tetanus in the world than that produced by poison. Following in the trail dragged for them by the toxicologists, the Crown have thought proper to impute the death of this man to the poison of strychnine. It is for them to prove the fact. We contest it; but it by no means follows that we should be bound to explain the death on other grounds. If we can satisfy you that this man was assailed by any one of the numerous kinds of convulsions to which humanity is liable, and that he was asphyxiated or deprived of life when writhing in some sudden spasm or paroxysm, we shall have done all that can in fairness be demanded of us, unless, indeed, the Crown shall be prepared to prove that Cook’s symptoms were irreconcilable with any other doctrine than that of death by strychnine. This they have not done and cannot do. I propose to call your attention to the statements of the witnesses Mills and Jones, with respect to the symptoms which they observed in Cook on the evenings of Monday and Tuesday; and having done so, I will submit to your candid judgment whether those symptoms may not be more naturally accounted for by attributing them to convulsions which are not tetanic at all, and most assuredly not tetanic in the distinctive character of strychnine, but which may rather be classed under those ordinary convulsions by means of which it constantly pleases Providence to strike men down without leaving upon their bodies the faintest indications from which the cause of death may be inferred. You have it upon the authority of medical men of the highest distinction, that it sometimes occurs that men in the prime of life and in the full vigour of health, are smitten to death by convulsions that leave no trace upon the body of the sufferer. The statements Mills and Jones are such as to render it entirely unnecessary to resort to the hypothesis of any kind of tetanus, much less to that of strychnine, in accounting for the death of Cook. Regard being had to the delicate state of his health, and to the continually recurring derangement of his constitution, it is far safer to conclude that he died of ordinary convulsions than of any description of tetanus, whether traumatic, idiopathic, or that produced by poison. Nor must we omit to inquire into the state of his mind. He went to Shrewsbury races in the imminent peril of returning from thence a ruined man. His father-in-law, Mr. Stevens, assured Palmer that there would not be four thousand shillings for those who had claims on his estate. From the necessity he was under of raising money at an enormous discount, we may easily infer that he was in desperate difficulties; and that, unless some sudden success on the turf should retrieve his fortunes, his case was hopeless. His health shattered, his mind distracted, he had long been cherishing the hope that “Polestar” would win, and so put him in possession of a sum, amounting in stakes and winnings, to something like a thousand guineas. The mare, it is true, was hardly his own, she had been mortgaged, and if she should lose, she would become the property of another person.
Picture to yourself what must have been the condition, mental and bodily, of that young man when he rose from his bed on the morning of the races. It is scarcely possible that as he went down to breakfast this thought must not have crossed his mind, “My fate is trembling in the balance: this is the crisis of my destiny; unless my horse shall win and give me one chance more of recovering myself, to-night I am a beggar.” With these feelings he repairs to the race-course. Another race is run before Polestar is brought out. His impatience is extreme. He looks on in a state of agonising excitement. Will the minutes never fly? At last arrives the decisive moment. The time has come for his race. The flag is dropped; the horses start; his mare wins easily, and he, her master, has won a thousand guineas! For three minutes he is not able to speak, so intense is his emotion. Slowly he recovers his utterance, and then how rapturous is his joy! He is saved, he is saved! Another chance to retrieve his position, one chance more to recover his character! As yet, at all events, he will not be a disgrace to his family and his friends. Conceive him to be, with all his faults an honourable young man, and you may easily imagine what his ecstacy must have been. He loves the memory of his dead mother—he still reverences the name of his father—he is jealous of his sister’s honour, and it may be that he cherishes silently in his heart the thought of some other being dearer still than all, to whom the story of his ruin would bring bitter anguish. But he is not ruined; he will meet his engagements like an honourable man. There is now no danger of his being an outcast, an adventurer, a black-leg. He will live to redeem his position, and to give joy to those who love him. With such thoughts in his heart, he returns to his inn in a state of indescribable elation, and with a revulsion from despair that must have convulsed—though not in the sense of illness—every fibre of his frame. His first idea is to entertain his friends, and he does so. The evidence does not prove that he drank to excess, but he gave a champagne dinner, and we all know that is a luxurious entertainment, at which there is no stint and not much self-respect. That evening he did not spend in the society of Palmer; indeed, it is not clear in whose company he spent it. But we find him on the evening of Wednesday at the “Unicorn,” with Saunders, his trainer, and a lady. On Thursday he walks upon the course, and Herring remonstrates with him for doing so, as the day is damp and misty, and the ground wet. That night he is seized with illness, and he continues ailing until his death at Rugeley.
Arrived at Rugeley, it is but natural to suppose that a reaction of feeling may have set in. Then the dark side of the picture may have presented itself to his imagination. The chilling thought may have come upon him that his winnings were already forestalled, and would scarcely suffice to save him from destruction. It is when suffering from a weakened body, and an irritated and excited mind, he is attacked with a sickness which clings to his system, leaves him without any rest, incapacitates him from taking food, distracts his nerves, and places him in imminent danger of falling a victim to any sudden attack of convulsions to which he may have a predisposition. He relished no society so much as that of Palmer, whose residence was immediately opposite the Talbot Arms Inn, where he was lying on his sick bed. For two nights he had been taking opiate pills, prescribed by Dr. Bamford. On Sunday night, at twelve o’clock, he started as from a dream in a state of the utmost excitement and alarm. He admitted afterwards that for two minutes he was mad, but he could not ascribe it to anything unless to his having been awakened by a squabble in the street. But do no such things happen to people of sound constitutions and regular habits? Do no such people awaken in agony and delirium because there is a noise under their windows? No, these are the afflictions of the dissipated and the anxious, whose bodies are shattered, and whose minds are distracted. Next day, Monday, he was pretty well, but not so well as to mount his horse, or to take a walk in the fields. He could converse with his trainer and jockey, but he took no substantial food, and drank not a drop of brandy-and-water. You will bear in mind that Palmer was not with him that day. In the middle of the night he was seized with an attack similar in character to that of the night preceding, but manifestly much milder, for he retained his consciousness throughout it, and was not mad for a moment. The evidence of Elizabeth Mills is conclusive on the point. [The learned Serjeant read some passages from the deposition of the witness in question.] At three o’clock on the following day (Tuesday) Mr. Jones, the surgeon, of Lutterworth, arrived, and spent a considerable time—probably from three to seven o’clock—in his company. They had abundant opportunity for conversing confidentially, and they were likely to have done so, for they were very intimate, and Jones appears to have been on more familiar terms with Cook than was any other person, not even excepting Mr. Stevens. Nothing occurred, in the entire and unbounded confidence which must have existed between Mr. Cook and Mr. Jones, to raise any suspicions in the mind of Mr. Jones; and at the consultation which took place between seven and eight o’clock on Tuesday evening, between Jones, Palmer, and Bamford, as to what the medicine for that evening should be, the fit of the Monday night was not mentioned. That is a remarkable fact. The Crown may say that it is remarkable, inasmuch as Palmer knew it, and said not a word about it; but I think that it shows that the fit was so little serious in the opinion of Cook that he did not think it worth mentioning to his intimate friend Jones. If Cook had not given to Elizabeth Mills a rather exaggerated description of what had occurred, would he not have said to Mr. Jones, when he came from Lutterworth to see him, “You can’t judge of my condition from my appearance now, for I was in a state of perfect madness over night, and in fact, I thought that I was going to die?” Evidently he would have said something of that sort, and if he had, Mr. Jones would have mentioned it at the consultation.
My inference, then, is that the first statement which was made by Elizabeth Mills was the correct statement of what occurred. Palmer, in the presence of Jones, administered two pills to Mr. Cook, which it is supposed poisoned him—which contained a substance which sometimes does its deadly work in a quarter of an hour—which has done it in less, and which rarely exceeds half an hour; and we are asked to believe that, in spite of Cook’s objecting in the presence of his friend to take the pills, Palmer positively forced them down his throat at the imminent peril of the man falling down in a few minutes in convulsions evidently tetanic. As in the course of the examination of Mr. Jones the word “tetanus” was used, it is right that I should say a word upon that subject. The word “tetanus” is not in his deposition; but I tell you what is in it, and it is one of the most remarkable features in this case, because it shows how people, when they get a theory into their heads, will fag that theory,—how they will stretch it to the very utmost, and make it fit into the exact place in which they wish to put it. We have it now in the evidence of Dr. Taylor that at the inquest he sat next to Mr. Deane, the attorney’s clerk, and suggested the questions which it was necessary in his judgment to put in order to elicit the truth as to the symptoms of Mr. Cook’s disease. Now, fancy Dr. Taylor, who had had a letter telling him that there was a suspicion of strychnine, and who had all but made up his mind at that time to state positively upon oath his opinion that the pills given on Monday and Tuesday nights contained strychnine; fancy——
The Attorney-General.—I am sorry that my learned friend should be misled upon a matter of fact; but I am told that Dr. Taylor was not present when Mr. Jones was examined.
Mr. Shee continued: Then the observation which I was about to make does not apply; and all I can say is, that Mr. Jones had probably in his mind’s eye, when he gave that evidence, a recollection of what he had seen on the Tuesday night. He could not have seen very accurately, however, for he said that there was only one candle in the room, and that he had not light enough to see the patient’s face, and that he could not tell whether there was much change in the countenance of the deceased—a very important fact, when the doctors all say that Cook’s disease cannot have been traumatic tetanus, because there is always a peculiar expression of the countenance in those cases, which was not observable in Cook. However, Mr. Jones, who is a competent professional man, gave his evidence, and it is quite clear that the notion of tetanus must have entered into his mind, because I find in the depositions that the coroner’s clerk first put down “tetinus;” and the probability, I think, is that that disease did occur to Mr. Jones at the time, and that he used the word, because the clerk never could have invented it. Then “tetinus” is struck out; then the word “convulsions” is written, and also struck out; and, as the sentence stands, it is, “There were strong symptoms of violent convulsions.” What is the fair inference from that? Why, that the man who saw Cook in the paroxysm did not think himself justified in saying that it was a tetanic convulsion at all, though it was very like tetanus. Now, I will just call your attention to the features of general convulsions, as described in cross-examination by the medical witnesses, in order to show that the convulsions of which Cook died were not tetanic, properly speaking, but were of that strong and irregular kind which cannot be classed under the head of tetanus, either traumatic or idiopathic, but under the head of general convulsions. I propose upon this part of the case to read an extract from the work of Dr. Copland, which will enable you to judge whether Cook’s complaint bears a greater resemblance to general convulsions than to traumatic tetanus or strychnine tetanus. Before doing so, however, I would observe that the only persons who can be supposed to know anything of tetanus not traumatic are physicians, and that not one of that most honourable class of men (who see the attacks of patients in their beds, and not in the hospital), has been called by the Crown, with the exception of Dr. Todd, who is a most respectable man, and who gave his evidence in such a way as to command the respect of everyone; but even his practice appears to be not so much that of a physician as of a surgeon. I am instructed that I shall be able to show, by the most eminent men in the profession, that the description which I am about to read from Dr. Copland’s book, the Dictionary of Practical Medicine, is the true description of general convulsions. In that book I find the following, under the head of “Convulsions:”—
“Definition.—Violent and involuntary contractions of a part or of the whole of the body, sometimes with rigidity and tension (tonic convulsions), but more frequently with tumultuous agitations, consisting of alternating shocks (clonic convulsions), that come on suddenly, either in recurring or in distant paroxysms, and after irregular and uncertain intervals.”
The article then goes on:—
“If we take the character of the spasm in respect of permanency, rigidity, relaxation, and recurrence as a basis of arrangement of all the diseases attended by abnormal action of voluntary muscles, we shall have every grade, passing imperceptibly from the most acute form of tetanus through cramp, epilepsy, eclampsia, convulsions, &c., down to the most atonic states of chorea and tremor.”
As to the premonitory symptoms, it says:—