If a man’s breath is hurried, is it not natural for him to sit up?—It is. I have seen cases of recovery of human subjects after taking strychnine. There is a great uniformity in its effects; that is, in their main features, but there is a small variation as to the time in which they are produced.
What do you attribute Cook’s death to?—It is irreconcilable with everything with which I am acquainted.
Is it reconcileable with any known disease you have ever seen or heard of?—No.
Re-examined by Mr. Serjeant Shee: We are learning new facts every day, and I do not at present conceive it to be impossible that some peculiarity of the spinal cord, unrecognizable at the examination after death, may have produced symptoms like those which have been described. I, of course, include strychnia in my answer, but it is irreconcileable with everything I have seen or heard of. It is as irreconcileable with strychnia as with everything else; it is irreconcileable with every disease that I am acquainted with, natural or artificial. Touching an animal during the premonitory symptoms will bring on a paroxysm. Vomiting is inconsistent with strychnia. The Romsey case was an exceptional one, from the quantity of the dose. The ringing of the bell would have produced a paroxysm. I am still of opinion that the evidence I gave on the trial in 1851 is correct. I am not aware that there is any ground for an imputation upon me in respect of that evidence. I have no reason to think Government was dissatisfied with me. I have since been employed in Crown prosecutions. After that case Dr. Pereira came to my laboratory and asked me, as an act of mercy, to write a letter to him to show to the Home-office, admitting the possibility of the poison which I found in the stomach having been administered longer than four hours before death. I wrote the letter, drawing a distinction between what was possible and probable, and the woman was transported for life.
Mr. R. E. Gay, examined by Mr. Serjeant Shee: I am a member of the Royal College of Surgeons. I attended a person named Forster for tetanus in October, 1855. He had sore throat, muscular pains in the neck, and in the upper portion of the cervical vertebræ. He was feverish, and had symptoms ordinarily attending catarrh. I put him under the usual treatment for catarrh, and used embrocations externally to the muscles of the neck and throat, and also gargles. About the fourth day of my attendance the muscular pains extended to the face, difficulty of swallowing came on, the pains in the cervical vertebræ increased, also those of the muscles of the face, particularly the lower jaw. In the evening of the same day the jaw became completely locked, the pains came on in the muscles of the bowels, the legs, and the arms. He became very much convulsed throughout the entire muscular system, had frequent involuntary contractions of the arms, and hands, and legs, his difficulty of swallowing increased, and not a particle of food, solid or liquid, could be introduced into the mouth. Attempting to swallow the smallest portions brought on violent convulsions; so strong were they throughout the system that I could compare him to nothing but a piece of warped board. The head was thrown back, the abdomen thrust forward, and the legs frequently drawn up and contracted; the attempt to feed with a spoon, the opening of a window, or placing the fingers on the pulse brought on violent convulsions. While the patient was suffering in this manner he continually complained of great hunger, and repeatedly exclaimed that he was hungry, and could not eat. He was kept alive to the fourteenth day entirely by injections of a milky and farinaceous character. He screamed repeatedly, and the noises that he made were more like those of a wild man than anything else. On the twelfth day he became insensible, and continued in that state until he died, which was in the fourteenth day from the commencement of the attack of lockjaw. The man was an omnibus driver, and when I first attended him he had been suffering from sore throat for several days. There was no hurt or injury of any kind about his person that would account for the symptoms I have mentioned. His body was not opened after death, because it was considered unnecessary. I consider his disease was inflammatory sore throat from cold and exposure to the weather, and that the disease assumed a tetanic form on account of the patient being a very nervous, excited, and anxious person. His condition in life was that of an omnibus conductor. He was a hardworking man, and had a large family dependent upon him, and this, no doubt, acting upon his peculiar temperament, tended to produce tetanic symptoms. The witness, in conclusion, said he had not heard all the evidence in this case, but he thought it right to communicate to the prisoner’s solicitor the particulars of the case to which he had now referred, as he considered it had an important bearing upon the charge against the prisoner.
Cross-examined by the Attorney-General: The case I have mentioned was undoubtedly one of idiopathic tetanus. It is the only one of the kind I ever had to deal with. It arose from exposure to cold acting upon a nervous and irritable temperament. I have a good many patients who are nervous and irritable, but I never met with such another case. The disease was altogether progressive from the first onset, and, although for a short time there was a remission of the symptoms, they invariably recurred. The locking of the jaw was one of the very first symptoms that made their appearance.
Serjeant Shee then addressed the Court, and said that the next witness he proposed to call would occupy some time in examination, and, as it was now nearly 6 o’clock, he suggested that it would be better to adjourn the examination to the next day.
The Lord Chief Justice said he had no objection to the course proposed by the learned Serjeant, and he then inquired of him how much time the case for the defence was likely to occupy.
Serjeant Shee said he hoped to conclude the defence to-morrow; and he should endeavour to do so if he possibly could.
The Lord Chief Justice said there was no desire to hurry him. It was most essential in so important an inquiry that the most ample opportunity should be allowed for a full and satisfactory investigation.