Now it will be observed that up to May 6, when Fowler’s solution of arsenic was administered, no symptom whatever had been observed at all compatible with the effects of arsenic.
The sickness produced by the morphia continued after the taking of arsenic, and down the unfortunate man’s throat prussic acid, papaine, iridin, morphia, ipecacuanha, and arsenic, some of the most powerful drugs known to the pharmacopœia, had found their way by the advice of Dr. Humphreys, in less than a week, while he was told to eat nothing, and allay his thirst with a damp cloth; and the charge of poisoning is made against the prisoner because he is suggested to have had an irritant poison in his stomach, and minute traces of arsenic in some other organs, within five days afterward.
Death from Natural Causes
The whole history of the case, from its medical aspect, is consistent with the small quantity of arsenic found in the body being part of that prescribed by Dr. Humphreys, or the remains of that taken by the deceased himself, there being no particle of evidence to show that he discontinued the habit of drugging himself almost up to the day of his death. This is also in accord with the evidence of Dr. Carter, who attended at a later period, and, taken as a whole, the evidence of both of these doctors, as well as their treatment of the deceased, points to death from natural causes.
Prosecution’s Deductions from Post-mortem Analysis Misleading
The evidence of the prosecution in connection with the analysis was thoroughly unreliable and misleading. Dr. Stevenson’s difficulty was that, while two grains of arsenic was the smallest quantity capable of killing, the analyst had found only one-tenth of a grain, or the twentieth part of the smallest fatal dose, and, in substance, Dr. Stevenson proceeds to argue as follows:
(a) I found 0.015 grain of arsenic in 8 ounces of intestines. (There is no record as to what part of the intestines he examined.) I have weighed the intestines of some other person (not Mr. Maybrick), and find their entire weight to be so much. If, then, 8 ounces of Mr. Maybrick’s intestines yield 0.015 grain, the entire intestines (calculated from the weight of some one else’s intestines), had I analyzed them, would have yielded one-eleventh of a grain.
(b) Dr. Stevenson then proceeds to argue: “I found 0.026 grain of arsenic in 4 ounces of liver. The entire liver weighed 48 ounces, therefore the entire liver contained 0.32 grain of arsenic.”
(c) Dr. Stevenson argues further: “The intestines and liver, therefore, may be taken to contain together four-tenths of a grain of arsenic, and, having found four-tenths of a grain, I assume that the body at the time of death probably contained a fatal dose of arsenic.”