For the defence Mr. Fulton urged that the evidence of the “arching” of the body was very vague, and rested only on the word of Mrs. Wilson, who had not mentioned this important symptom either to the doctor or the coroner’s constable, and that without that symptom the death might be accounted for by epilepsy, and the first opinion of Dr. Miller justified. He endeavoured to minimise the evidence of the analysts, and argued that the conduct of the prisoner in his attendance on his wife was a strong proof of his innocence. “Motive,” he said, “there appeared to be none, as from his wages the prisoner was quite able to bear the expense of the mother and child.”
The jury, however, returned a verdict of “guilty,” and the prisoner was executed on the 2nd of December, admitting the justice of his sentence, and that he was a party to the death of the child, but saying others were in it.
CHAPTER V.
STRYCHNIA AND BRUCIA.
Contained in St. Ignatius’s bean—False Angostura bark—Nux Vomica, &c.—Properties of strychnia—Facility of detection. Tests: (1) Microscope—(2) Taste—(3) Color test; ditto in other alkaloids, in bile, and in resinous and saccharine matters—(4) Physiological test (Marshall Hall)—(5) Bichromate of potash—(6) Picric acid—(7) Sulphuric acid and sodium nitrite—(8) Mercuric chloride. Preparations of strychnia: Vermin killers—Battle’s, Gibson’s, Miller’s, Marsden’s, Barber’s, Hunter’s, Keating’s—Brucia—Igasuria—Igasuric acid. Doses of strychnia: medicinal, fatal, recovery—Nux vomica. Fatal period for strychnia—Symptoms in man, commencement of symptoms, if given in powder, in solution, in pills. Explanation of symptoms: by hysteria, tetanus, epilepsy, gritty granules on spinal cord—Angina pectoris. Post-mortem appearances—Treatment—Antidotes—Dr. Taylor’s evidence—Ptomaine—Did Cook die from morphia?—Granular preparations at St. Thomas’s Hospital.
Several species of Strychnos, of the natural order Loganiaceæ, contain, mainly in their seeds, the alkaloids Strychnia and Brucia in the proportion of one to one and a half per cent. The plants yet proved to contain these two alkaloids are:—Strychnos nux-vomica (bark and seeds), Strychnos Ignatia (Faba amara, or St. Ignatius’s bean), Strychnos Tieute (the Upas tree of Java), Strychnos toxifera (main source of woorara or curare, the arrow poison of the South American Indians), and Strychnos Ligustrina and Colubrina —“snakewood”), a tree of Asia. S. potatorum —“clearing nut”) and S. pseudokina are not poisonous.
In commerce, “Nux vomica,” “Faba amara, or St. Ignatius’s bean,” “false Angostura bark” (the bark of Strychnos nux-vomica), and an extract called “curare,” are met with. The last is made by mixing the juice of the bark of Strychnos toxifera and another species with pepper and acrid plants; as its effects depend upon “curarine,” another alkaloid, and not upon strychnia, it will not enter much into our subject.
“Faba Amara,” St. Ignatius’s bean, contains 1·2 per cent. Strychnia and some Brucia.