[153] Dr. Gairdner stated that the only time he saw Mrs. Pritchard was on the night of the 8th of February, and that at that interview Pritchard told him Dr. Cowan had prescribed stimulants, which he ordered to be discontinued, and no medicine till he saw her again. Dr. Cowan said that he did not see her until the 11th of February, “to the best of his recollection, stopped all night, saw her again next day, and left in the evening for Edinburgh.”
[154] Dr. Paterson stated that he was called on the 24th of February to see Mrs. Taylor, and then noticed the state in which Mrs. Pritchard was, but not being asked did not prescribe for her. He was called in to Mrs. Pritchard first on the 2nd of March, when he prescribed powders containing camomile, blue or gray powder, ipecacuanha, and aromatic powder, and he never saw her again until five hours before her death. There is not a word in his evidence of his having been previously consulted about the use of Battley’s solution. The only interviews with the prisoner, other than in the sick-room, were on the 1st of March, when he met him in the street and he asked him to see his wife, and on the 5th of March, when Pritchard called on him, reported that the remedies had had a good effect, and Dr. Paterson recommended their continuance.
[155] Mary McLeod stated that she was in the bedroom from the time Dr. Paterson left till Mrs. Pritchard died; that she lay on the sofa, and that Pritchard told her to get the mustard-plaster, and that it was applied to Mrs. Pritchard’s stomach, and as it did not seem to do her good, she was sent down again for another, and that when she and Mary Patterson returned with it, Mrs. Pritchard was dead.
[156] From an account sent in to Mr. Taylor after his wife’s death, the last purchases appeared to be:—18th January, 1865, 2 oz.; 29th January, 2 oz.; and 4th February, 2 oz. James Thomson stated that the last time he took the bottle to be filled was on the night before Mrs. Taylor left for Glasgow, and that for a year or so before her death he took the bottle to be filled at first only once in every two or three months, but latterly every two or three weeks.
[157] Evidence of J. Foulger and George Kerr.
[158] This had previously been admitted by Dr. Penny.
[159] See remarks of the Lord Justice Clerk on the motive, post, p. 445.
[160] See the argument of the Dean of Faculty imputing the murder to McLeod, and the Judge’s charge on that point, post, 437-440.
[161] “Mr. Clark very properly said,” remarked the Judge in this charge, “‘it is not his fault that he had abundant opportunities. The relation existing between him and these ladies is not his fault, and it was the existence of this relation that gave him these opportunities.’ Quite true, gentlemen—a very just observation; but remember, on the other hand, that as the opportunities did in point of fact exist, he cannot argue the case as if they did not.”
[162] “His possession of poisonous drugs,” said the Judge in his charge, “to such an extent is not a suspicious circumstance in the case of a medical man. They are in some degree necessary; but the peculiar position of the matter in this case—the nature of the drugs found in his consulting-room—is certainly not to be lightly passed over, and still more the nature of the purchases that he had been making from two different apothecaries during the period to which our inquiries particularly refer. In his consulting-room were found some parcels of tartaric acid—not a very large quantity; some phials, containing the remains of tincture of aconite and white powder to the extent of three or four grains, containing a somewhat strange and unexplained mixture of tartarised antimony or tartar emetic and aconite. These things were found in his consulting-room; but what had he been purchasing during the period to which our inquiry refers? On the 16th of November he purchased an ounce of tartar emetic, and upon the 7th of February another ounce of the same poison—very unusual quantities, as the apothecaries state. He also purchased no less than 5½ ounces of tincture of aconite. That, the apothecaries state, is a very unusual quantity for a medical man to purchase: but I think it was a mistake in some respects to push this statement to the extent to which the prosecutor pressed it, because some of the other witnesses of the same description said that for external application tincture of aconite is sometimes used in considerable quantities, and if it were used for that purpose we might account for such a large quantity being used by the prisoner. But I do not think anybody said, that two ounces of tartar emetic within a month or two was a usual quantity for one medical man to use who was not in the practice of mixing it at home, which the prisoner, in his conversation with Dr. Paterson, says he was not. Besides, there were other very strange purchases, which have no immediate connection with this case—all of them strong poisons. He was, therefore, undoubtedly possessed of a very large quantity of different kinds of poisonous substances; but what is most important is, that he was in possession of that very poison to which the death of Mrs. Pritchard is undoubtedly to be traced, and to which, in combination with others, the death of Mrs. Taylor is to be traced—that is antimony. So that whether we adopt to the full extent the suggestion of the Crown, it appears beyond a doubt that some one had been practising a system of poisoning, and that in the possession of the prisoner were the agents necessary for carrying it on.”