In addition to these analytical chemists, Professor Rogers, of the St. George’s Medical School, London, described an experiment he had lately made on a dog to which he had given two grains of strychnia. He had not taken out its stomach and its contents, together with some of the blood, until three days after death, and had put off the analysis of the latter for ten days, when it had become putrid, and that of the stomach and its contents for a month or five weeks, yet found in both portions strychnia in large quantities. This witness maintained that unless the contents of the stomach in Cook’s case had been lost, their being shaken would only make the process of detection more difficult, but admitted that if strychnia had been in his stomach it would be found smeared over its mucous membrane, which, it may be remembered, was not sent to Dr. Taylor.
Dr. Francis Wrightson, a pupil of Liebig, of Giessen, a teacher of chemistry at a school in Birmingham, described two similar experiments on animals, with the same results as Professor Rogers. He expressed his decided opinion that strychnia could be detected in a mixture of bile, bilious matter, and putrifying blood and in the tissues in extremely minute quantities indeed, and that five or six days after death he should expect to find it, if it had been given—unless the dose had been entirely absorbed. The clearness and decision with which this witness gave his evidence elicited the well-deserved commendation of Lord Campbell. On cross-examination by the Attorney-General, he was asked—
Question.—“Supposing that the whole dose was absorbed into the system, where would you expect to find it?”
Answer.—“In the blood.”
Question.—“Does it pass from the blood into the solids of the body?”
Answer.—“It does, or I should rather say it is left in the solids of the body. In its progress towards its final destination, the destruction of life, it passes from the blood, or is left by the blood in the solid tissues of the body.”
Question.—“If it be present in the stomach, you find it in the stomach; if it be present in the blood, you find it there; if left by the blood in the tissues, you find it there?”
Answer.—“Precisely so.”