Lord Campbell.—“Can you not say from the symptoms you heard whether death was produced by tetanus, without saying what was the cause of tetanus?”
Answer.—“Hypothetically I should infer that he died of the form of tetanus which convulses the muscles. Great varieties of rigidity arise after death from natural causes. The half-bent hands and fingers are not uncommon after natural death. The arching of the feet in this case seemed to me rather greater than usual.”
Cross-examined by the Attorney-General.—“Granules are sometimes, but not commonly, found about the spine of a healthy subject,—not on the cord itself; they may exist consistently with health. No satisfactory cases of the inflammation I have described have come under my notice without producing convulsions. It is a very rare disease. I cannot state from the recorded cases the course of the symptoms of that disease. It varies in duration, sometimes lasting only for days, sometimes much longer. If the patient lives it is accompanied with paralysis. It produces no effect on the brain which is recognisable after death. It would not affect the brain prior to death. I do not know whether it is attended with loss of sensibility before death. The size of the granules which will produce it varies. This disease is not a matter of months, unless it terminates in palsy. I never heard of a case in which the patient died after a single convulsion. Between the intervals of the convulsions I don’t believe a man could have twenty-four hours’ repose. Pain and spasms would accompany the convulsions. I cannot form a judgment as to whether the general health would be affected in the intervals between them.”
Question.—“You have heard it stated that from the midnight of Monday till Tuesday Cook had complete repose. Now, I ask you, in the face of the medical profession, whether you think the symptoms which have been described proceeded from that disease?”
Answer.—“I should think not.”
Question.—“Did you ever know the hands completely clinched after death except in case of tetanus?”
Answer.—“No.”
Question.—“Have you ever known it even in idiopathic or traumatic tetanus?”
Answer.—“I have never seen idiopathic tetanus. I have seen the hands completely clinched in traumatic tetanus. A great deal of force is often required to separate them.”