“As regards his personal characteristics,” says the Scotsman, “Sir Robert was perhaps liable to be somewhat misunderstood by those who did not know him. Dogmatic and positive in his opinions, he was inclined to lay down the law in a way that might not always be quite agreeable.... On the other hand, friends who had the good fortune to know him intimately found in his nature a fund of geniality such as the casual observer could never have dreamt of. Warmth of heart and simple unaffected kindness would seem to have been distinguishing qualities of his private and social demeanour.” He was a strong Churchman and Tory. He married in 1827 a Miss Brown, who died in 1849, leaving three sons.
Some years younger than Christison, Alfred Swaine Taylor was contemporary through life with him, and occupied for many years a quite exceptional position in the English mind in connection with the detection of cases of poisoning. He was born at Northfleet in 1806, and educated at Hounslow. At the early age of sixteen he became the pupil of a surgeon near Maidstone, and in October 1823 entered as a student at Guy’s and St. Thomas’s Hospitals, then forming a united medical school. Later on he was exclusively connected with Guy’s as pupil and lecturer until his retirement in 1878.
From the year 1826 Taylor gave much attention to medical jurisprudence, although his diligence was such as to win for him a prize for anatomy at Guy’s. Chemistry proved a congenial subject to him under the instruction of Allen and Aikin, and he was further stimulated in the same direction by frequent visits to Paris and all the principal Continental medical schools. At Paris he heard among others Orfila and Gay-Lussac. Geology, mineralogy, and physiology likewise engaged his attention, and so was formed a mind singularly broad in its views of natural phenomena, and well calculated to expound their laws. Taylor passed his examinations at the Apothecaries’ Hall in 1828 and at the College of Surgeons in 1830, and entered upon practice, continuing, however, to study in the chemical laboratory of Guy’s Hospital.
In 1831, when the Apothecaries’ Society first required candidates for their diploma to attend lectures on Medical Jurisprudence, Mr. Taylor was appointed to lecture on the subject at Guy’s Hospital, a post which he continued to hold for forty-seven years. In the next year he succeeded Mr. Barry as co-lecturer on chemistry with Mr. Aikin, whose colleague he continued till 1851, after which he was sole lecturer on chemistry till 1870, when he resigned this lectureship. In these important functions Dr. Taylor acquitted himself admirably. He was exceedingly clear in his statements, exact and successful in his experiments, while yet very undemonstrative in manner.
In 1832 the new lecturer commenced his long series of memoirs bearing on poisoning, by publishing an account of the Grotto del Cane, near Naples, with remarks on suffocation by carbonic acid. This appeared in the London Medical and Physical Journal. In subsequent years he contributed important papers to Guy’s Hospital Reports, on the action of water on lead, on poisoning by strychnia, on the tests for arsenic and antimony, &c., and was soon a recognised authority on medico-legal questions. He contributed to the London Medical and Physical Journal valuable memoirs on poisoning, child-murder, &c. In 1836 he published the first volume of a work on medical jurisprudence which was not completed at that time. In 1842 he brought out his well-known “Manual of Medical Jurisprudence,” which reached its tenth large English edition in 1879, in the author’s lifetime, in addition to numerous American editions. The Swiney Prize of 100 guineas, together with a valuable silver vase for a work on Jurisprudence, were also awarded to him.
In 1848, when he became a member of the College of Physicians, Dr. Taylor published a work on Poisons which was at once accepted as standard, and has gone through several editions. In 1865 his large work entitled “The Principles and Practice of Medical Jurisprudence” appeared, including much matter for which there was not space in his manuals. This work attained its third edition in 1883, having been edited by Dr. Thomas Stevenson, his distinguished successor at Guy’s Hospital.
But this represents only a portion of the literary labours of Dr. Taylor. From 1844 to 1851 he was the editor of the London Medical Gazette, afterwards incorporated with the Medical Times. He largely co-operated in editing various editions of Pereira’s Materia Medica. He brought out in conjunction with Professor Brande a Manual of Chemistry in 1863, and in 1876 edited Dr. Neil Arnott’s celebrated work on Physics. He was elected in 1853 Fellow of the College of Physicians, having had previously conferred upon him the honorary M.D. of St. Andrews University. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1845. He married in 1834 a Miss Cancellor.
It was as a medical witness in important legal cases that Dr. Swaine Taylor was most widely known. If a case of unusual character was before the courts, it came to be expected that he should be called as a witness, and for many years he was retained by the Treasury as their medical adviser on such cases. It is impossible here to refer to the numerous important cases of this character in which Dr. Taylor figured. A writer in the Medical Times for June 12 and 19, 1880 (pp. 642, 671), enters into this question from full knowledge, and describes him thus: “Personally Taylor was of a tall and imposing figure, gracious to friends and bitter to foes, and, as the lawyers found, a superb witness, not to be shaken by any light word of doctrine.... There was a thoroughness about Taylor’s work which was always satisfactory.”
In regard to the celebrated Palmer trial, Dr. Taylor was severely cross-examined, and was contradicted in important points by experts called for the defence. In fact, it is possible that the case would have gone in favour of the prisoner but for the strong confirmation of the view of the prosecution given by Dr. Christison, to which we have already referred. Dr. Taylor expressed his strong views on this question in an extended pamphlet “On Poisoning by Strychnia,” most of which appeared in Guy’s Hospital Reports for 1856. He died on May 27, 1880.