The Attorney-General—He said he did not believe them?—I did not. I did not believe that inflammation could be absent and these spots present.
Re-examination resumed—Have you known any serious consequence of a convulsive character reasonably imputed to spots of that description?—I have. There was a case about twenty years ago. It was published. I saw a case myself, about eighteen months ago. I examined the body after death. It was a case of fever, I thought. I did not know what the spots were, and consulted all the authors who had treated on the mucous structure of the stomach, and could find no account of it but in one which I have here, an essay by Dr. Sproshoid, a medical man practising in Edinburgh, but now deceased.
J. N. Bainbridge
Dr. John Nathan Bainbridge, examined by Mr. Grove—I am a doctor of medicine and medical officer to the St. Martin’s Workhouse. I have had considerable experience of convulsive disorders. They admit of a very great variety of symptoms. There are causes of them varying from what are called chronic diseases to rigid opisthotonos. Hysterical convulsions are very frequently accompanied with opisthotonos; convulsions of the muscles of the back and of the limbs. The different cases vary very much as to the frequency of the recurrences, and as to the muscles attacked. Periodicity is very common, that is, occurring at the same hour, the same day, and at an interval of a year. I have known this very common at shorter periods, such as twelve or twenty-four hours. These disorders run so imperceptibly one into the other that it is almost impossible for the most experienced medical man to decide where one kind of convulsion terminates and the other begins. Epileptic attacks are frequently accompanied with tetanic complications, or tetanic spasms.
Cross-examined by the Attorney-General—Do hysterical convulsions ever end in death without being attended by these tetanic symptoms?—Very rarely indeed. I have known one case within the last three months.
Can you undertake to say that that was not a death by apoplexy?—No. The symptoms were somewhat of the same character, but more of the character of epilepsy. It would be very difficult for any man to define the difference in some instances between hysteria and epilepsy.
J. N. Bainbridge
In fact, had not the man been subject to these fits for a long series of years, and at last he died in one of them?—Yes, he had.
In attacks of this nature is there in the fits a loss of consciousness?—Sometimes. I have seen several cases in which there has been, and in others they can almost understand anything you say to them, not perfectly perhaps, but you may rouse them.
Have you ever known an instance in which a man was able to speak when the paroxysm has set in?—They will scream, and recollect what we have said to them. I never knew any of them, in the actual violence of the paroxysm, ask to have their position changed. Epilepsy, when it is very bad, is sometimes attended with opisthotonos.