G. Robinson
Do you feel yourself warranted in giving an opinion that these granules caused epilepsy in this case?—I think I might have done so. If I put aside the hypothesis of poisoning by strychnia I would. Several of the symptoms described by Mr. Jones, the severe paroxysm, the stiffening of the body, the convulsions of all the muscles of the trunk and limbs, and the complete opisthotonos, are also common to other convulsions. The symptoms are certainly consistent with death by strychnia.
They are the symptoms that you would expect after strychnia?—I think there would have been some slight premonitory symptoms. If I had no other cause to which I could ascribe the death I would ascribe it to epilepsy.
But in this case you admit some of the symptoms are inconsistent with your experience of epilepsy?—Yes.
Re-examined by Mr. Serjeant Shee—They are consistent with the possibility of epilepsy. They are consistent with convulsions of an epileptic form ending in death, though perhaps not actually amounting to epilepsy.
Supposing it to have been actual epilepsy, at what period of the last attack should you say the epilepsy commenced?—When Mr. Cook sat up in bed and cried out. I should imagine that would be the sense of suffocation which would be the premonitory symptoms.
After the final shriek, and throwing himself back in his bed, is there any symptom from which you would infer consciousness after that moment?—Except that he swallowed some pills.
The Attorney-General—Allow me to remind you he asked them to turn him over.
By Mr. Serjeant Shee—Would you consider that a body which immediately, or within ten minutes after death, when it is quite warm, lay perfectly straight, the hands extended, resting on its heels and its back and its head, was in a state of opisthotonos?—Not if it rested on its back. In my judgment it might be that the body might assume, without actual rigidity, the bow-like shape and appearance which has been spoken of, and yet, when turned over, lie flat in the bed, resting on the head, back, and heels.
B. W. Richardson