Trial of William Palmer

by Unknown

Having gone through this evidence, I think we have four sets of diseases—general convulsions, arachnitis, epilepsy proper, and epilepsy with tetanic complications. I expected that we had pretty well exhausted the whole of those scientific theories, but we were destined to have another that assumed the formidable name of angina pectoris. I do not know whether it struck you as remarkable that when my learned friend opened this case for the defence he never ventured to assert what would be the nature of the disease to which he would endeavour to refer the symptoms of Mr. Cook; and it must, I think, have struck you as a very remarkable thing that no less than four or five distinct and separate theories are set up by the witnesses who appear on the part of the defence—general convulsions, arachnitis, epilepsy with tetanic complications, and, lastly, angina pectoris. My learned friend had, however, this advantage in not stating to you what was the theory that his medical witnesses would endeavour to set up, because, one after another, I must admit they took me entirely by surprise. The gentleman who was called yesterday at the last moment, and who talked of angina pectoris, would not have escaped quite so easily if I had had the books to which he referred under my hand, and had been able to expose, as I would have done, the ignorance or the presumption of the assertion which he dared to make. I say ignorance or presumption, or, what is worse, an intention to deceive. I assert it in the face of the whole medical profession, and I am satisfied I shall have their verdict in my favour.

Attorney-General

But it is a fact which I am entitled to dwell upon, that all those medical witnesses, one and all, differed in the views which they take in this case. There is this remarkable coincidence between the views of some of them and the views of the witnesses whom I called—Mr. Partridge and Dr. Robinson, two of the most respectable witnesses they called, ay, and Dr. Letheby himself, strongly as he was biassed in favour of the defence, being three of the most eminent of the witnesses whom my learned friend brought forward, agreed with the statement made by Sir Benjamin Brodie, and supported by other witnesses whom I brought before you, that in the whole of their experience, in the whole range of their learning and information, they knew of no known disease to which the symptoms of Mr. Cook could possibly be referred. When such men as those tell us such a fact, I cannot but submit to you that it is impossible to exaggerate its importance. But, then, if it be the fact that no known disease can account for such symptoms as those of Mr. Cook, and that they are referable to poison alone, can any one entertain a doubt that that poison was the poison of strychnia? The symptoms, at all events from the time the paroxysm set in, are precisely the same. Distinctions are sought to be made by the subtlety of the witnesses for the defence between some of the antecedent symptoms and some of the appearances after death; but I think I shall show you beyond all possibility of contradiction, that those distinctions are imaginary, and have no foundation in fact. I think I may take this, however, along with me as I go on, that the witnesses called for the defence admit this fact, that from the time the paroxysm set in, of which Mr. Cook died, until the time of the death, the symptoms are precisely similar to the symptoms of tetanus from strychnia. But, then, they say, and this is worthy of your most attentive consideration, that there are points of difference which have led them to the conclusion, or some of them at all events, that those symptoms could not have resulted from strychnia. Let us see what they are. In the first place, they showed that the period which elapsed between the supposed administration of the poison and the first appearance of the symptoms was longer than they have ever observed in animals upon which they have experimented. Now, the first observation which arises there is this, that there is a known difference between animal and human life, in the power with which specific things act upon its organisation, and it may well be that the poison administered to a rabbit will produce its effect in a given time; it by no means follows that it will produce effect in the same time upon an animal of a different description, and still less does it follow that it will exercise its baneful influence in the same time upon a human subject. The whole of the evidence on both sides tends to establish this fact, that not only in individuals of different species, but between individuals of the same species, the same poison and the same dose will produce effects different in degree, different in duration, and different in power. But, again, it is perfectly notorious that the rapidity with which the poison begins to work depends materially upon the mode of its administration. If it is administered as a fluid, it acts with great rapidity; if it is administered in a solid state, its effects come on more slowly; and if it is administered in some indurated substance, it will act with still greater tardiness; and if that substance is difficult of solution, then the period will be still longer before the substance, having become dissolved, is acted upon by the absorbents and taken up into the system.

Attorney-General

Now, what was the period at which this poison began to act after its administration, assuming it to have been poison for the purpose of argument? It seems, from Mr. Jones’ statement, that the prisoner came and administered these pills; he saw him administer the pills somewhere about eleven o’clock, so that they were not administered upon his first arrival. The patient, as though with an instinctive sense of the peril which impended, strenuously resisted the attempt to make him take them, and no doubt those remonstrances and the endeavour to overcome them occupied some period of time. The pills at last were taken, and, assuming them to have contained strychnia (which I only do now for the purpose of argument), how soon did they begin to operate? Mr. Jones says he went down after this and had his supper, and came back about twelve o’clock. Upon his return to the room, after a word or two of conversation with Cook, he proceeded to undress and go to bed; and he had not been in bed ten minutes before the warning came that another of these paroxysms was about to take place. The maid-servants put it still earlier; they say that about ten minutes before twelve the first alarm was given, which would make the interval little more than three-quarters of an hour from the taking of the pills and the first manifestation of the symptoms. When, therefore, my learned friend’s witnesses tell us that it took an hour and a half or two hours, we have here another of those exaggerated determinations to see the facts only in the way that will make most for the view which they think proper to put forward. I say it certainly was not more than an hour, and I find in some of the experiments that have been made that the duration of time before which the poison began to work has been little less, if any less, than an hour. Mr. Morley, who is as much entitled to your attention as Mr. Nunneley—indeed, when I contrast the way in which the two men gave their evidence, I am paying him but a poor compliment when I say that he is as worthy of attention as Mr. Nunneley—Mr. Morley says in his evidence that five or six minutes, or something less than an hour, is the period which he observed the poison required to produce its effects upon animals, and in every one of the cases which we have got it will be seen that more than an hour was necessary. In the case of the girl at Glasgow, though I see the medical gentleman speaks of twenty minutes when he was called in, he could have only had that information from the statement of some of the people about. I see the nurse says it was three-quarters of an hour before the pills began to work upon the girl. There may have been some cause for the pills not beginning to take effect within a certain time after their administration; it would be very easy to mix them with some substance that should render them difficult of solution; nay, which might retard their action. I cannot for a single moment bring myself to believe, if in all other respects you are perfectly satisfied that the symptoms, the consequences, and effects were analogous and similar to those produced by strychnia, it is not because those pills may have taken a quarter of an hour or a longer time to manifest their working, it is not on that account you will hesitate to come to the conclusion that strychnia was administered in this case. But then they say, yes, but the premonitory symptoms were wanting here. They tell us in animals they observed that the animal manifests first some uneasiness, shrinks, and gathers itself into itself, as it were, avoids movement, and then certain involuntary twitchings about the head come, those being the premonitory symptoms before the paroxysms set in. They say there were no premonitory symptoms in Cook’s case; I utterly deny that proposition—I say there were premonitory symptoms of the most marked character, though he did not describe them in language. He is lying in bed—he suddenly starts up in an agony of alarm. What made him do that? Was there nothing premonitory, nothing that warned him that the paroxysm was coming? It is clear there must have been. He jumps up in his bed, and says, “Fetch me Palmer, I am going to be ill, as I was last night.” What was it but that he knew the symptoms that attended him on the previous evening were now warning him of what he might expect in a short period, unless succour could be obtained? He sits up, and he prays to have his neck rubbed. What was the feeling about the neck but a premonitory symptom which was to precede the paroxysm which presently supervened? He says, “Rub my neck, it gives me comfort to have it done.”

Attorney-General

But here again they take exception, and they say this could not have been tetanus from strychnia, because animals cannot bear to be touched; a touch brings on the paroxysm; not only a touch but a breath of air, a sound, a word, a movement of any one near, will bring on a recurrence of the paroxysm. True; but that is after the paroxysm has once been set up, or when it is just about to begin. It is quite clear that those witnesses who come and say that the fact of Mr. Cook having desired to have his neck rubbed is a fact to prove that this could not be a death from tetanus, have either wilfully suppressed the knowledge in their own minds of the evidence they had heard, or they had paid no attention to it; because in two cases of death from strychnia we have shown the patient endured the touching of the limbs, and found satisfaction from it. In Mrs. Smyth’s case, when her legs were distorted, in the agony of the convulsion she prayed and entreated to have them straightened; she found no additional pain from that operation. The lady at Leeds, in the case which Mr. Nunneley himself attended, implored her husband, between the spasms, to rub her legs and her arms, in order to overcome and subdue their rigidity. That case was under his own knowledge, and, in spite of it, although he detected afterwards strychnia in the body of that unhappy woman, he dares to come forward here and say that the fact of Mr. Cook having before the paroxysm tolerated rubbing, and found comfort in it, proves that this could not have been a death from strychnia. What think you of the honesty of such a witness? But there is a third case, which is the case of Mr. Clutterbuck, spoken to by Mr. Moore. That gentleman had taken an overdose of strychnia, and he suffered from all the pains of tetanus; his only comfort was having his limbs rubbed; and therefore, I say, to contend and to endeavour to persuade a jury that the fact of Cook’s having had his neck rubbed proved that this was not tetanus from strychnia, proves, I say, nothing but the dishonesty and insincerity of the witnesses who can dare to put forward such a pretence.

But, then, they go further, and they say that Mr. Cook was able to swallow. So he was, before the paroxysm came on. Nobody ever pretended that he could swallow after the paroxysm came on. He swallowed the pills, and, what is very curious, and, as they think, bears out and illustrates a part of their theory, is this. It was the act of attempting to swallow the pills—the sort of movement that must have taken place in raising his head and neck for the purpose—that immediately brings on the violent paroxysm of which he died. So far from that in the slightest degree militating against the supposition that this was a case of poisoning by strychnia, it is strongly and decisively conclusive in its favour.

Attorney-General

But then they take us to the appearances after death, and they say that there are circumstances to be found which militate against this being a case of strychnia poisoning. Let us see what they are. In the first place, they say the limbs became rigid either at the time of death or immediately after, and that ought not to be found in a case of tetanus from strychnia. Mr. Nunneley says, “In all cases upon which I have experimented I have found the animals become flaccid before death, and they do not become again rigid after it.” I can hardly believe that statement, and I certainly was not a little surprised when the very next witness who got into the box (Mr. Herapath, of Bristol) told us he had made two experiments upon cats, and killed them both. He described them as “indurated and contorted.” Those were his expressions when he found them some hours after death. The presence of rigidity in the body at or immediately after death here is put forward on the part of Mr. Nunneley as one of the grounds upon which he says this was not a death by strychnia, although Dr. Taylor had told us that in the case of one of the cats he killed the rigidity after death was such that upon taking the animal by the hind legs and holding it up in the air, the body maintained its horizontal natural position, as though the animal had been upon its four legs upon a plain surface. Notwithstanding that evidence, Mr. Nunneley had the audacity to say that he did not believe this was a case of poisoning by strychnia, because there had been rigidity of the limbs—because the feet were distorted, the hands clenched, and the muscles rigid as the unhappy man exhibited prior to his death. The very next witness called upon the other side produced two instances in which the animals were indurated from one end of their bodies to the other. As he says they were contorted in all their limbs, and so they remained, it shows what you are to think of the honesty of this sort of evidence, in which facts are selected because they make in favour of the particular hypothesis of the party who brings them forward.