You have heard the symptoms, and I presume you have heard from the midnight of Monday till Tuesday Mr. Cook had complete repose. I now ask you if, in the face of the Court and of the profession, you will undertake to say that Mr. Cook’s death proceeded from arachnitis?—I should think not. The majority of the symptoms do not show arachnitis.
You have mentioned that there were one or two of the appearances after death in Cook’s case which would be common to other cases, the semi-closing of the hand. Did you ever know, except in a case of tetanus, the hand so completely clenched as to require force to take the fingers away from the hand?—No, I do not.
Have you ever known the feet to be so distorted as to be described by a medical man as assuming the form of a club foot?—Never.
Did you hear the description given by Mr. Jones that when this man died the body was bowed so that, if he had turned it from its side upon its back, it would have rested on its head and on its heels?—I did.
Have you any doubt that that indicates death from tetanus?—Not from some form of tetanic symptoms. I am only acquainted by reading and hearsay with the symptoms that accompany death from tetanus resulting from the administration of strychnia.
From your knowledge of the subject, having attended to the symptoms described by Mr. Jones from the moment the paroxysm set in of which Mr. Cook died, and the symptoms and appearances attending his death, does it appear that these symptoms are consistent with death by strychnia?—Some are consistent and some are inconsistent. The long interval which occurred after the taking of the poison is inconsistent.
What I am asking you is, whether these symptoms on the Tuesday night, from the time the man was taken with the paroxysms of convulsions of the muscles of the trunk, of the legs, of the arms—the bending of the body into a bow—the difficulty of respiration—are consistent with what you know of death by strychnia?—Quite.
Do you agree that the symptoms in tetanus come on gradually and progressive; that, although they are intermitted, the disease is never wholly remitted?—I do.
What is the shortest period in which you have ever known the disease of traumatic tetanus run its course to death?—Never under three or four days.
R. Partridge