Trial and conviction of Dr. Stephen T. Beale : with the letters of Chief Justice Lewis, and Judges Black and Woodward, on his case : interesting ether cases, and letters of Prof. Gibson, Prof. Wiltbank, Wm. Badger, Esq., W.L. Hirst, Esq., Rev. Albert Barnes, Dr. Henry A. Boardman, &c.

Date:
1855
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Trial and conviction of Dr. Stephen T. Beale : with the letters of Chief Justice Lewis, and Judges Black and Woodward, on his case : interesting ether cases, and letters of Prof. Gibson, Prof. Wiltbank, Wm. Badger, Esq., W.L. Hirst, Esq., Rev. Albert Barnes, Dr. Henry A. Boardman, &c. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    Henry Gregory, of the Bank of England, Leicester, had a molar extrtu ted; was weaving all the time—his hands had the motion of a -weaver throwing the -buttle; not conscious of pain. Thomas Spooner,Solicitor, had three stumps taken out; was shooting rab- bits, and remembered things which he had forgotten; not conscious of pain. Miss Spooner, his sister, of Port Madoc, Wales, had fourteen stumps taken out; was in delightful meadows gathering flowers, and was so happy that sho regretted being brought to; not conscious of pain. These facts I wish to bring to the notice of your Excellency, thinking-that the unsupported evidence of Miss Mudge, of what took place while she was under the influence of ether, ought not to be taken as truth. If .Miss Mudge will allow me to administer ether to her in your Excellency's presence, and will inform me of anything which took place during her unconsciousness, I should be willing to take Dr. Beale's phice. DR. F. A. VAN DYKE'S VIEWS. From an able paper, prepared by Dr. F. A. Van Dyke, of this city, and laid before Gov. Bigler, we present the following extract. The Doctor says: My opinion is, that Miss Mudge was laboring under 'illusory sensation.' She herself sunk in the chair, throwing back her head, as is very usual with patients in the dental chair, and probably at the same time changing the position of her feet, and the adjustment of her clothes, and in the confused,dreamy state of ether- ization in which she then was, the pain occurring from the preliminary action of the monthly discharge, increased by etheric stimulation, her morhidly ex- cited perception converted into that occasioned by the supposed atrocity com- mitted by Dr. B., who, standing by her side, operating upon her tooth, threw his breath upon her face. This version is sustained by the subsequent actions of Miss M. She declares herself conscious of the occurrences around her; she hears Dr. B. at the wash stand ; she opens her eyes, and looks down on her person ; sees her clothes raised, and without replacing her garments, or rising from the chair to rebuke Dr. B. for his foul outrage, she closes her eyes lest he should be aware that she had seen her position ; and when he informs her that one tooth of the two must be extracted, asks for more ether; and when the tooth is extracted, screams with the pain. She could not resist; she could not make outcry when the violation of her person is being perpetrated ; an net creative of a moral shock equal, surely, to the physical shock of the extraction of a tooth; and yet in the one instance she screams, and in the other she is quiet and silent. Again. With the consciousness of the occurrences alluded to, continued, she exhibits, after the etherization has in a great measure passed away, no ap- pearance of distress to Mrs. P.; prefers no complaint against Dr. B. ; but, on the contrary,makes a new appointment with him for farther dental operations; spends a full hour in promenade of the streets ; visits an ice-cream saloon, and her dress maker ; walks with a gentleman some pavements, evincing to no one any remarkable expression of distress or mental suffering; makes no examina- tion of her person or clothes for confirmation of her impression, that her per- son had been outraged; she feels no soreness, or difficulty in walking, and suf- fers several h.ours to pass before she gives utterance to her tale of wrono-s. Neither Miss Mudge, nor any other person, examined her clothes till the Sun- day afternoon following the Friday's visit to the dentist. Her person at no time was examined.* The testimony of Miss M., as to the outrage, is left with- * [It should be stated that Dr. Beale and his counsel, immediately on the charge being preferred against him, urged that Dr. Huston, the family physician, and Dr. J. K. Mitchell, should institute an examination, that, hy this means, the falseness of the charge might be made manifest. This was declined. Another overture was made that Dr. Huston and any physician he might choose to select, should do this thing! This, too, was declined. Finally, it was proposed that Dr. Huston alone should do it, but it never teas done; and Dr. Beale was sent to prison on the uncorroborated testimony of a witness, no more fit to testify, as Judge Woodward says, than if she had been dead drunk, or, as Judge Black says, than if she had been at the antipodes.]