The Queen v. Beaney : extraordinary charge of murder against a medical man, in consequence of a diseased womb being ruptured after death : with medical notes and observations / by C.E. Reeves.

  • Reeves, C. E. (Charles Evans), 1828-1880
Date:
1866
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The Queen v. Beaney : extraordinary charge of murder against a medical man, in consequence of a diseased womb being ruptured after death : with medical notes and observations / by C.E. Reeves. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    GQ of mercury. Acids had no effect on them. It was therefore evident that they were of a fatty character combined with albumen. Mr. Rudall, at the last trial, talked about these deposits, to which his attention was drawn both by Dr. Stewart and the writer, as being the result of decomposition, and that they were earthy salts ; that he had frequently seen them, and within the last twelve months had read about them. If it were not presumptuous, might the writer ask in what book did he see them described] Did he examine these deposits, or get any person to examine them ] He must have had access to Ahem after they were taken away from Mr. Beaney’s. The writer, having placed before the reader as accurate a history as possible, under the circumstances, of this poor girl’s case before she came under Mr. Beaney’s care, while she was under it, and the changes found in her body after death, has next to consider whether everything connected with it does not show that she died from blood-poisoning, and not from violence. He does not bring forward this opinion as his own, but as the opinion of every medical man who has been made conversant with the history of the case. It is scarcely necessary to say that men of such high professional reputation as Drs. Turnbull, Girdlestone, Stewart, Crooke, Robertson, Figg, Gillbee, Thompson, Curtis, Haig, Blair, and others, woflld not come forward and say what they did not believe to be true, and expose themselves to the laughter and scoru, not of twelve jurymen, but of every medical man not registered by the clique under Meciii’s act. Those gentle Arcadians—Messrs. Tracy and Rudall—Australian illustrations of Virgil’s Arcades ambo, Et cantare pares, et respondere parati— could not see anything like blood-poisoning in the case. The former said at the last trial, in answer to a question put by Mr. Adamson— What is the post-mortem appearance arising from blood-poison ] Dr. Tracy. Generally there is a deposit of pus in the lungs, and in the joints. It is always preceded during life (in a case I saw thirty-six Fours after the disease set in) with symptoms of this nature ; in that case one finger had decayed, and there was a deposit of pus in the lungs, which were congested from the matter becoming circulated in the blood.* It is generally arrested at the joints, and death will * The symptoms must have existed much longer than thirty-six hours for puss to be found in the lungs, and one of the fingers to decay.