Medical expert testimony in the Kelley murder trial / by Walter Channing.

  • Walter Channing
Date:
1898
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Medical expert testimony in the Kelley murder trial / by Walter Channing. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

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    that he had the ready and quick perception which materially helped him in accomplishing this purpose. Thus it was that we found him ready and alert in answering innumerable questions, and the writer felt that he had so many times rehearsed most of what he had to say, that without in any sense feigning a part, he had come to use instinctively whatever his agile wit enabled him to pick up as something coming quite spontaneously from himself. It appeared that he was able to manufacture lies where truth would not serve, and he had become a composite of Kelley plus, not only his counsel and the alienists he had seen, but news- paper reporters, detectives, fellow-prisoners and most of the per- sons he had seen since his arrest. It will thus appear evident that it was no easy task to analyze satisfactorily such a mental conglomeration, especially in the presence of a large number of both friendly and hostile inquisitors. The better to understand the man we were called on to thus examine, it becomes necessary to describe his appearance physic- ally and mentally. His measurements were as follows: Height, 5 ft. 4^ in.; weight, 170 lbs.; length of head, 190 mm.; maxi- mum width head, 146 mm.; minimum width head, 122 mm.; hori- zontal circumference head, 555 mm.; length face, 132 mm.; width face, 120 mm.; width between eyes, 26 mm.; length orbit, 34 mm.; length nose, 56 mm.; width mouth, 49 mm.; width jaw, 115 mm.; cephalic index, 76.31 +; length left ear, 59 mm.; width left ear, 30 mm.; angle left ear, 50°; length right ear, 58 mm.; width right ear, 31 mm.; angle, 50°. The palate (see Plate I) was a little higher and longer in proportion to the width than normal. Parallelism of the alveolar processes was a striking character- istic. Teeth were regular and comparatively sound. While the measurements of the head reveal no striking ab- normality or asymmetry, there was a slight flattening on the right side in the parietal region and parietal depression of a congenital character on both sides. About the middle of the left frontal bone there was a small cruciform scar, and under it a depression rather smaller than the end of the little finger, which could be seen as well as felt. The type of head was medium dolicho-cephalic; in appearance, however, brachy-cephalic, but not in reality, the pompadour cut of the hair making appearances deceptive; thus the hair
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