Report of the case of John W. Webster, indicted for the murder of George Parkman, before the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts : including the hearing on the petition for a writ of error, the prisoner's confessional statements and application for a commutation of sentence, and an appendix containing several interesting matters never before published / by George Bemis.

  • Webster, John White, 1793-1850.
Date:
1850
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Report of the case of John W. Webster, indicted for the murder of George Parkman, before the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts : including the hearing on the petition for a writ of error, the prisoner's confessional statements and application for a commutation of sentence, and an appendix containing several interesting matters never before published / by George Bemis. 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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    quite a number of these spots, now visible, on the outside of the bottom of the left leg. The drops of blood do not appear to have fallen from any great height; say, as much as three or four feet, or from the height of the hand, above the place where they were found. If they had fallen from that height, upon a vertical surface, they would have had an elongated form. My impression is, therefore, that they must have come upon the pantaloons, laterally, or spattered up, or have fallen from a very short distance above. The only other marks of blood, which I discovered, were a few spots, on a piece of white paper, said to have been picked up in the private room. [Professor Wyman was now requested to produce his cata- logue of the bones, and give such general explanation of its details, with the aid of his diagram, as would facilitate its being understood by the jury. The parts upon which he dwelt, as he proceeded, will be found noticed in the continu- ation of his testimony, at the conclusion of his report.] Catalogue of the fragments of bones, taken from the ashes of the furnace in dr. john w. webster's labo- ratory, at the medical college, in grove street, and first seen by me, december 2, 1849, (sunday.) (The list of fragments of bones given at the Coroner's In- quest, is prefixed. The present catalogue includes the parts there enumerated, as well as others, which were determined subsequently to the inquest. The numbers, which follow the names, in the Coroner's If a drop of blood be rubbed on a piece of glass, as by drawing a bloody finger across it, so that the discs are deposited in a single layer, and then allowed to dry, they are readily recognized, even in the dried state ; but when allowed to dry in masses, I have failed to determine their presence. The lymph-globules, on the contrary, may be softened out, after they have been dried for months, and their characteristic marks readily obtained. I have examined blood, which has been dried for six months, and have found it easy to detect them. It is not improbable, that they may be detected, after the lapse of years, if the blood shall have been preserved dry, so as to prevent decomposition. The evidence, that the stains on the pantaloons and slippers of Professor Webster, were of blood, was derived wholly from the microscope. And the presence of the lymph-corpuscles, combined with the color, and other, and less characteristic, microscopic appearances of the blood, was the basis of the opin- ion given at the trial. While the presence of lymph-corpuscles, combined with the ordinary and more obvious appearances of blood, is regarded as the diagnostic sign of Blood, yet it should never be lost sight of, that it does not give an absolute sign, that the blood is that of the human body. The blood of some animals, so closely resembles that of man, in its microscopic characters, that, as yet, no positive means exist by which they may be distinguished. The opinion, that a stain of blood, in question, is human, or animal, must rest upon probabilities. J. W.