Report of the trial of Madeleine Smith : before the High Court of Justiciary at Edinburgh, June 30th to July 9th, 1857, for the alleged poisoning of Pierre Émile l'Angelier / by Alexander Forbes Irvine, advocate.

Madeleine Smith

Date:: 1857

Credit: Report of the trial of Madeleine Smith : before the High Court of Justiciary at Edinburgh, June 30th to July 9th, 1857, for the alleged poisoning of Pierre Émile l'Angelier / by Alexander Forbes Irvine, advocate. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, Harvard Medical School.

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$illness about the middle of February. He had one about the 22d, and had one eight or ten days before. This was his first illness. He that night wished a pass-key, as he thought he would be late. I cannot tell the hour when he returned. I went to bed. I did not hear him come in. I knocked at his door about eight. He said on the second knock, Come in, if you please. The Lord Advocate here said that he thought it would be ad- \asable in this case that the medical gentlemen who were to be exa- mined should hear that part of the evidence which was now to be led. The indictment, besides a charge of mru'der, set forth two attempts at poisoning, and it seemed to him to be material that the medical men should liear distinctly stated by the witnesses themselves the symptoms on which they were afterwards to give their opinion. The Dean or Faculty said the proposal had taken him by sur- prise. His o^nl impression was, that the medical witnesses ought to be present; and had notice been given to him, he would willingly have acceded to the proposal now made, but then the medical wit- nesses for the defence ought also to be present, and that, unfortun- ately was impossible in the present case. The Lord Justice-Clerk—I may say that the rule of Com-t is that the medical witnesses shall not be present vniless the case is such as to induce us to relax that rule. The rule is an expedient one. We dispensed with it in the case of Dr Gibson, surgeon to the Prison Board of Glasgow, who was tried in 1848 for granting a false certificate, in consequence of which a prisoner was improperly re- moved, and afterwards died, in consequence, as was alleged, of that improper removal. But in that case the circumstances were pe- culiar, as there was no medical report of the post mortem appearances, and the witnesses for the panel could only be examined on the evi- dence of those who were present being read over to them, which might not be so clear to them as hearing the evidence given.^ The Lord Advocate said that, under these circumstances, he would not press the motion; at the same time, the medical witnesses for the defence ought to have been in attendance. The Dean of Faculty—That is not quite a fair observation, om' medical witnesses have important public duties to discharge. The Lord Justice-Clerk—Still I think that the witnesses for tlie panel ought to be in attendance. The examination of the witness Ann Duthie or Jenkins., was then re- sumed. She said—I found him in bed. He said he had been very unwell, look what I have vomited. I said, I think that's bile. It was a greenisli substance to appearance. There was a great deal of it. It was about the thickness of gruel. I said, Why did you not call on ' See the case of David Gibson, High Conrt of Justiciary, Maj' 18, 1848. Arkley's Justiciary Eeports, p. 489. On the otlier hand, reference may he made to the case of Christian or Christiana Cochrane or Gilmoiir, Higli Court, Jan. 12, 1844. Broun's .Jiisticiary Reports, vol. ii., ]). 23. Tlie various cases will he found noted in Alison's Practice of the Criminal Law of Scotland, p. 544 ; and Dickson on the Law of Evi- dence in Scotland, § 1973.$