Celebrated trials of all countries, and remarkable cases of criminal jurisprudence / Selected by a member of the Philadelphia bar [i.e. J.J. Smith].

  • John Jay Smith
Date:
1835
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Celebrated trials of all countries, and remarkable cases of criminal jurisprudence / Selected by a member of the Philadelphia bar [i.e. J.J. Smith]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    148/612 (page 138)
    Q. About what quantity 1 A. I think not quite a pint on each side the right and left lobe of the lungs. Q. Would not the rupture of a blood vessel occasion death 1 A. The rup- ture of a blood vessel would undoubtedly have occasioned death, but it would not in my apprehension have been attended with the same appearances. Q. Might not a blood vessel, in an effort to reach, be broken 1 A.I should conceive, that if, in an effort to reach, a blood vessel of that magnitude had been ruptured, he must have died immediately without convulsions. Q. But supposing a person recovering from convulsions, for he is stated to be inclined to sleep 1 A. It is a case I am not supposing probable. Q. Is it possible? A. Every thing is possible under God. Q. Did you never hear of any person dying of an epilepsy or of an apo- plexy with symptoms like those, being in convulsions ] A. I do not think the symptoms described as having taken place in sir Theodosius Boughton are like to an epilepsy. Q. Nor an apoplexy 1 A. They were entirely, in my opinion, the effects of the draught. Q. Might not an apoplexy or an epilepsy be accompanied with those symp- toms ? A. I never saw either of them attended with a heaving at the sto- mach. Q. When respiration grows feeble, is it not a common case that the mus- cles of the throat are very much relaxed 1 A. All the effects that succeeded the draught, I believe, were the consequences of it; and if the muscles were relaxed, or foam proceeded from the mouth, they were in consequence of it. Q. Is it not commonly the case with persons who die of almost every dis- order 1 A. Very often. Q. Are not the muscles of the throat instrumental in respiration ] A. So far as to the passage of the air in and out. Q. Is it not a very common appearance a few minutes before death, when respiration grows feeble, for froth to issue from the mouth 1 A. No, not com- monly ; I have seen it in epilepsies. Q What was your reason for supposing at one time that the deceased died of arsenic 1 A. Every man is mistaken now and then in his opinion, and that was my case; I am not ashamed to own a mistake. Q. Have you been very nice in your experiments; for instance, in the con- veying the laurel water into the animals 1 A. If there was any want of nicety, the subject had less of it than I intended. Q. When an animal, suppose a dog or cat, is striving to refuse a draught you are forcing into its mouth, whether it is not common for some part of the liquor to get into the lungs 1 A. If it did, it would make them cough, but be at- tended with no bad consequences, unless it was poison. Q. Did you ever convey any poison immediately into the stomach'? Dr. Rattray. Do you mean by perforation through the ribs ? Mr. Newnham. Yes. Dr. Rattray. I never have. Q. Did you never convey any into the veins of an animal ? A. I never have. Q. Did you observe or smell that liquor which came out of the stomach 1 A. I could not avoid smelling it. Q. Had it the same offensive smell % A. It in general had ; one could not expect any smell, but partaking of that general putrefaction of the body; but I had a particular taste in my mouth at that time, a kind of biting acrimony upon my tongue. And I have, in all the experiments I have made with laurel water, always had the same taste from breathing over the water, a biting upon my tongue, and sometimes a bitter taste upon the upper part of the fauces. Q. Did you impute it to that cause then ] A. No, I imputed it to the vola- tile salts escaping the body. Q. Were not the volatile salts likely to occasion that ? A. No, I complained lo Mr. Wilmer, I have a very odd taste in my mouth, my gums bleed.