The principles and practice of medical jurisprudence / by Alfred Swaine Taylor.

Date:
1865
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The principles and practice of medical jurisprudence / by Alfred Swaine Taylor. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

    1224/1290 (page 1160)
    The circumstantial evidence not being of itself sufBcient to establish the fact of poisoning, additional evidence was required to determine—1, Whether tlie cause of death assigned by the witnesses at the inquest w\as adequate to account for it; and 2, Whether, if not, the facts proved relative to the death of the deceased were consistent with narcotic poisoning—whether, in short, death by poison was or was not probable. Mr. Green, Mr. Key, and myself were requested to give an opinion on these points. With regard to the first, we said the cause of death assigned by the witnesses was inadequate and unsatisfactory. The blood found in the stomach was loosely described as half-putrid and not coagulated : so far from its being proved that it had been effused during life, it was not improbable, from the careless manner in which the inspection was made, that it had pro- ceeded from some vessels divided by the examiners. Admitting that it had been effused during life, it did not furnish a satisfactory explanation of the cause of death, since the quantity Avas small. That it was not satisfiictory to the inspectors themselves appeared certain from the fact that they examined the stomach for some kind of poison by the rough experiment of drawing a stick of nitrate of silver over the mucous membrane ! Further, gastric haemorrhage rarely destroys life on a first attack, and is generally accom- panied by vomiting of blood ; but the deceased had never been subject to ]ia;matemesis, and there had been no l)loody vomiting. With regard to the second question, the facts proved might be explained by supposing that the deceased had taken a poisonous dose of laudanum or of some preparation of opium: it might be contended that no opiate was present in the stomach, but it did not appear that any analysis had been made. The deceased had died in about the period at which this poison operates fatally; and it was for the jury to determine from the circumstantial evidence, as the medical evidence wholly failed to throw light upon the subject, how far this was likely. We all agreed that narcotic poisoning in the deceased's case was, so far as we could speak in the absence of an analysis, probable, inasmuch as the facts proved respecting his death agreed with this view, and the results of the medical inspection so far as they went Avere quite con- sistent Avith it. On the other hand, the question might arise whether there Avere no natural causes Avhich would have destroyed life Avithin twelve hours in the siune tranquil manner in Avhich the deceased Avas supposed to have died. To this it may be replied, that apoplexy and other diseases might also have accounted for death; but there Avas no evidence from the inspection to establish the existence of these, and death from a narcotic poison Avas, medically speaking, just as probable. In short, as the evidence was essentially of a negative kind, and there Avere tAvo Avays of accounting for death, either of them consistent Avith the medical facts, it remained for the jury to decide from the Avhole of the circumstances Avhich Avas the more probable. The cause of death Avas entirely a matter of medical presumption. It Avas impossible to swear that the deceased could not haA'e died from apoplexy or from the effects of a large dose of an opiate. As the case Avas only one of suspicion, and not of actual proof, a verdict was returned for the plaintiff. There can be no doubt of the propriety of the verdict, since the laAV ahvays justly insists upon what the circiuustantial evidence combined Avith medical opinions Avas here incapable of affording—namely, direct and not inferential j)/'oo/of death from poison. The insurers had alleged suicide by poison ■ this they were bound to prove by clear and distinct evidence ; the plaintiff Avas not required to shoAv that the death Avas natural. If, besides the paper- wrappers, string, and cork, a phial which had evidently contained laudanum had been found, or the licpiid in the tumbler, instead of being merely fcisted or smelt by the medical gentleman and then throAvn away, had been carefully