POISONING BY ANTIMONY.
THE cases under this head are very numerous, and, therefore, difficult
of selection. I have given, as the leading cases, full reports, (1),
of that of Dr. Pritchard, of Glasgow, tried in the High Court of
Justiciary, in July, 1865, for the poisoning of his wife by repeated
small doses of antimony, and his mother-in-law by antimony and aconite;
(2), of that of Dr. Smethurst (the Richmond poisoning case), tried for
the poisoning of his mistress by small doses of antimony and arsenic,
at the Central Criminal Court, August 15th, 1859[141]; (3), I have
added a report of the Liverpool poisoning case—that of Thomas Waislow,
for the poisoning of Ann James, by antimony, tried at Liverpool, August
20th, 1860.
TRIAL OF DR. PRITCHARD.[142]
_Before_ THE LORD JUSTICE CLERK (RIGHT HON. JOHN INGLIS), LORD
ARDMILLAN, _and_ LORD JERVISWOODE, _at the_ HIGH COURT OF JUSTICIARY,
EDINBURGH, _July, 1865_.
_For the Prosecution_: The Solicitor-General (_now_ Lord Young), Mr.
Gifford, _and_ Mr. Chrichton.
_For the Defence_: Mr. Rutherford Clark, Mr. Watson, _and_ Mr. Brand.
By the _first_ count of the indictment the prisoner was charged with
the murder of his mother-in-law, Mrs. Taylor, by administering to her,
between the 10th and 25th of February, 1865, in Battley’s sedative
solution, tapioca, porter, or some other medicine or food, to the
prosecutor, unknown, tartarised antimony, aconite, and opium, or one
or more of them. In the _second_ count he was charged with the murder
of his wife by administering the like poisons, or one or more of them,
between the 22nd day of December, 1864, and the 25th of March, 1865,
in egg flip, cheese, porter, beer, or wine, or some other articles of
food, to the prosecutor, unknown. To the relevancy of the indictment
several objections were taken, but overruled, and the prisoner pleaded
“Not Guilty.”
THE HISTORY OF THE CASE.
_Edward William Pritchard_, a native of England, and member of the
Royal College of Surgeons since 1846, before he came to Glasgow, had
been a traveller in the Polar and Pacific Seas, and in the countries
bordering the Mediterranean, and first set up in practice at Filey, in
Yorkshire, where he married the daughter of a Glasgow silk merchant,
by whom he had a family. In consequence of this connection, about 1859
he removed to Glasgow, where, from his writings on several diseases,
he became favourably known as a person of superior attainments, and
gradually obtained a fair practice. Whilst thus apparently in the
enjoyment of popularity and success, he, in 1863, became the subject
of much adverse report, from the suspicious circumstances attending a
fire in his house, by which a maid servant was killed—the Insurance
Company refusing to pay his claim, and the doctor not taking legal
steps to enforce its recovery. The ugly rumours about this affair,
however, gradually subsided, and his social and professional position
was retained, until the sudden death of his mother-in-law, whilst
staying in his house to nurse his sick wife, was quickly followed by
that of the wife herself. As the mother-in-law was 70 years of age,
the statement that she had died of apoplexy was at first accepted.
When, however, the death of the wife so quickly followed, suspicion
was excited, inquiries were instituted by the police, and on the 21st
of March, 1865, Dr. Pritchard was arrested on the charge of poisoning
her. A _post-mortem_ examination of her remains had proved that her
death had not been due to natural causes, and a subsequent examination
of the body of his mother-in-law, exhumed for the purpose, led to the
same result in her case. Chemical analyzations of the interior portions
of both bodies disclosed in that of the wife the presence of antimony
in sufficient quantities to account for her death; and in that of the
mother-in-law to reduce the powers of her constitution so far as to
increase and facilitate the effects of a narcotic poison.
THE SYMPTOMS.
The details of the progress of the lingering illness of Mrs. Pritchard
until her death, and of the sudden seizure of Mrs. Taylor with what
proved to be a fatal attack apparently of apoplexy, were given in great
minuteness by several non-professional witnesses, servants in the house
at the time, pupils of Dr. Pritchard’s, and a girl whom Dr. Pritchard
had seduced and promised to marry when his wife died.
Up to October, 1864, Mrs. Pritchard, never apparently a very strong
woman, had been in her usual state of health. Towards the end of
that month, however, she began to look pale and lose her strength
from frequent vomitings, and had to keep her bed, as she believed,
from a severe cold, for four or five days. About this time, on her
temporary recovery, she went on a visit to her parents in Edinburgh,
and there gradually recovered, returning home about Christmas in her
former state of health. After a week or so the vomiting returned, and
on the 1st of February, 1865, she had a severe attack of cramp. Some
few days after, as the prisoner said, Dr. Cowan, a relative, saw her,
and prescribed small doses of champagne as a stimulant. However, the
vomiting returned, and about midnight on the 8th she was seized with
such a violent attack of cramp that, at her request, Dr. Gairdner was
called in, who at once stopped all stimulants. Dr. Pritchard told
every one that his wife was suffering from gastric fever. Dr. Gairdner,
however, could not find any feverish symptoms, and based his advice on
their absence, confessing himself “puzzled with the case.” On the 10th
Mrs. Taylor, her mother, came from Edinburgh to nurse her daughter. She
was a hale, hearty woman, though 70 years of age, but at times affected
with severe headaches, as a remedy for which she had been accustomed
for some years to have recourse to Battley’s sedative solution. On the
13th, at her suggestion, some tapioca was bought, brought into the
house, and left for some time on the lobby table. Of this, afterwards,
a cupful was made, and fetched by Mary McLeod, the younger servant, and
by her carried up to her mistress’s bedroom. Whether Mrs. Pritchard
partook of this or not was not known, but Mrs. Taylor ate a portion of
it, and the cook tasted it before it left the kitchen. Both Mrs. Taylor
and the cook were violently sick after taking the tapioca, the old lady
saying that she feared she was suffering from the same complaint as
her daughter. The tapioca had not been tampered with when purchased,
but when the remainder of it was analysed it was found to be charged
with nearly five grains of tartarised antimony. On the 16th the old
cook left, and Mary Patterson came. She found her mistress suffering
from continual vomits, and gradually getting weaker—as Mrs. Taylor
said, “one day better, and two days worse.” For the next twelve days
this state continued, and then a dreadful scene occurred. Mrs. Taylor,
who, whilst at Dr. Pritchard’s, had sent for a bottle of Battley’s
solution, was violently sick in the evening of the 24th of February,
and about nine on that night rang the bell violently, and was found by
the servant vainly endeavouring to vomit and asking for hot water to
assist her. By the prisoner’s orders this was twice brought, and when
on the second occasion Mary Patterson entered the room Mrs. Taylor was
sitting in her chair with her head down, apparently insensible, and
with her eyes closed. She was lifted into bed, and died in about three
hours. Whilst dressing her corpse a bottle, about two-thirds full of
Battley’s solution, was found in her pocket, and identified as that
which she had last purchased. That this also was pure and free from
poison when sold was clearly proved. When, however, it was analysed,
it was found to be charged with antimony and aconite. Dr. Pritchard
declared that she had died of apoplexy following on paralysis; but
Dr. Paterson, who had been called in at the last moment, distinctly
declared that there were no such symptoms. An attempt was made by the
prisoner to get Dr. Paterson to give the usual certificate of the cause
of death, and on his indignant refusal, the prisoner himself filled
up the form with the words, “Paralysis for twelve hours, followed by
apoplexy,” and the first victim was buried.[143]
Mrs. Pritchard still lingered. She had been sick on the day before
her mother’s death, but not for two or three days afterwards. Then,
however, the attacks returned, coming on, as before, within an hour
or two after her meals, which were uniformly sent to her by her
husband—generally by the hands of McLeod. It was during the last three
weeks of her miserable existence, that on one occasion he sent to her
from the supper table a small bit of cheese, which McLeod tasted at
Mrs. Pritchard’s request, when it gave her a burning sensation in the
throat, and made her thirsty. At another time he sent her a jug of
camomile tea, after taking a wine-glass of which, from time to time, as
ordered, she uniformly vomited. At another time, he had some egg-flip
prepared for her in the kitchen, and brought down the pieces of sugar
for it, taking them, as the witness believed, into his consulting
room, where he kept his drugs and poisons, before he put them into the
glass. Patterson, who tasted it, was struck with the taste, and Mrs.
Pritchard, who drank it, was sick very soon after, and in the following
night. In the week in which Mrs. Pritchard died she drank some port
wine which Dr. Pritchard had sent up, and again was sick. On the 17th
of March, the day before she died, Patterson, who had gone up to her
bedroom to speak about some linen, found Dr. Pritchard handing his wife
a glass of porter, which she drank. At that time Mrs. Pritchard was in
her senses. About five o’clock the bell rang violently. McLeod called
Patterson to come up at once. She did so, and found her mistress raving
about her mother, and calling on them to leave her and assist Mrs.
Taylor; her hands severely cramped—speaking wildly about her children.
After her hands had been rubbed, Mrs. Pritchard seemed to get more
calm, and Mary Patterson left, having handed the patient’s supper to
her husband. Until about half-past one the next morning Patterson heard
nothing. Then she was called up by McLeod to get a mustard poultice,
which the latter took up to the bedroom, and in a few minutes after the
bell again rang violently. She hurried up, and found the prisoner in
bed by his wife’s side. Her mistress was dead. The long agony of months
was at an end.
EVIDENCE OF THE MEDICAL ATTENDANTS.
_Dr. James Moffat Cowan_, her second cousin, in consequence of a
letter from the prisoner, saw Mrs. Pritchard on the 7th and 8th of
February. She was then in the drawing-room, and complained of great
irritability of the stomach, combined with an inability to keep down
her food, and vomiting for some time back. He visited her rather as
an old friend than as a professional man, recommended her to go to
bed, and advised small quantities of champagne with ice to be taken
at intervals, and as she expressed a desire for food, recommended her
husband to try injections of beef tea. She was seized with vomiting
during the evening, but when he saw her before he left on the following
day, seemed better, and he never saw her again alive. He spoke to the
apparent happiness in which she lived with her husband, and to the fact
that, after her death Dr. Pritchard, to enable the servants to take a
last look at their mistress, had the coffin opened. Mrs. Taylor, with
whom he was intimately acquainted, Dr. Cowan described as a person of
very temperate habits.
_Dr. William Tennent Gairdner_, who was sent for during the night
between the 8th and 9th of February, immediately after Dr. Cowan left,
was told by the prisoner that for some time his wife had suffered from
sickness and spasms, and that Dr. Cowan had recommended stimulants, and
that she had had champagne and chloroform.
“I found her,” said the witness, “in bed, lying on her back, with
a considerably flushed face, and in a state of pretty considerable
excitement. She told me of Dr. Cowan’s previous visit and of her
wish that I should be sent for, and we had a good deal of general
conversation about her symptoms. I found her to a certain extent
exhausted, but by no means extremely so. She had a pretty good pulse.
There was nothing in her symptoms to indicate immediate danger, and
the most remarkable thing about her symptoms was the violent state of
mental excitement she was in and the spasms of the hands. She held her
hands outside the bedclothes above her head, and I saw that the wrists
were turned in, and the thumbs somewhat inverted towards the wrists—a
very peculiar state of the hand. I thought she was intoxicated from
the combination of champagne and chloroform. When I turned to the fire
to warm my hands before feeling her, she called me very unfeeling, and
begged me not to leave her, using expressions for which I thought she
was not responsible, from her temporary intoxication. I then examined
her belly, and asked particularly if there was any chance of her being
pregnant,—that being a frequent cause of vomitings,—and found there
was none; and, after various inquiries, feeling her pulse and her
skin, spoke strongly against the use of stimulants, which I ordered
to be at once discontinued until I saw her again. Next day when I saw
her, she assured me that she felt better and had had no return of
the vomiting, but had still the remains of the spasms in her hands.
I repeated my injunctions of no stimulants or medicine, and that her
only food should be a plain boiled egg and bread and milk—that is,
nothing that could produce sickness or sit heavy on her stomach. I
told her that if her stomach had fair play it would digest the simple
food I indicated. _I was very much puzzled as to what was the matter
with her, and, had I been attending her as a general practitioner,
should probably have seen her once or twice a day; but there was a
doctor in the house, and my habit is to act as a consulting physician,
and not as a general practitioner._ I had to leave town for a distant
engagement, but before I left I wrote to Dr. Pritchard to inquire how
his wife was, and received the reply that she was better. I wrote also
to her brother, Mr. Michael Taylor, _as I was very much puzzled with
the case_, and asked to be backed up by him in forbidding the use of
stimulants. On my return Dr. Pritchard called, and left word that his
wife was better, and that I need not call again. I do not think that
there was any fever at all.”
In his _cross-examination_ Mr. Clark, in consequence of Dr. Pritchard
having said to the witness that it was a case of catalepsy, elicited
that Dr. Pritchard was somewhat careless in his nomenclature of
disease—“that he spoke occasionally a little at random, and was not a
model of wisdom, accuracy, and caution, in applying names to things;”
and that, in writing to her brother—who had been a fellow-student with
him—“he had not indicated to him that there had been any foul play,
but nothing more than improper treatment.”
_Dr. James Paterson_, who gave his evidence with an apparently strong
feeling against the prisoner, a man of very large experience, living
within two hundred yards of Dr. Pritchard’s house, had been called in a
little before eleven on the night of the 24th of February, to see the
mother-in-law.
“Dr. Pritchard,” said the witness, “met me in his hall, and conducted
me to the bedroom, telling me that his mother-in-law, whilst in
the act of writing a letter, had fallen off her chair on to the
floor, and been conveyed upstairs about half an hour before I came.
She and his wife, said the prisoner, had partaken of some bitter
beer for supper, and soon after both became sick and vomited, and
complained of its being more bitter than usual. From the quantity
remaining in the bottle they could not have taken more than a third
of a pint each.[144] I asked in regard to the previous state of his
mother-in-law’s health, and particularly as to her social habits,
when he led me distinctly to understand that she drank spirits
occasionally. He also stated that his wife had been very poorly for
some time with gastric fever, and that, some days previously, he had
telegraphed for her mother to come and nurse her. On entering the
bedroom I observed Mrs. Taylor lying on the edge of the bed nearest
to me on her right side, with all her clothes on. She had all the
appearance of a sudden seizure. Mrs. Pritchard, in her night-dress
and nothing on her head, and her hair very much dishevelled, was in
the same bed, but underneath the clothes, sitting up immediately
beyond her mother. Mrs. Taylor was then alive, and she gave me the
impression of a healthy-looking old lady, and previously in very
good health—rather beyond the usual size, well-formed; a very
superior-looking person, not having the slightest appearance of being
addicted to the use of spirituous or intoxicating liquors. Her face
was rather pale, but the expression was calm and placid. The eyelids
partially closed, the lips rather pale and livid; the breathing slow
and laborious; the skin cool, and covered with a clammy perspiration;
the pulse almost imperceptible, and she seemed to me perfectly
unconscious. On my opening up the eyelids, I found both pupils very
much contracted. From these symptoms, and judging from her general
appearance, my conviction was that she was under the influence of
opium or of some other powerful narcotic, and I at once pronounced my
opinion that she was dying.
“I and Dr. Pritchard retired a little from the bedside, and went
to the fireplace, and I then stated distinctly that she was dying.
Pritchard said she had frequently had attacks of a similar kind
before, but never one so severe. I said, nothing that we could do
would have the slightest effect, but that, as a last resource, we
might try mustard poultices to the soles of the feet, the calves of
the legs, and the inside of the thighs, and as quickly as possible
administer a strong turpentine enema. Pritchard at once proceeded to
prepare the enema, and said he had a little before given her one,
in which he had administered a glass of brandy. The old lady lay
apparently comatose, or unconscious; but on being roused a little,
and the head and shoulders slightly elevated, there was a degree of
consciousness came on, and the pulse became perceptible at the wrist.
She had not manifested consciousness before. I directed Pritchard’s
attention to the pulse, and he then clapped the old lady on the
shoulder and said, ‘You are getting better, darling.’ I looked at him
and shook my head ominously, as much as to say, ‘Never in this world.’
A slight fit of retching now came on, and she put up a small quantity
of a frothy kind of mucus, immediately after which the ‘coma,’ or
insensibility, returned—the breathing became more oppressed, more
laboured, and the alvine evacuations were passed involuntarily, I
then concluded that the case was hopeless, but Pritchard administered
his enema. I then left the room, and went downstairs with Pritchard to
his consulting room, and there repeated my opinion that she was in a
state of narcotism. Pritchard then said that the old lady was in the
habit of regularly using Battley’s Sedative Solution, and that she
had a few days before purchased not less than a half-pound bottle of
that medicine, and that he had no doubt, or it was very likely, that
she might have taken a good swig of it. I know that medicine, but
seldom use it. My impression was that she was not what is called an
opium-eater, or one that used opium to any great extent. She presented
no appearance of that.”
At this visit Dr. Paterson’s attention was forcibly attracted to the
appearances presented by Mrs. Pritchard.
“She seemed,” said the witness, “exceedingly weak and exhausted.
Her features were sharp or thin, with a high hectic flush on her
cheeks, and her voice was very weak and peculiar—in fact, very much
resembling a person verging into the collapsed stage of cholera. The
expression of her countenance conveyed to me the idea of a kind of
silly or semi-imbecile person at the time. At first I was inclined
to attribute her appearance to the recent severe attack of gastric
fever, which I was told by the prisoner she had had, and her symptoms
aggravated, of course, by the great consternation and grief not
unnaturally caused by the sudden and alarming condition of her mother.
At the same time I must say that I could not banish from my mind the
idea, or rather conviction, that her symptoms betokened that she was
under the depressing influence of antimony—that conviction came upon
me while in her presence, and I could not get quit of it. I did not
put a single question to her.”
At half-past eleven Dr. Paterson went home, and about one the next
morning he was sent for again, but refused to go, as he was certain he
could do nothing, but sent word that he would do so if Dr. Pritchard
thought he could be of any use. No answer came, and it was not until
the Saturday morning that he heard of Mrs. Taylor’s death, when her
husband called on him to ask him to certify the cause of death, and
the duration of her disease. This he refused, telling Mr. Taylor that
that document was not given to friends of the deceased, but only to
the Registrar. Soon after Dr. Paterson received from the Registrar
the usual form to fill up, which he returned at once in blank as it
came, with this note:—“Dear Sir,—I am surprised that I am called on
to certify the cause of death in this case. I only saw the person for
a few minutes a very short period before her death. She seemed to be
under some narcotic; but Dr. Pritchard, who was present from the first
moment of the illness until death occurred, and which happened in his
own house, may certify the cause. The death was certainly sudden,
unexpected, and to me mysterious.” The words “the cause of death” he
rendered emphatic by underlining them. That was the only communication
which he made to anyone, beyond speaking about it in his own family.
The certificate was eventually given by Dr. Pritchard, assigning as the
cause of death “paralysis for twelve hours as the primary cause, and
the secondary, apoplexy,” the duration of which had been one hour.[145]
* * * * *
On the 1st of March he met Pritchard accidentally, who asked him to
come and see his wife, which he did the next day.[146]
“She was in bed, still very weak and prostrate, and in a weak voice
expressed her satisfaction and her gratitude at my calling. Then,
in a very earnest manner, she asked me if I really thought that her
mother was dying when I saw her. I said most decidedly I did, and
had told Pritchard so. She then clasped her hands, looked up, and
feebly exclaimed, ‘Good God, is it possible!’ and burst into a flood
of tears. I put some questions then as to her mother’s previous state
of health, especially if she was habitually addicted to the use of
Battley’s solution. She told me that her mother’s health, generally
speaking, was good, but that she suffered occasionally from what she
called neuralgic headaches, and for relief of these attacks she did
take a little Battley’s solution; but she added that she could not be
said to be in the habitual use of that medicine.
“I then questioned her about herself. She told me that for a
considerable time past she had suffered very much from sickness,
retching, and vomiting, with severe pains in the stomach and
throughout the bowels, accompanied with purgings, great heat and
uneasiness about the throat and mouth, and a constant urgent thirst.
I examined her tongue; it was very foul, and of a lightish brown
colour. Her features were still very sharp and deeply flushed. Her
pulse was weak, contracted, and very rapid. Her skin was moist, but
defective in animal heat, and altogether she presented the appearance
of great general prostration. Her eyes were watery, but clear and
intelligent. I prescribed for her small quantities of brandy and
champagne to recruit her strength, and small pieces of ice to relieve
the thirst and irritability of her stomach. If she tired of these, she
should have recourse to granulated citrate of magnesia as a cooling
effervescent drink, and have a mustard poultice applied on the pit
of the stomach—these were verbal directions. I also recommended, at
short intervals, small quantities of easily digested nutritious food,
such as beef tea, calves’ foot jelly, chicken soup, arrowroot, and so
on. I then wrote a prescription for 12 grains of camomile, 24 of blue
or gray powder, 12 of powdered ipecacuanha, and 6 grains of aromatic
powder, to be carefully mixed and divided into six parts, one to be
taken daily, to relieve the biliary disturbance and soothe the mucous
lining of the alimentary canal. I gave her the prescription, and told
her to show it to Pritchard when he came home.”
From then until the day before her death the witness did not see
Mrs. Pritchard. On the 5th of March Dr. Pritchard had called on him,
and reported that his wife was better for his advice, but still very
weakly, and her stomach irritable, and had been strongly advised by Dr.
Paterson to continue the treatment he had recommended.
“On Friday evening,” continued the witness, “Dr. Pritchard called
upon me personally and requested me to come and see his wife. I did
so. She was in bed in a sitting posture, supported by pillows, and I
was very much struck with her terribly altered appearance. She seemed
quite conscious. I went up to her bedside and she caught my hand, and
I could see a half-smile of recognition on her countenance. She very
soon began to mutter something about her having been vomiting. Dr.
Pritchard was standing beside me, and he volunteered to say that she
had not been vomiting—that she was raving. She complained of great
thirst, and Pritchard poured some water out of a _carafe_ into a
tumbler and gave it her, and she drank it. I observed her countenance
very much changed from what it had been when I saw her last. Her
cheeks were hollow, sharp, pinched-looking, and still very much
flushed. There was a peculiarly wild expression: the eyes were of a
fiery red and sunk-looking. Her pulse was very weak and exceedingly
rapid. Her tongue was a darkish brown colour, very foul; and she
immediately began to grasp with her hand as if to catch some imaginary
object on the bedclothes. She muttered something about the clock,
but there was none in the room. I expressed my surprise at the great
change and alarming appearances, and asked Pritchard how long she had
been confined to bed since I saw her. He said only since morning, that
yesterday and yesterday afternoon she was in the drawing room amusing
herself with the children. I again expressed my surprise at her
alarming condition. He said she had not slept for four or five nights,
and I replied that we must endeavour to procure some refreshing sleep.
We went downstairs, and I then prescribed 30 drops of solution of
morphia, 30 drops of ipecacuanha wine, 10 drops of chlorodyne, and an
ounce of cinnamon water, to be taken every four hours if the first
dose did not give relief. Pritchard wrote the prescription at my
dictation. I said it was unnecessary; it was simple, and he might mix
it himself. I was anxious to save time, and give relief as soon as
possible. He said he kept no medicines but chloroform and Battley’s
solution; he did not keep a small stock for any emergency, which I
thought strange.[147] I then left the house, and at one o’clock the
next morning a message came that Mrs. Pritchard was dying, and in less
than three minutes after another that she was dead. I never entered
Dr. Pritchard’s house except on the occasions I have mentioned. I
never told him that I thought his wife had taken too much wine, and I
never recommended Dublin stout for her.”[148]
The _cross-examination_ of Dr. Paterson was confined to two points,
the grounds on which he held that Mrs. Taylor had not the appearance
of having been in the habit of using opium, and his conduct in not
disclosing to some member of her family the impression he had formed
that Mrs. Pritchard was being slowly poisoned by antimony. “When a
person is in the habit of taking opium to a great extent,” he said,
“you generally find that they are not very good in colour. They are
generally thin in features and hollow about the eyes—in fact, not of
a healthy appearance. Mrs. Taylor being stout and healthy-looking, my
impression was that she was not an habitual consumer of opium, though
she might take it occasionally as medicine.” On the second point he
stood on professional etiquette as a consulting physician, and not the
regular medical attendant, insisting that he had no right to revisit
his patient unless sent for, and saying that he believed he should
never have been called in the second time had he not accidentally met
Dr. Pritchard in the street.
“His first impression arose simply from seeing Mrs. Pritchard at the
time of her mother’s fatal seizure, when he formed his diagnosis from
the symptoms that were present, just as he was in the habit of forming
his opinion of any patient he saw for the first time—judging from
symptomatology, the science of the signs of disease. It was not his
duty to interfere in the family without being invited, as there was
another doctor in the house, and he did the best he could by apprising
the registrar when refusing to sign the certificate of Mrs. Taylor’s
death. Had he been called in consultation with another medical man,
he should have felt it his duty to state his medical opinion; and
had there been a _post-mortem_ examination of Mrs. Taylor’s body at
the time, he believed that in all probability the drugging of Mrs.
Pritchard with antimony would have gone no further, at least at that
time.”
When called in the second time on the 2nd of March, he said:—
“I believed her to be suffering under poisoning by antimony,”
and I prescribed accordingly. I saw her alone, but I did not give
her any indication of what I thought her ailment. I did not mention
antimony or poison in the slightest. I did not give her any idea
that she was labouring under any but a natural disease, because the
treatment which I prescribed for her, provided she got nothing else,
was in my mind quite sufficient to have very soon brought her round,
taking it for granted that my advice was carefully walked up to. I
did not mention to Dr. Pritchard that his wife was being poisoned by
antimony. It would not have been a very safe matter to have done so.
I did not go back the next day to see if my advice had been acted on.
I did not consider that she was my patient at all. I had no right or
title to go back and see her. In any case where a consultation is held,
the consulting physician has no right to go back to see the patient; it
would be a breach of the etiquette of the profession.”[149]
On _re-examination_ Dr. Paterson stoutly adhered to his opinion that
his being called in to see Mrs. Pritchard was purely accidental, and
that it would not have been very natural to have communicated his
suspicions to the husband.
PURCHASE AND POSSESSION OF MEDICINES AND POISONS BY THE PRISONER.
The prisoner, when it was suggested by Dr. Paterson that he should mix
in his own consulting-room the prescription, on the 17th of March, told
the doctor that he did not, like other medical men, keep in his house
a small stock of medicines for any emergency. It was, however, proved
that in the presses in his room were at least five-and-thirty bottles
of medicinal preparations, and several papers and bottles of poisons;
and that he had been a constant purchaser of poisons, and especially of
Fleming’s tincture of aconite and tartarised antimony, from September,
1864, to as late as the 16th of March, 1865.[150] According to the
witnesses for the prosecution, the quantities of antimony and tincture
of aconite bought by him were largely in excess of the amounts sold to
other medical men, though not so according to the experience of two
druggists called by the prisoner. Anyhow, as will be seen by the list
in the note, the purchases were larger than could have been required
in any ordinary practice. Besides the phials and papers subsequently
proved to contain poison, in one of the presses was a bottle labelled
Battley’s solution, which was found to contain an appreciable quantity
of antimony, to the extent of 1·5 of a grain per fluid ounce, and the
remainder of the tapioca to be charged with 4·62 grains of antimony to
the pound. A phial containing 3·5 grains of tartarised antimony, and
three others containing tincture of conium, and six other phials with
small portions of tincture of aconite, conium, and digitalis, were
found in the prisoner’s cupboard. In the chloroform, no metallic poison
was discovered; but in a small wooden box with a screw cover were 15·5
grains of tartarised antimony and arsenious acid (the common poison
of arsenic), in nearly equal proportions; 35 grains of tartarised
antimony in a pasteboard box, and about ten drops of aqueous solution
of corrosive sublimate were found in a quart wine-bottle.[151]
MEDICAL AND CHEMICAL ANALYSES OF THE BODIES OF MRS. TAYLOR AND MRS.
PRITCHARD.
MRS. TAYLOR.
On the 29th and 30th of March the exhumed body of Mrs. Taylor was
medically and chemically examined by _Dr. Maclagan_, the professor of
medical jurisprudence in the university of Edinburgh, and _Dr. Henry
Duncan Littlejohn_, surgeon of the Edinburgh police. In accordance
with the admirable practice of the Scotch courts these experts gave
in formal certificates “on soul and conscience,” which were read in
court before any personal examination was allowed. The medical report,
after detailing the healthy condition in which the different portions
of the body were found, concluded by stating that the examiners “had
not been able to discover in the body any morbid appearances capable of
accounting for death, and that they were of opinion that the cause of
death could not be determined without chemical analysis, and that for
that purpose they had secured the alimentary canal and its contents,
the heart and some of the blood, the liver, the kidneys, the bladder
and uterus, and a portion of the brain,” which had been entrusted to
Dr. Maclagan, of whose report the substance is now given:—
“_Contents of stomach_, amounting to five ounces, having been first
tested for vegetable poisons, and then for meconic acid, without
success, ‘the residues of the above process were tested for mineral
poisons; and a preliminary trial, by Reinsch’s method, having revealed
the presence of antimony, I subjected the whole to a process by which
I was enabled to determine the amount of this metal (process then
described). Assuming, for reasons afterwards to be given, that the
antimony existed in the form of tartar emetic, the amount of this
represented by the sulphuret which I obtained from the stomach was a
little more than a quarter of a grain (0·279).
“_Contents of intestines._—The whole contents were evaporated at a
gentle heat on the water-bath, and a dry residue obtained, weighing
430 grains. Ten grains of this, by Reinsch’s process, yielded a
characteristic deposit of antimony. To determine in what form this
antimony existed, other ten grains were treated with distilled water,
the solution filtered, and the fluid subjected to Reinsch’s process.
A characteristic antimonial deposit was obtained, thus proving that
this metal was present in a soluble form. There are only two soluble
forms of antimony met with in commerce. One of these, the chloride,
is a dark-coloured, acid, corrosive fluid, totally unsuited for
internal administration. The other is what is known scientifically as
‘tartarised antimony,’ and popularly as ‘tartar emetic,’ a colourless
substance possessed of comparatively little taste, and in daily use
as a medicinal agent. I have no doubt it was in this form that the
antimony had been taken, which I found in the alimentary canal of
Mrs. Taylor. I endeavoured to determine the amount of antimony in
the contents of the intestines, but the deposit was too small to
enable me with confidence to make it the subject of a quantitative
determination. No arsenic was found.
“_The Blood._—From one ounce a characteristic antimonial deposit was
obtained.
“_The Liver._—By operating on 1000 grains of this, I obtained a
quantity of sulphuret, indicating that the whole liver contained one
grain and one-tenth (1·151) of tartar emetic. I also examined the
other solid organs and tissues removed from Mrs. Taylor’s body, in
each case following Reinsch’s method, and in each case obtaining on
copper a characteristic antimonial deposit. I thus found that there
was more or less of antimony present in the muscular substance of the
heart, the spleen, the kidney, the coats of the stomach, and of the
rectum, the uterus, and the brain.
“_Lastly._ As Mrs. Taylor’s body had been exhumed, I thought it my
duty to examine some of the earth in which it had been interred,
though this was superfluous, from the fact of the soil being dry, and
the coffin entire: it was not found to contain a trace of soluble
antimony, and was therefore incapable of impregnating with this metal
any body buried in it.”
MRS. PRITCHARD.
On the 21st of March a similar examination was made of the body of Mrs.
Pritchard three days after death by the same medical men, who reported
“that it presented no appearances of recent morbid action beyond a
certain irritation of the alimentary canal, and nothing at all capable
of accounting for death.” They had therefore secured for chemical
analysis those parts of the body which they deemed likely to disclose
the cause of death. As a portion of this analysis had been conducted
during the temporary absence of Dr. Maclagan in London by Dr. Gamgee
and Dr. Littlejohn, previously to the report being read they were
called to prove that Dr. Maclagan’s report of what they had done in his
absence was correct. The following was the substance of the report of
the chemical analysis:—
“(1.) _Contents of stomach_ amounted to little more than ½ an ounce,
and free from all odour of any poisonous drug. Not a trace of any
vegetable poison or of antimony was found.
“(2.) _Urine._—The presence of antimony having already been
ascertained in a portion of this secretion, the remainder (7 ounces)
was employed to determine the quantity. The process followed was
that by which antimony is obtained in the form of the sulphuret,
after destroying the organic matter by means of hydrochloric acid
and potash. The quantity was readily weighed, and found to be rather
more than one-tenth of a grain (0·1078). This corresponds to nearly
one-fourth of a grain (0·121) of tartar emetic.
“(3.) _The Bile._—A little more than ½ an ounce of this fluid was
obtained from the gall-bladder. By Reinsch’s process 50 minims
readily gave an antimonial deposit. The remainder (4 drachms) used to
determine the amount, yielded sulphuret of antimony corresponding to
more than one-tenth of a grain (0·121) of tartar emetic.
“(4.) _The Blood._—1 ounce, by Reinsch’s process, readily gave
evidence of the presence of antimony.
“(5.) _The Liver._—The weight was 36 ounces, a portion of which,
weighing less than 4 ounces (1460 grains), by Reinsch’s process, gave
sufficient antimony to coat rather more than four square inches of
copper foil. (This experiment was satisfactorily tested by another
process described in the report.) As to quantity, 1,000 grains gave of
sulphuret of antimony 0·1234 grains, corresponding to a quarter of a
grain of tartar emetic, making the whole amount contained in the liver
almost exactly 4 grains (3·93 grains).
“I next examined the remainder of the solid organs removed from the
body of Mrs. Pritchard, and found more or less antimony in the whole
of them.
“I also examined certain articles of clothing and bed-linen handed to
me by the officer, and in the stains on four of them—the chemise, two
sheets, and a toilet-cover, on which was a stain as of wine—I found
antimony. From these experiments I have been led to the following
conclusions:—
“(1.) Mrs. Pritchard had taken a large quantity of antimony in the
form of tartar emetic.
“(2.) Having regard to the absence in her body of any morbid
appearances sufficient to account for death, and to the presence in it
of a substance known as capable of destroying life, her death must be
ascribed to the action of antimony.
“(3.) That it is most unlikely that this poison was taken in a single
large dose. Had this been the case, I should have expected to have
found some more decided evidence of irritant action in the mouth, the
throat, or the alimentary canal.
“(4.) That from the extent to which the whole organs and fluids of the
body were impregnated with it, it must have been taken in repeated
doses, the aggregate of which must have amounted to a large quantity.
“(5.) That from the large amount found in the liver, from its ready
detection in the blood, and from its being found passing so copiously
out of the body by the bile and the urine, it is probable that some of
the poison had been taken at no greater interval than a period of a
few days previous to death.
“(6.) That I am inclined to believe that it had not been administered,
at all events in any great quantity, within a few hours of her death.
Had this been the case, I should have expected to have found at least
some traces of it in the contents of the stomach, and more in those
of the intestines; whereas none was found in the former, and the
amount found in the latter seems to be amply accounted for by the bile
impregnated with the poison discharged into them from the liver.
“(7.) That the period over which the administration had extended
cannot be determined by mere chemical investigation, but must be
deduced from the history of the case, with which I am unacquainted.”
_Dr. Maclagan_ then stated what portions of the bodies he had handed to
Professor Penny for further analysis, and described the result of his
examination of the solid residue obtained from Mrs. Pritchard’s body by
the process adopted by Dr. Gamgee and Dr. Littlejohn.
“I determined the presence of mercury, and found a considerable
quantity of antimony remaining in it. I got a clear fluid by operating
on that residue with chlorate of potash and hydrochloric acid; and
then passing sulphuretted hydrogen, I got a precipitate of a dirty
orange colour, which was collected, washed and boiled in strong
hydrochloric acid. The yellow colour disappeared, and the precipitate
became black. The hydrochloric solution was then mixed with water
and tartaric acid, and it gave an orange precipitate which, when
collected and weighed, amounted to 0.082, equal on the whole to 1.265
of sulphuret of antimony—rather more than a grain and a quarter—in
the whole of the solid residue. This was in addition to what had been
found in the intestines after the precipitate had been obtained by
Dr. Gamgee and Dr. Littlejohn. A grain and a quarter of sulphuret
of antimony is equal to two and a half of tartar emetic; the amount
of tartar emetic in the whole of the intestines would be about five
grains and three-quarters (5.712).”
_In cross-examination, Dr. Maclagan_ deposed to the discovery of
about the three hundredth part of a grain of mercury in the 50 grains
of sulphuret; that in some cases he was not content with the mere
presence of the deposit on the foil, but boiled the copper foil in
potash—namely, with the contents of the intestines and with the
liver—but otherwise was content with the coloured deposit.
_Dr. Frederick Penny_ then gave in his reports on the portions of the
bodies of Mrs. Taylor and Mrs. Pritchard, given to him by Dr. Maclagan.
The following is the substance of the report in Mrs. Pritchard’s case:—
“_Dried Contents of Intestines._—By the first process employed an
abundant black precipitate was obtained, which by proper treatment
was separated into sulphide of antimony and sulphide of mercury.
The sulphide of antimony, which was obtained of a fine orange-red
colour, was washed, dried, and weighed. Its weight corresponded to
a quantity of metallic arsenic equal to 2.1 grains in one thousand
parts of the dried contents of the stomach. The same sulphide was
found to be readily soluble in sulphide of ammonium, and also in
hydrochloric acid; and the acid solution, when poured into water, gave
a white precipitate, and when boiled with copper ribbon deposited
a violet-coloured coating on the surface of the copper. The coated
copper, on being heated in a glass tube, gave no distinct crystalline
sublimate. All these results are eminently characteristic of sulphide
of antimony when thus treated.
“The sulphide of mercury gave metallic mercury corresponding to 3
grains in 1,000 grains of the dried contents of the intestines.
The report then states how these tests were confirmed by further
experiments on the solution by Reinsch’s test supplemented by that of
Marsh.
“_Stomach_, by the same methods, yielded antimony in appreciable
proportions, equal to 0.5 of a grain in 1,000 parts, but no mercury;
that it was afterwards treated for morphia and aconite, but not a
trace of these substances was obtained.
“_Liver_ found to contain antimony equal to one-tenth of a grain in
1,000 parts, but no mercury.
“_Spleen_ yielded antimony in about the same proportion as the liver,
and also contained mercury in well-marked quantity.
“_Kidney_ about the same proportion as the liver, and a minute trace
of mercury.
“_Heart_ yielded antimony in a proportion rather larger than that
found in the liver, and less mercury than in the spleen.
“_Brain_ yielded antimony in less quantity than the liver, and no
mercury.
“_Blood_ yielded a small quantity of antimony, and a faint trace of
mercury.
“_Rectum_, antimony in less quantity than the liver, and no
indications of mercury.”
In the case of Mrs. Taylor, _Dr. Penny_ reported:—
“That all the articles submitted to him (liver, stomach, heart,
kidney, rectum, blood, and dried contents of intestines), and
subjected to analysis, contained antimony; (2), that the contents of
the intestines contained the largest proportion of antimony (0.583
parts in 1,000 parts); next, the liver and stomach (0.047 of a grain
in 1,000 grains in each); then the blood, and, in less quantity,
the heart, kidney, and rectum; (3), that part of the antimony in
the contents of the intestines was in a form soluble in water; (4),
that the kidney was the only article in which mercury was detected;
(5), that neither the stomach, nor the contents of the intestines,
contained aconite or morphia in quantity sufficient to be detected by
known chemical processes; (6), that the articles subjected to analysis
contained no other metallic poison than antimony and mercury as
reported above.”
_Dr. Penny_ also handed in his reports of the examination of the
contents of the cupboards in Dr. Pritchard’s consulting room, the
substance of which has already been given. In the first of these
reports, that of the 17th of May, Dr. Penny had stated that he was at
present engaged in testing the bottle of Battley’s solution (in which
he had discovered antimony) for other substances, the result of which
inquiry he now detailed:—
“I looked for mercury and other metals. I searched for aconite, and
also for conium. I found aconite. This is tested chiefly by the taste
of the abstract obtained by evaporation, and by its physiological
action upon small animals. A portion of the fluid was evaporated
to dryness, and the extract thus obtained was very carefully
tasted, or its effects upon the tongue and on the lips ascertained
by applying them to it. The effects were a tingling and benumbing
sensation—characteristic of aconite. To another portion of the
extract, dissolved in water, ammonia was added, and a precipitate
was separated and examined in the same way, after being dissolved
in diluted hydrochloric acid. The benumbing and tingling sensation
produced by that precipitate was very slight. But the ammoniacal
liquid, after the separation of the precipitate, was treated with
hydrochloric acid, and evaporated, and the sensation produced by this
residue was very strong.
“With a view to ascertain the character of aconite when mixed with
Battley’s solution, I mixed known quantities of tincture of aconite
with Battley’s solution, treating the mixtures in the same way. I took
Fleming’s tincture and the results were precisely similar; but when
the proportion of aconite was equal to 5 per cent., the sensation was
by no means strong; but when it was in the proportion of 10 per cent.,
it gave a sensation, though the same, much stronger than that of the
liquid in the bottle. I draw the conclusion, therefore, that in this
solution the proportion was between 5 and 10 per cent. I purchased
genuine Battley’s solution at several establishments in Glasgow,
including that of ‘Murdoch Brothers,’ and was satisfied that none of
them contained either antimony or aconite.”
_Dr. Penny_ then detailed his experiments with pure and impure
Battley’s solution on rabbits. Genuine Battley, when injected under
the skin, did not kill; 40 grain drops from the bottle found in Mrs.
Taylor’s dress did.
“I made in all about ten experiments with the genuine Battley’s mixed
with Fleming’s aconite. I will tell you the result of two experiments.
In one set I injected a mixture of Battley into three young rabbits,
and in a third into full grown rabbits. In the first set with young
rabbits I injected 10 grains of genuine Battley’s solution. In the
second experiment with a young rabbit I injected 10 grains of this
Battley’s (that found in the prisoner’s cupboard); in the third, I
injected a mixture of 9 grains of genuine Battley, and 1 grain of
Fleming’s tincture of aconite. In the cases of the old rabbits I
proceeded in a similar way, only increasing the dose to 40 grains.
The symptoms manifested by the rabbits, old and young, subjected to
the action of genuine Battley, were simple in character and few in
number, and were not materially altered by the variation of the dose.
The animal soon assumed a prone position, resting on the belly and
chest, and the head invariably resting on the ground. The forelegs
were either sprawling or gathered under the body, the hind legs always
extended sideways; the eyes remained open, and the pupils were natural
and not contracted; the breathing was invariably gentle; no cries
were uttered, and no convulsions or spasms of the body were apparent.
There was a complete condition of inanity, and, with the exception
of the open state of the eyes, the animal seemed to be in a state of
profound sleep. There was no indication of spasmodic movement, and,
when aroused and urged to motion, the movements were always performed
in a crawling, tortoise-like manner. In this state the animal remained
for several hours, and then gradually recovered.
“The effects produced by the mixture of genuine Battley with aconite
presented a striking contrast to those resulting from pure Battley.
Very soon after the injection the animal became restless and uneasy,
and then began to crouch, resting on its flank, with the hind legs
extending laterally, and the head erect. It next assumed a sitting
posture, in an attitude of watchful expectancy, and commenced to
twitch its lips and move its jaws as if chewing. Suddenly it staggers,
rolls over, and quickly regains its feet. Saliva begins to flow
from the mouth, and soon after piteous and peculiar choking cries
are emitted. Its head is retracted, and the breathing is painfully
laborious. Convulsions now set in, followed by intervals in which the
limbs are quite relaxed, and the animal lies helpless on its side.
Frantic leaps are now frequently taken, accompanied by movements of
a paralytic character. A state of utter prostration also occurs,
variable in duration, and then a strong convulsion comes on, during
which, or immediately after which, the animal expires, the limbs
becoming instantly relaxed.
“_The symptoms exhibited by the rabbits subjected to the Battley from
the prisoner’s cupboard responded in every important respect with the
effects produced by this mixture, and it was impossible to detect any
essential difference in them._”
The Battley’s solution used by Dr. Penny was not purchased from
“Murdoch Brothers,” but he had purchased and analysed some from that
house, and it was exactly similar to that which he had used. He had
also been present when the same experiments as his were tried on
rabbits by Dr. Maclagan, in the presence of Drs. Christison, Gamgee,
and Littlejohn, with the same result as in his experiments. Dr. Penny
was then examined on Dr. Maclagan’s report of his _post-mortem_
examination of Mrs. Pritchard’s body, and on the symptoms exhibited by
her from the time she was taken ill in 1865 down to her death. Replying
purely as a chemist, and not as a medical man, he declared them to
correspond with the action of tartar emetic or tartarised antimony. He
further accounted for the presence of the small portions of mercury by
the administration of Dr. Paterson’s powders, _Hydrargyrum cum creta_,
shortly before death. In Mrs. Taylor’s case he considered the vomitings
to be the result of the antimony, which had been traced by the
analyses, and repeated the conclusions, already given, to his reports
on both bodies.
_Dr. Maclagan_, who was recalled, declared that the whole of the
symptoms in Mrs. Pritchard’s case, from Christmas, 1864, until her
death—the sickness and vomiting, muscular depression, irritation
of the bowels, and cramp in the stomach—were symptoms of poisoning
by antimony, and could not, as a medical man, suggest any natural
disease to which they were due, that he could assign as the cause of
death. He had never seen antimony when rubbed into the skin (referring
to the prisoner’s statement that he had done so for a swollen gland
in his wife’s neck) produce any constitutional effect. The fact of
Mrs. Pritchard some years ago having taken antimony internally for
inflammation of the eyelids would not account for the symptoms; and
he agreed with Dr. Penny that the traces of mercury were due to the
powders prescribed by Dr. Paterson. “There was nothing in the case,” he
added, “to indicate to a medical man of ordinary intelligence that she
was suffering from gastric fever, or any other fever”; and he adhered
to the conclusions already given in his report, that she had been
poisoned by minute doses of antimony in the form of tartar emetic given
at intervals over a long period of time.
Dr. Maclagan attributed Mrs. Taylor’s death to something more than
antimony—some powerful, depressing poison.
“The symptoms,” he said, “might be produced by aconite—being found
with her head fallen on her neck, and hardly observed to breathe, her
pulse almost if not absolutely imperceptible, and the dozing, torpid
state in which she lay, were such as would result from aconite. Though
he might know in a case that aconite had been taken, he might not
be able to find it by chemical analysis: these organic poisons—all
the alkaloids—are very often not found, though known to have been
taken. The administration of opium might diminish the effect of
antimony in causing vomiting and purging, but its depressing effect
on the muscular system would still remain; and if opium, aconite,
and antimony were being administered at the same time, he should
anticipate symptoms such as appeared in Mrs. Taylor’s case. Taking the
symptoms and the results of the _post-mortem_ examination together,
the idea of apoplexy was satisfactorily excluded from his judgment;
and assuming the correctness of Dr. Paterson’s description of the
symptoms he saw, he should not have concluded that it was apoplexy,
nor did he think any other medical man would have. He was satisfied
with the presence of aconite in the Battley’s solution, without the
experiments on the rabbits, which only confirmed it.”
The _cross-examination_ of this witness was directed to the question
whether the symptoms in Mrs. Taylor’s case did not indicate poisoning
by opium, probably arising from an overdose of Battley’s solution.
“I saw,” said the witness, “no precise indications of poisoning by
opium, though I cannot say that she had not taken some. I think
aconite was the leading feature in the final part of the case. The
symptoms described by Dr. Paterson did not, in my mind, indicate
poisoning by opium or laudanum at all. They were not inconsistent with
her having taken opium, but they were not consistent with her having
been poisoned by it, and with the ordinary symptoms. The symptoms
of aconite predominated. If she had taken opium alone I should have
expected to find the pulse full and slow, and probably the breathing
laborious and stertorous. Though these were absent, I could not say
that she had not taken opium, particularly if she had been accustomed
to its use.” _When reminded from the judge’s notes that Dr. Paterson
had described the breathing as “laborious,” he said_, “It does not
make much, indeed not any, modification of my view, because the
condition of the pulse showed the action of aconite on the heart.
Laborious breathing is an indication of many things besides opium.”
_When reminded that Dr. Paterson spoke of her being in a state of
“coma_,” he admitted that that generally indicated opium and not
aconite, but added that here “it was more oppression than true coma,”
and assumed that Dr. Paterson did not use the word scientifically, but
as many persons did to describe insensibility. “_But,” said Mr. Clark,
“you pointed to the absence of ‘coma’ as indicative of poisoning by
aconite._” “I spoke of her,” replied Dr. Maclagan, “being in a torpid
condition, which I think was connected with the weakened state of the
circulation and not from fulness of the brain. Opium, like aconite,
is a vegetable poison, and is absorbed into the system: a person may
be poisoned by it without any trace remaining in the stomach or the
system capable of being detected by chemical analysis. All mineral
poisons are more easily detected, but I am not prepared to give into
the statement broadly that a person cannot be poisoned by antimony
without it being capable of detection, though I cannot recollect such
a case. The quantity here found in both cases was considerable. The
expectation is that the chemical analysis will detect it, but there
may be exceptions. The fact that Mrs. Taylor’s eyes were contracted is
an indication of poisoning by opium, but it also occurs in aconite,
though the cases vary a good deal in that respect, from people, as
I think, having observed the symptoms at different stages; and the
probability is that contraction had been produced at first, and then
relaxation at the time all the muscular parts became relaxed—namely,
at the time of death. Aconite is applied externally in neuralgia.”[152]
_Dr. Littlejohn_, who was next called, concurred in the opinion that
there was nothing to indicate gastric fever in Mrs. Pritchard’s case,
and that her death was due to the continuous administration of small
doses of antimony from the commencement of her illness to the day of
her death, and that the result of the chemical analysis was such as
he should, on that supposition, have expected. On the cause of Mrs.
Taylor’s death he was not so certain.
“It seemed to me,” said the witness, “that she might have died from a
dose of antimony administered shortly before death, or else from some
sedative narcotic poison. I have no difficulty in saying that she died
of poison, but only as to the particular poison which killed her. I
am inclined to believe that the symptoms in her case were mixed to
some extent, like the symptoms of narcotic poison, and to some extent
like the symptoms of antimony. There was nothing to show that she died
of apoplexy, and the _post-mortem_ examination did not indicate any
such. In the failure of circulation and great depression and spasms,
and the state of insensibility, I recognise the action of antimony;
in the later stages of antimonial poisoning we have generally great
insensibility. The hot taste in the mouth and burning sensation in
the throat after taking the bit of cheese suggest a large dose of
antimony, and also suggest a strong dose of narcotic poison—they
suggest many things besides cheese. That it caused violent sickness
in the case of one of the servants for some hours is quite consistent
with antimonial poisoning. In large quantities it would produce a
burning sensation in the throat. I have tried it in large quantities,
and the secondary sensation is always in the throat, and it did
produce a burning sensation. That the egg flip gave the same effect
in the case of the servant points to the use of antimony or some
substance resembling it. Various other emetics might produce these
effects. Egg flip is a convenient medium for administering antimony,
as it readily dissolves in it, and sufficient antimony could be dusted
on loaf sugar to produce sickness. Sugar is very porous, and antimony,
being a white powder, could be dusted over it, and a large quantity
absorbed in it—sufficient, not to kill, but to keep up the illness.”
In cross-examination, the witness adhered to his opinion as to the
suitableness of egg flip when the hot water had been poured on it, as
a medium for antimony, and to the possibility of a sufficient quantity
to produce sickness being conveyed into the cup on two pieces of loaf
sugar. Though he had not made any special experiments to support this
opinion, he considered himself, from his special acquaintance with
tartar emetic, entitled to answer in the way he had done. He did not
consider opium as a sedative but as a narcotic, and, in his opinion,
aconite was a sedative narcotic. There was nothing impossible for Mrs.
Taylor to take opium, and for that to contribute to the symptoms.
_Dr. Paterson_, who was re-called, was quite confirmed in his previous
opinion of the cause of Mrs. Pritchard’s death from the evidence he
had heard. Mrs. Taylor’s death, he thought, had been caused by opium,
but there might have been some other narcotic combined to him unknown,
and he thought that aconite and opium combined would contribute to
the effect and hurry the termination; but he never in his practice
had seen any person poisoned by such a combination. He had not the
slightest suspicion of antimony, and the narcotic effect was such when
he saw Mrs. Taylor that he did not believe that he could recognise the
effect of antimony. The narcotic effect would overpower the other, and
laudanum would interfere with the usual effect of antimony. What he
called stertorous breathing was rather oppressed breathing—snoring
and stertorous breathing were the same thing. “By coma,” he added, “I
meant insensibility—it means that, especially insensibility under
opium; and my impression was that it was opium alone, or some of its
preparations: it might be morphia.” Now that he had heard of the
discovery of antimony in the body, he believed the death to be due to a
combination of antimony and opium, a smaller dose of the latter being
likely to have a greater effect, in consequence of the condition of the
body produced by the former. If the opium contained upwards of five per
cent. of aconite, the effect, he considered, would be much more rapid
and more likely to be fatal.
On the conclusion of the medical testimony witnesses were called to
prove that at two banks in Glasgow, where Dr. Pritchard had accounts,
these were overdrawn on the 20th of March—that he borrowed to the
extent of £255 on his life policy, the last advance being as late
as the 13th of May—that his mother-in-law had advanced him £500
towards the purchase of his house, and that under her will he would
be entitled, in the event of the previous death of his wife, to the
interest on two-thirds of her property for the benefit of his children
until they attained twenty-one years, and then “for his own use as he
might consider proper.” Letters of Mrs. Taylor and Dr. Pritchard were
identified, in one of the latter being an entry under February 7th,
“Dr. J. M. C. here; on February 8th Dr. J. M. C. left”—namely, Dr.
Cowan.
THE PRISONER’S STATEMENTS.
In accordance with the Scotch practice, two declarations were made by
Dr. Pritchard before the sheriff, one on the 22nd of March, and the
other on the 21st of April. The _first declaration_ was as follows:—
“I have always attended my wife in all her ailments of every kind
during the whole period of our married lives, now fifteen years, and
some of these illnesses were very severe; but I never saw her so ill
as she was on the occasion which terminated fatally. As far as my
judgment goes, her last illness was gastric fever, which commenced
about the beginning of the present year. I gave my wife no medicines
during her illness excepting wine, champagne, and brandy, to support
her strength; and I gave her no medicines at all. I trusted to nature
to right itself, with the assistance of these restoratives. During the
last six weeks her power of sleeping entirely went away. In order to
procure sleep I gave her, at the commencement of her sleeplessness,
a small quantity of chloroform, but it entirely disagreed with her,
and I discontinued it. I then called in Dr. Gairdner, professor of
medicine in the university, and he visited and saw her several times;
and he continued to attend her till her old medical friend, Dr. James
M. Cowan, returned, and he came from Edinburgh to see her.[153] I then
wrote to her mother to come and nurse her, and she arrived about the
11th of February last; and her arrival had a beneficial effect upon
Mrs. Pritchard for some time, but still the sleeplessness continued;
and shortly after her mother’s death, which happened on the 25th of
February, she relapsed and became much worse, and very apprehensive
about herself, and she suggested to me the adoption of a medicine
with which her mother was very familiar—Battley’s solution of
opium—but I declined to give her any without first consulting Dr. J.
Paterson, who lived close by. I saw him, and consulted him, but he
did not see Mrs. Pritchard on that occasion, and he did not approve
of using the solution of opium. He prescribed granulated citrate of
magnesia, calomel, mercury, and chalk, and I acted on his advice
and administered the medicine, and it seemed to have a beneficial
effect.[154] Some time after, finding her sleeplessness still
continued, I, at her own suggestion, applied a solution of atropine
to the external parts of the eye, and it had a little effect for some
time, but the effects soon ceased. After her mother’s death, she
became rapidly worse; indeed, I ascribed her decease to the agitation
consequent on her mother’s death. At the time of the last event she
was strongly impressed with the idea that she would herself die at
the same time as her mother; in fact, she did die on a subsequent day
at exactly the same hour. On the night preceding her death she was
apprehensive that, unless she got sleep, she should not get through
the night. I went for Dr. Paterson, who came immediately and sat
for a considerable time by the bedside, and afterwards dictated a
prescription, which was made up at the Glasgow Apothecary Company’s
shop at Elmbank-street. It will be found in my desk at home. It was
for two draughts to be given four hours after the first if it did
not succeed. She got the first draught as prescribed by Dr. Paterson
about ten o’clock, but she said after drinking it that it was not
half strong enough, and asked if she might have some of her mother’s
medicine. I refused to give it her, and said I dare not do it. I gave
her a glass of port wine, and sat carefully watching for a short time.
I then went down stairs and had supper, and, after being absent for
some time, returned to see if she had got to sleep. I found her awake,
and she wished me to give her something to make her sleep. I refused,
and she then asked me to come to bed, as I must be tired with the
weary nights of watching. It was then about twelve o’clock. I tried
to persuade her that I should sit up to watch her till past the time
when her mother had died; but to please her I got into bed, and almost
immediately I fell asleep from the state of exhaustion I was in; was
awoke by her pulling at my beard, and found my wife struggling to get
into bed. She appeared to have got out of bed. She said, ‘Edward, I
am faint.’ I assisted her into bed, and asked her how long I had been
asleep, but she answered, ‘Don’t speak; look! do you see my mother?’
I said ‘No, it is only a vision; only imagination,’ and asked if she
felt pain. She said she felt cold, and I need try no more skill; that
I had failed this time, and that she was going to her mother. I got
alarmed and rang the bell violently, and the youngest servant came. I
desired her to make a mustard plaster as quickly as she could, and on
that my wife turned round and said, ‘Edward, I’m in my senses; mustard
plasters will do no good,’ and almost immediately she fell back in my
arms and died. The servant came with the mustard plaster, and found
her in that position. I did not give her any other medicine at that
time except a little brandy applied to her lips.[155] During the whole
course of her illness I never gave her any antimony, nor any medicine
in which there was any preparation of antimony. Antimony is a poison,
but it is used occasionally to subdue inflammations, and I applied it
to her neck, in October last, when she was plagued with a swelling
gland in the neck. I rubbed it in externally on that occasion,
and I have never given her any antimony since. On that occasion I
recommended change of air, and I gave her a little bottle of antimony
with her for the same purpose of rubbing in behind the ear. She went
to Edinburgh at that time, and she returned to Glasgow very much
better, and I have never seen the bottle of antimony since she got
it away with her. There was a considerable quantity of antimony in
my repositories at the time of my wife’s last illness, as I used it
extensively in my practice, and it was kept in a cupboard of which I
had the key, but which was not always locked. I did not see any of
it brought out, or lying about, during her illness. The cupboard
where the antimony was is in the consulting-room on the ground flat,
and she was so weak on the day of her death—Saturday—and on the
Friday preceding, that I do not think she had strength to have gone
to the cupboard herself. My wife took the antimony internally on one
occasion when she had a tendency to inflammation of the eyelids. This
was years ago, and I never knew her to use it internally, except on
this occasion. I never administered antimony to her internally on any
occasion, nor any other substance calculated to injure or destroy
life.”
In the _second declaration_, made on the 21st day of April, 1865,
he confirmed the correctness of the former one when read to him,
denied the charges as laid in the indictment, and elected to make the
following voluntary statement with reference to Mrs. Taylor’s death:—
“I never administered poison to her. I did, and I do believe, that
she died from paralysis and apoplexy. I have no further statements to
make, and by the advice of my agent will make none, with the exception
that I am entirely innocent of the charge preferred against me.”
Being asked by the Procurator Fiscal whether he ever administered or
caused to be administered to the said Jane Cowan or Taylor tartarised
antimony, declares:—
“My agent recommended me to say nothing, and I decline to answer the
question, and, as I act under my agent’s advice, it is unnecessary to
put any further questions.”
EVIDENCE FOR THE DEFENCE.
With this evidence the prosecution was closed late on the third day,
and on the next the defence was opened by calling witnesses on the
Prisoner’s behalf.
_Dr. Michael Taylor_, Mrs. Pritchard’s brother, had seen her on the
28th of February, a few days after his mother’s death, when she
objected to Dr. Gairdner again visiting her, and to following her
brother’s advice to have a nurse, as she did not like strangers about
her. He also identified as her writing two letters from Edinburgh to
her husband at the time of her visit to her parents in November, in
which she spoke of the slowness of her recovery and her inability to go
out, except two or three times.
_Mr. Simpson_, a partner in Duncan & Co., Chemists, in Edinburgh,
remembered Dr. Pritchard, some four years ago, purchasing Battley’s
solution at their shop, and that shortly afterwards other purchases of
this compound were frequently made in his name by one Thomson, whom
he recognised, down to the beginning of 1865. _Fairgrieve_, another
chemist in Edinburgh, spoke to repeated purchases of this compound by
or for Mrs. Taylor for several years before her death, once in a 5-oz.
bottle, but generally in bottles of 2 oz.[156]
Two other witnesses proved that they consulted Dr. Pritchard for
affections of the ear, and that to the first he gave a bottle labelled
“poison—2 drops in each ear every night,” and to the other a tonic
of glycerine and strychnia; the object being to account for the
numerous poisons found in the cupboard in his consulting room.[157]
_Dr. McHattie_ proved that there were not the necessary drugs in
the cupboard to enable the Prisoner to make up Dr. Paterson’s
prescription,[158] and afterwards his eldest son certified that his
father and mother lived happily together, and his daughter, who lived
chiefly with her grandparents, that they were fond of each other. The
evidence for the defence then was closed.
THE SOLICITOR-GENERAL’S SPEECH.
In addressing the jury on the evidence, the counsel for the prosecution
drew their especial attention to (1) the fact—not contested and not
contestable—that though none of the medicines prescribed by the
medical attendants on both of the ladies had contained any preparation
of antimony, antimony was found in their bodies—in that of Mrs.
Pritchard in such proportions as could only be accounted for by a long
continuous administration of that drug—in Mrs. Taylor’s sufficient
to so reduce her system as to increase the operation of any narcotic
poison; (2) that the notion of this having been taken by accident was
excluded even by the prisoner’s own statement, and that the idea of
suicide was entirely at variance with the characters of the sufferers,
and in the case of the wife with the fact that suicides do not choose
“a long, lingering, and painful death;” (3) that the prisoner had
in his possession the means of administering poison as well as the
opportunities; (4) that in the three cases in which symptoms of
antimonial poisoning were felt by those who tasted the cheese, the egg
flip, and the tapioca, the prisoner had the opportunities of dealing
with these articles of food before they were sent to his wife; (5)
that in the remnant of one of them—the tapioca—antimony to a large
extent was found; (6) that in a bottle of Battley’s solution found in
the pocket of Mrs. Taylor after her death aconite in deadly proportions
was detected; and (7) that there was a pecuniary motive, paltry as it
might be represented to be, to induce the prisoner to commit both these
murders.[159] Who, then, he said, put the antimony into the food? who
put that and the aconite into the Battley’s solution?
“Who, then,” continued the _Solicitor-General_, “was the murderer?
For there was a murder—a deliberate, cold-blooded, cruel
murder—committed in that house. Who was it? We know the inmates.
There were the two students of medicine. I suppose you may lay them
aside as having nothing to do with it. Suspicion does not attach
to them, neither had they the opportunity. The servants change in
the course of the enacting of this dreadful tragedy—all but one.
Catherine Lattimer was there until the 13th of February. The poisoning
went on after she left—the deaths both occurred after she left. She
was not the poisoner, nor was there a breath of suspicion about her.
Mary Patterson comes on the 16th of February. The poisoning, indeed,
goes on after she comes; but it had commenced long before—weeks
before. We, therefore, lay her aside. There was Mary McLeod, a girl
under seventeen, the only remaining grown person in the house during
the whole course of the administration to which I need refer. I need
not take any notice of the children, who were the only other inmates
of the house. See, then, to what we have come. There was a murderer in
the house—a murderer practising the dreadful art of slow poisoning
from the end of December till past the middle of March. The only two
grown persons, except the boarders, who were in the house during
that time—the only two who had access to the patients—were the
prisoner at the bar and Mary McLeod. This is narrowing the case to a
very short question. I have excluded every other idea from the case,
by fair, legitimate, convincing argument, upon evidence that is not
open to dispute. I have excluded the notion of natural death. I have
established the fact of death by poison. I have excluded the idea of
death by accident, by suicide, by the administration medicinally. You
are shut up, therefore, to murderous administration.... I find that
the only two who had access to these miserable victims, and had any
opportunity to perpetrate the murders with which they are charged,
were the prisoner and this one girl. Now, pray, consider, with
respect to the wife, upon the question whether or no the prisoner is
not the man clearly proved by irresistible evidence to be so, what
was the nature of the murder? _It was a murder in which you almost
detect a doctor’s finger._ It is gradual poisoning—poisoning so as
not to kill but to weaken; leaving off for a day, and then resuming
again—one day better, two days worse. During the whole time the
patient exhibited the symptoms of vomiting and purging, the result of
the action of antimony. You have that going on for a long time under
the very eye of a medical man, the husband of the victim, who was in
close attendance upon her. Do you think anybody else—do you think a
girl of seventeen could have done that deed? She knew nothing about
antimony.[160] If she did not do it, the prisoner must have done it.
And what is his case? His case respecting his own wife, who was thus
demonstrably being poisoned by inches under his very eye during this
long period—what is his case? “I thought it was gastric fever,” he
says. Gastric fever! Nobody could have thought it was gastric fever.
Nothing like gastric fever in it. Nothing like anything except what
it was—slow, cruel poisoning, which brought, in the course of two or
three months, this poor woman to the grave, with such an amount of
poison in her body.”
Referring, then, to the false statements made by the prisoner in
the case of Mrs. Taylor—that she had tumbled off her chair in his
consulting room in a fit, and been carried up to bed, when it was
proved that she had walked up to her bedroom from his consulting
room—had during the evening called to one of the servants to go
out and get sausages for supper—had had no tumble or fit, and that
the doctor himself knew nothing about her attack till the bell rang
violently three times—that hot water had been taken up by the servant
to make her vomit—the strange statement to Dr. Paterson before the
bottle of “Battley” was found in Mrs. Taylor’s pocket, that she had
purchased half-a-pound of it a few days before—the false certificate
of her death, “paralysis for twelve hours and apoplexy for one hour,”
when there was no paralysis except the paralytic affection caused by
the aconite, and that was not before she went upstairs at nine o’clock
in the evening, only four hours before her death: then referring to the
tapioca purchased entirely for Mrs. Taylor’s use, into which antimony
was put by some one; the Solicitor-General said:—
“Keep in view that the method of poisoning alleged against the
prisoner here is not the giving a dose that would kill, but the
introducing it into the food in such quantities that the taking
would not kill, but produce sickness merely—the intention being to
produce and continue the sickness for months, the fatal termination
then supervening. A poisoner in this way practises the dreadful art
successfully, and could not be very apprehensive of even himself or
any one else taking the food accidentally, as it would only make
them sick. He knows that to produce death it will be necessary
to continue it for a long time. Into this tapioca antimony is
introduced—sufficient to produce sickness in anybody taking it,
but not death. But Mrs. Pritchard does not get this tapioca. It is
taken by Mrs. Taylor, and she is seized immediately by symptoms
of poisoning by antimony. She is sick in the same way—I think she
expressed it—as her daughter was; because the effects were the same.
That tapioca was not put away, as it might be required again; and if
Mrs. Pritchard had wanted tapioca again, she would have got that, and
the poisoning would have been carried on by its means. If anybody else
got it, it would be a misfortune, but not much more. And who could
have introduced it but the master of the house, who was an adept in
such a mode of poisoning.—I do not know how many, if more than one,
partook of poisoned food; but some food had been poisoned. I take
that for granted, and that it had been taken by one of the boarders,
Connell, I think. But that is not presented as part of the case. He
was one day more or less sick. The prisoner does not seem to have been
alarmed about it—he does not seem to have been alarmed even when he
himself was sick upon some occasion in February. He knew very well
there was no occasion for alarm, for sickness was the end of it; that
it would require a long sickness in order to produce anything like a
fatal result.”
Briefly, then, reviewing the points he had made, the Solicitor-General
concluded his exhaustive address.
THE DEFENCE.
_Mr. Rutherford Clark_, in the opening of his speech, urged on the jury
that the enormity of the double crime required it “to be proved by
evidence strong, clear, overwhelming, that brought home to their minds
and consciences, without the slightest suspicion on the testimony, the
guilt of the prisoner,” and that “the motives assigned for it were
not such as could ever have, in the slightest degree, actuated any
human being to the commission of such hideous offences.” Whilst he
could not deny that he had the opportunity of committing the crime, he
contended “that it went a very short way—indeed no way at all—in even
suggesting or indicating his guilt.”
“If,” he said, “you find a case where crime is committed, and where
the person charged with committing it has made an opportunity
for himself—has been zealous in obtaining opportunities—then
opportunity is of the greatest possible importance and the strongest
possible evidence; but to say that he has opportunity in this case
is nothing more than to say it was likely, as indeed it was true,
that the husband who was attending the sick bed of his wife, should
carry to her some of her meals, and send up others with her meals.
But that he should do so is, I am sure, nothing unnatural—nothing to
suggest guilt. It would have been frightfully suggestive of guilt,
if, instead of sending up these meals, and taking them up himself, he
had always chosen some other agent to carry them up and to administer
the food she was taking. If that had been the case, I should have
been inclined to say that the Crown would have had a case much more
strong to indicate guilt, than they have when, as it is stated here,
that he was administering to the comfort of his wife while upon her
death-bed.”[161]
On the point that the prisoner was in possession of the means of
poisoning, “he was,” he said, “by profession a doctor, and had, no
doubt, as most doctors have, considerable quantities of drugs in his
possession. Whether he had more than most medical men kept in their
houses was a matter of opinion, but it was absurd to suppose that he
accumulated these large quantities of most powerful and destructive
poisons—a minute dose of many of which would have been fatal—for the
purpose of murder.”[162]
“But,” continued _Mr. Clark_, “it is not unimportant, in considering
this question, and it is very important especially in considering
the argument of the Solicitor-General, that these poisons were kept,
not in any locked press, but, on the contrary, within the reach of
the household. It is a remark I have made, that there was not one of
the poisoned articles of food which ever reached the lips of Mrs.
Taylor or Mrs. Pritchard without passing through other hands than the
prisoner’s, and it is odd enough that, in regard to each of them, the
person who administered it and who carried away the food left, is
this girl, Mary McLeod. It will not do for the Solicitor-General to
say, ‘I have established that one of two persons must have committed
these crimes,’ and that you can trace the particular finger of the
medical man in connection with them. Probability will never support
a conviction. It will not do for him to say, as regards the death of
Mrs. Pritchard, that it was the act either of the prisoner or Mary
McLeod, and that it was not likely that a girl of under seventeen
would have the skill to do it. Do you not think that he shrinks from
the onus of proof when he accepts this convenient mode of getting rid
of the difficulty, as he must prove that it is one of those two who
did it. He must prove by evidence that it was not Mary McLeod or some
one else in the house, and it was only by showing that it was not
Mary McLeod, that he can bring this charge home, to the prisoner.”
[Mr. Clark then noticed that the question was put to Lattimer whether
she put anything into the tapioca, but that that question was not put
to Mary McLeod.] “It is a singular omission in the case of the Crown,
which necessarily depends upon being able to select between those
two persons, whom the Solicitor-General stated were the only two who
could have committed the murder, that they did not venture to put the
question to exclude upon her evidence the fact that she might have
been guilty. And this is all the more strong that I shall trace every
article of poisoned food immediately through her hands.”[163]
Subsequently he reviewed the evidence as to each of the three poisoned
articles of food.
“Let us see,” he said, “about this tapioca:—it was suggested,
apparently through Mrs. Taylor, that Mrs. Pritchard would like
some. Accordingly some tapioca is brought by a little boy, and it
is brought in, and received by Mary McLeod. She says she placed it
for some short time on the lobby table. Catherine Lattimer says Mary
McLeod took it down to her, but Mary says Mrs. Taylor did. Now the
suggestion of the Crown is that the prisoner put antimony in this
tapioca, so nicely adjusted to the quantity bought as to produce
sickness leading to death, but not so as to produce death itself. It
would certainly have been of some importance to have shown that he had
any opportunity of administering or putting any poison into it, but
it is not proved—there is not a shadow of evidence that he had any
opportunity, or to show that he was in the house at the time. He was
a man accustomed to exercise an active profession, and, of course,
would naturally be out at that period of the day; but at all events it
is not shown that he was aware that his wife desired tapioca, or that
his mother-in-law had ordered it. It is not even shown that there was
the least possibility of his introducing antimony into that bag. It is
prepared and carried up by Mary McLeod to her mistress, who declines
to take it, and it is taken by Mrs. Taylor, who was taken ill after
partaking of it.”
Again, as to the poisoned bit of cheese:—
“It is spoken to by Mary McLeod. She tells you she had taken up the
tray for supper, and that on it was the cheese and other things which
were placed on the table at which Dr. Taylor and the other inmates
of the house are sitting; that she came out, and that, on returning
again, Dr. Pritchard handed to her a piece of cheese to take to her
mistress. She did not see him cut off the piece of cheese, but he
handed it to her sitting at the table; and it is perfectly obvious it
must have been cut off the cheese eaten by the family at supper. If
he placed antimony upon it, it must have been in the presence of the
persons at supper—a piece of yellow cheese which must have indicated
the powder of tartarised antimony, if placed upon it.[164]—It was
not asked if it were possible to put this tartarised antimony upon
the cheese while sitting at supper. I leave you to judge if it were
possible. It was taken up oddly enough—I cannot help noticing the
coincidence—by Mary McLeod. She says she ate part of it, and that it
did her no harm; but the residue was taken down into the kitchen and
eaten by Patterson, and she suffered from vomiting.”
Again, as to the poisoned egg-flip:—
“The doctor comes and tells his servant to prepare some, a thing not
unnatural to be taken by a person with a delicate stomach, and for a
medical man to order. But it is said this was a plot for Dr. Pritchard
to get in his drugs in this way. He supposes that he went through the
dining-room and got the sugar, and then into the consulting-room, and
then into the pantry, and dropped the pieces of sugar, on which he had
put antimony, into the egg. Does he give any proof of this? Does he
suggest anything more than suspicion? The Crown seems to have doubted
whether he could on the sugar have put in so much antimony as to have
produced the effects which the servant girl says she suffered. Dr.
Littlejohn thought it possible, but he had never tried the experiment.
A possibility at the best—a large possibility—that he could have put
in the drug. Was the egg-flip capable of producing the effects which
are said to have been caused by it? ‘Barely possible,’ according to
Dr. Littlejohn. What is its history: does it pass through his hands?
No. It was left by Patterson in the pantry, and Mary McLeod came down
for it to the kitchen. She was told it was in the pantry, and she
goes up to bring it down again. There, again, you have Mary McLeod
intervening in the matter, notwithstanding the dilemma on which the
Solicitor-General placed his case: she it is who carries it up to
the bedroom, and she it is who administers it to the patient who is
suffering there. There is another remarkable thing in this case. The
amount of antimony introduced must have been a very powerful dose,
because, taking only a teaspoonful of the egg-flip as Patterson
did, she lay vomiting and suffering all night. Mrs. Pritchard took
a wine-glassful, and vomited for about half an hour afterwards.
Surely if a strong woman took only a teaspoonful, and a weak woman a
wine-glassful, she would have been destroyed by the poison that had so
powerful an effect on the former.”[165]
Again, with reference to the bottle of Battley’s solution found in Mrs.
Taylor’s dress after her death, into which it was suggested that the
prisoner had put the aconite and antimony discovered in it, said Mr.
Clark:—
“He knew, no doubt, that she was taking it, but it is not in the
least degree proved that he knew where it was, in what bottle it was,
or where Mrs. Taylor kept the bottle. Mary McLeod did know, for she
bought it for Mrs. Taylor. But what is the ground of suggestion that
aconite had been put into that bottle before Mrs. Taylor had it? All
that you have is that Drs. Maclagan and Littlejohn say there was,
and that they were contradicted by the person who actually observed
its effects. And what became of this bottle? It was found on her
person after her death. Is it possible to suppose that he had the
means of getting at the bottle before her death to introduce the
poison? How could he? It was carried about her person, and there
is not the slightest suggestion that he ever had access to it; and
yet you are asked to act upon that suggestion, because it is said,
‘You may probably trace the administration of a medical hand.’ No:
probabilities are not in this case. It is proof, and proof alone, that
we can go on. What was the history of the bottle? It was found in her
clothes, no doubt, when the body was being dressed by Patterson and
Nabb, and even they did not know the very great quantity, perhaps,
that this old lady had taken. But still more, supposing that she
should take no aconite, she had taken sufficient of the mixture to
account for her death. Assuming that the highest mark on the bottle,
as taken by Dr. Paterson, is a correct one, it would come to be not
less than 2¾ ounces that had been taken. It was shown that the bottle
was put by for some time; but if it was taken away after the murder,
that is of very little consequence. If he had put antimony in it,
would it not have been very easy for him to have thrown the bottle
aside? But instead of that, we have him expressing his surprise to
these two women that she had taken such a great quantity. He takes
away the bottle, and brings it back again, and there it remains until
examined by Dr. Penny, who then finds that it contains some aconite
and antimony. But where is the shadow of a proof that he put it there?
The bottle was lying open—was not locked up in any way: it remained
in the house from the death of Mrs. Taylor till after the prisoner
was apprehended, more than a month afterwards. Any person in the
house might have access to it, and yet all that can be suggested to
prove that the prisoner put in this antimony and aconite before her
death was contained in the observation of my learned friend, that you
could trace, or that you could _probably_ trace here, the finger of a
medical man.”[166]
The false statement in the certificate of death, Mr. Clark attributed
to a desire of sparing the feelings of the husband. He did not justify
the morality of the act, but, looking at the circumstances, asked the
jury “if there was any degree of guilty knowledge when he asked Dr.
Paterson to inform his father-in-law of the cause of death, and he was
only forced to take that step by his refusal.” With Dr. Paterson’s
manner in the witness-box he naturally dealt in the most severe
language of reproof and censure.
“I do not believe,” he said, in concluding his remarks on this
witness, “he saw any symptoms of poisoning, or he would have acted
as any other medical man would have acted—unselfishly, nobly, and
generously in this matter. And when you see that this is inconsistent
with the whole conduct of the profession to which he belongs, I ask
you to disbelieve many of the statements he makes. You cannot rely
on these statements, given with a bias, for he tells you what is
incredible, or only credible at the loss of his own honour, which I
am sure he will strive studiously to guard. He has become a partisan
in this matter altogether, and forgot what is due to his position and
his profession. All that can be said of Dr. Paterson is this,—that he
speaks about the prisoner, of his mother-in-law, and speaks further
about what he said of her falling; yet even after all, this is merely
an account of a circumstance given by him some months, or, if you
like, a month after the case occurred. And because the prisoner made
some statements not exactly consistent with the truth as now disclosed
on the evidence, are you to believe, on Dr. Paterson’s statement, and
upon his statement only, that these statements were made so as to show
guilty knowledge. I can quite understand that after there is proof of
administration you may support that proof by evidence of falsehoods
which the prisoner may tell, if you have reliable evidence to prove
that they were stated. But when you have no evidence of administration
of poison, then the evidence is all the other way; then I think you
cannot eke out the probabilities of the case by appealing to these
probabilities, or to the falsehoods depending on evidence like that
here, as showing conclusively, beyond a reasonable doubt, that this
prisoner was the person who committed that foul crime upon the person
of his mother-in-law.”
Having thus commented on the evidence given for the prosecution on
all the leading points of the case, in masterly, if not convincing
arguments, in conclusion the prisoner’s counsel dwelt on the admitted
terms of affection in which he lived with his wife and children—on the
impossibility of believing in his commission of such a cold-blooded
murder, on the evidence adduced. “The whole evidence of the Crown,” he
said, “hangs upon probability, and can never justify you in believing,
in the first place, that he was capable of committing the crime; and,
in the second, it is hardly conceivable that anything so unnatural
should be committed by such a man.”
THE JUDGE’S CHARGE.
On the fifth day, the Lord Justice Clerk summed up the evidence in this
protracted trial with great minuteness, in the course of his charge
reading to the jury nearly the whole of the evidence, and meeting the
various objections to its relevancy offered by the prisoner’s counsel.
There were three points, he said, for their consideration. (1.) Did the
two ladies, or either of them, die from poison? (2.) If aye, was that
poison administered for the purpose of destroying life? (3.) Was it the
prisoner who administered it?