Volume 1

Medical and miscellaneous observations relative to the West India Islands / by John Williamson, M.D., fellow of the Royal College of Physicians, Edinburgh, formerly surgeon to the Caithness Highlanders, and late of Spanish Town, Jamaica.

  • Williamson, John (Surgeon)
Date:
1817
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Medical and miscellaneous observations relative to the West India Islands / by John Williamson, M.D., fellow of the Royal College of Physicians, Edinburgh, formerly surgeon to the Caithness Highlanders, and late of Spanish Town, Jamaica. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by King’s College London. The original may be consulted at King’s College London.

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    3*74 such for some time. She was the mother of children to her husband ; and they Hved together in a comfortable manner. The woman declared herself ui^willingto indulge the overseer in a wish so injurious to her husband's happir ness; but his orders were to be obeyed, and she yield- ed to hi^ desires ; aggravating such acts, by insisting that she should altogether live \yith him. It is painful to me to be obliged to add, that that woman's husband became the object of his resentment. He was annoyed undeservedly, for having expressed discontent at such invasions of his happiness. His life became a burden; and, though his wife was the com- panion of the overseer's bed, plots for his destruction were in contemplation by that woman and the injured husband. At th?it time, when the overseer was expected to re- turn from the field in the evening, a quantity of arsenic >vas mixed in some lemonade, of which he generally drank freely. Before the overseer's arrival, a book' keeper came in, and had a draught. When the overseer drank some, he remarked, that it had an unpleasant pietallic taste 5 and fortunately detected it, before he Jiad swallowed so mi^ch as to injure him. The book-keeper felt unpleasant sensations at sto- mach ; but a brisk emetic was administered in time to remove every bad consequence. It is probable that, at top of the rummer, solution was imperfectly formed. Suspicions were fixed on several negroes, and somq of them made their escape as runaways. After an in^^