Millett v. Edmonds : explanatory statement of the defendant.

  • Edmonds, Frederic.
Date:
1865
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Millett v. Edmonds : explanatory statement of the defendant. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    but I am made to appear as a medical man spontaneously pre- senting myself in order to report the results of the post-mortem examination, and induce the magistrate to act. I am led to state in the information, 1st, that on the 20th day of January, 1864, I was present at the post-mortem exami- nation of Jacob Curnow Millett, and that there appeared in the corpse no cause to which the death could possibly be assigned, and especially that there was no effusion of the brain; and 2ndly, that it was my decided and solemn belief that the deceased died from the effects of some vegetable or other poison, and that the same was administered to the deceased wilfully and maliciously, and with intent to cause death, by Richard Oke Millett, of Penpol, in Phillack, on the 30th day of December then last. The names of a number of witnesses are then mentioned as being able to give material evidence, but as to who the majority of these witnesses were, or what evidence they could give, I was unaware. That the medical circumstances attending the death of Jacob C. Millett were unusual is apparent from the evidence of Dr. A, S Taylor himself, who was Dr. Millett's chief medical witness at the trial at Bodmin, and who stated to the jury as follows;— Such cases of death as the present of chronic hydrocephalus, terminating with apoplexy, are very rare, but serous apoplexy is common enough. Chronic hydrocephalus is very rare, because nearly all who suffer from water on the brain die early. Out of fifteen or sixteen cases not more than one reaches the age of twenty. Dr. Samuel Wilks, lecturer on Pathology at Guy's Hospital, appeared at the trial on behalf of Dr. Millett, and in the course of his evidence stated that he had made records of upwards of 4,000 post-mortem examinations, that he had opened a great many heads where chronic hydrocephalus had existed, and that he did not think he had met with men having this disease who had Kved longer than the deceased. What confirmed me most in my opinion, that the death was unaccounted for, was the joint