Report of the trial of John Thomson alias Peter Walker before the circuit court of justiciary at Glasgow 22d to 24th December 1857 : for the murder of Agnes Montgomery by prussic acid, and subsequent administration of prussic acid to Agnes Stenhouse or Mason and Archibald Mason. With introductory observations on the medico-legal points of the case / by Hugh Cowan, advocate.

  • Cowan, Hugh.
Date:
1858
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Report of the trial of John Thomson alias Peter Walker before the circuit court of justiciary at Glasgow 22d to 24th December 1857 : for the murder of Agnes Montgomery by prussic acid, and subsequent administration of prussic acid to Agnes Stenhouse or Mason and Archibald Mason. With introductory observations on the medico-legal points of the case / by Hugh Cowan, advocate. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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

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    stomach and its contents were sealed up in bottles the third day after the death. It is an interesting question how the acid happens to have been detected in the present case so long a time after death. Through the kindness of Dr. Daniel M‘Kinlay, I am enabled to give the fol- lowing facts, which may, perhaps, to some extent, account for it. Agnes Montgomery, it will be remembered, died at five minutes from six ; between seven and eight the same evening the body was dressed in grave-clothes, the mouth having remained shut from death ; it was bound up, however, in the usual way, and the mouth and nostrils covered by a densely starched covering. The body was then laid on the side of the apartment, and the window opened about an inch ; no fire was lighted in the apartment. On Monday evening (the day following) the body was coffined, and the lid laid on the coffin so as completely to cover it. It was occasionally re- moved after that before the Wednesday evening at seven o'clock, when it was finally screwed down. By that time a quantity of stuff had come from her mouth and nostrils, no person having been in the room during the day. The burial was on Thursday. The soil of the graveyard was dry sand and gravel mixed with mould. The body was exhumed on 30th, and the parts of the body removed were immediately on the spot put into air-tight jars, which were sealed and labelled as each was taken from the body. Early on the morn- ing of 5th October, the Drs. McKinlay proceeded to the analysis, and ere they left off that day, they were unequivocally satisfied, by the three vapour tests they employed, that prussic acid existed in the stomach. * 7. The theory of the possible generation of prussic acid by decom- position was very prominently put forward by the counsel for the prisoner in this case. In support of this view he appealed to the great authority of M. Orfila, and in his cross-examination of Dr. Maclagan, there will be found a translation of a part of the passage in which Orfila enounces it. The theory, however, is one which Orfila never substantiated by any experiments, and of which the special experiments of every other chemist, so far as known to me, have failed to furnish any confirmation. The terms of the passage, too, are by no means such as to lead us to suppose that that great chemist had a very decided opinion on the subject. He appeals to the analogous case of sugar being found in diabetes, but diabetes occurs in a living subject, and it is now settled that sugar is a nor- mal product of the liver, and that in diabetes it is only produced in excess. He appeals to smell; but in the first place smell is confess- edly one of the most unreliable tests of the presence of prussic acid,