A vindication of the opinions delivered in evidence by the medical witnesses for the Crown on a late trial at Lancaster for murder / by J. Gerard [and others].

Date:
1808
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A vindication of the opinions delivered in evidence by the medical witnesses for the Crown on a late trial at Lancaster for murder / by J. Gerard [and others]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    32/258 (page 28)
    appearance in the stomach, is at all invalidated by the circumstance, of no poisonous material having been found in the contents of the stomach, after death. It seemed probable to us, on being asked the ques- tion before the Coroner, that a poisonous substance might be taken into the stomach, and produce an irremediable destruction of its texture, and yet, that by large dilution, and frequent vomiting, and purging, it might be so entirely removed out of the stomach, that the nicest chemical tests would not discover the presence of it, in the contents of the stomach, after death. But this probability has since been reduced to certainty, by the following experiments. On the 12th of July last, at 5 P. M. we gave to a small dog, forty drops of a solution of Corrosive Sublimate, containing about one grain and three quarters of Sublimate. It immediately produced vomiting, which continued four hours; and then the animal had several discharges by the bowels, the first of which was natural, but all the rest were dark colored, approaching to black. At 10 P. M. he discharged a good deal of froth from his sto- mach. 13th, at 9 A. M. he appeared very weak, with a catching of the lower jaw. Some milk was given, which brought on the vomiting again ; and this vomiting continued until ten o'clock ; when he took more milk, and this also renewed the vomiting. At half past 1 P. M. he died. 14th, at 9 A. M. the body was opened, and the stomach taken out. The bowels were not inflamed. The peritonea] coat of the stomach appeared to be inflamed. The contents of the stomach were of a dark-olive color. The vessels of the internal sur- face of the stomach, appeared to be finely injected,