They Hanged My Saintly Billy (63 page)

The
jury
perhaps
drew
inspiration
from
the
modern
proverb 'The
Minority
are
always
in
the
right,'—for
to
make
any
choice based
on
a
clear
perception
that
these
seven
strychnine-minded doctors
had
incontestably
proved
their
case,
leaving
the
eleven champions
of
natural
causes
to
wander
in
the
illusive
moonshine of
gratuitous
speculation,
was
as
far
beyond
the
power
of
this stolid
jury
as
it
was
to
raise
John
Parsons
Cook
from
the
dead. Yet
somehow
the
Lord
Chief
Justice
expected
the
atmosphere
of science,
murky
from
the
vapours
of
twenty-nine
discursive
intellects,
to
be
irradiated
and
resolved
into
a
pure
sky
of
truth
by
the miraculous
intervention
of
twelve
respectable
traders!

In
what
way
were
the
opinions
of
the
Crown's
medical
witnesses
to
be
judged
sounder
than
those
held
by
the
opposite side?
Not
one
of
the
seven
had
ever
seen
a
single
case
of
strychnine poisoning
in
the
human
subject—some
had
never
even
witnessed an
experiment
on
animal
life—and
several
confessed
to
but
very
limited
experience
of
simple
tetanus.
Yet
no
less
than
three
of
the medical
witnesses
called
by
the
Defence
had
been
present
at numerous
post-mortem
exam
inations,
where
deadi
had
been
admittedly
due
to
strychnia.
Professor
Nunnely,
the
target
of
so much
of
the
Attorney-General's
abuse
and
the
victim
of
the
Lord Chief
Justice's
privileged,
courteous
insults,
had
made
postmortem
examinations
of
two
persons
carried
off
by
this
poison;
had experimented
with
strychnine
on
forty
animals;
and
with
other poisons
on
two
thousand
more;
thus
claiming
a
body
of
experimental
research
one
hundredfold
greater
than
that
possessed
by
all the
other
doctors
and
professors
together.
Nevertheless,
his
evidence
was
spoken
of
by
the
Prosecution
in
terms
well
calculated to
excite
contempt.

Professors
Taylor
and
Rees,
called
for
the
Crown,
pronounced that
the
fiftieth
part
of
a
grain
of
strychnia
cannot
be
detected.
Yet Professor
Herapath
of
the
Bristol
Medical
School,
and
Professor Letheby,
Medical
Officer
of
Health
to
the
City
of
London,
stated for
the
Defence
that
the
fifty-thousandth
part
can!

Professor
Taylor's
testimony
was,
without
doubt,
the
mainspring
that
acted
so
powerfully
on
the
minds
of
the
jury.
Some twenty-th
ree
years
ago,
he
had
experimented
with
strychnia
on twelve
wild
rabbits—'which
is
the
only
personal
knowledge
that I
have
of
strychnia,
as
it
affects
animal
life'—but
had
never
seen any
human
being
exposed
to
its
influence.
And
'though
I
met
a case
of
tetanus
in
the
human
subject
years
ago,
I
have
not
had much
experience
in
such
matters'.
He
constantly
failed
to
detect the
presence
of
strychnia
after
poisoning
animals,
even
when
the dose
was
as
much
as
a
grain
and
a
half;
and
had
never
thought
to conduct
experiments
on
dogs
or
cats,
though
they
resemble
man far
more
closely
in
that
they
vomit,
whereas
rabbits
do
not.
Professor
Taylor
has
published
The Principles and Practice of Medical Jurisprudence
—in
part
a
treatise
on
poisons—and
diere
one
may find
listed
experimental
facts
and
the
reports
of
several
deaths
by strychnia.
But
none
of
this
is
the
product
of
his
own
research— the
Professor's
light
shines
with
borrowed
rays,
like
the
deceptive Moon.

Of
Sir
Benjamin
Brodie
little
need
or
can
be
said.
Though
he had
considerable
experience
of
tetanus,
he
also
excelled
in
tact
and avoided
any
positive
statement
that
could
contradict
other
people's opinions,
quali
fying
his
evidence
with
such
phrases
as
'
according to
my
knowledge,'
'so
far
as
I
have
seen,'
'at
least
so
it
has
been
in my
experience,'
'I
believe
I
remember
cases,'—and
so
forth.
He took
the
safe
course
of
a
man
who,
being
himself
benighted,
will not
pretend
to
set
a
neighbour's
foot
on
the
right
path.
But
Professor
Taylor's
forthright
evidence
was
even
at
variance
with
itself. In
reply
to
the
question:
'Were
the
symptoms
and
appearances
in Cook's
case
the
same
as
diose
you
have
observed
in
the
animals which
you
poisoned
with
strychnia?'
he
declared:
'They
were.' Yet
he
had
repeatedly
laid
down
that
no
prognosis
of
the
symptoms
likely
to
ensue
from
the
human
consumption
of
strychnia can
rest
on
those
observed
in
lower
animals
similarly
poisoned;
so that
even
his
youthful
experiments
with
rabbits
were
irrelevant here.