But then comes another supposed condition from which death in this form may be said to have resulted, and that is the case which was intended to be set up by a very eminent practitioner, I mean Mr. Partridge. It seems that in the post-mortem examination of Mr. Cook, when the spinal marrow was investigated, certain granules were found, and this is seized upon. It is said, “Oh, those granules may have occasioned tetanic convulsions similar to those which were found in Mr. Cook’s case,” and a very eminent gentleman is called to give his opinion upon that subject. I admit him to be not only a man of great eminence, but a man of the highest honour and the most perfect veracity. I allude to Mr. Partridge. I must distinguish between him and other of my learned friend’s witnesses. Some there were who would not be induced, for any consideration in the world, to swerve from what they believed to be the truth. Mr. Partridge is called here to prove that this was a case of what he called arachnitis--inflammation of the arachnoid in consequence of the granules, or some other abnormal condition. I asked him the symptoms which he would find in such a case. I called his attention to what evidently had not been done before, namely, the symptoms of Mr. Cook’s case; and I asked him, in simple, straightforward terms, whether, looking at those symptoms, he would pledge his opinion, in the face of the medical world and the Court, that this was a case of arachnitis, and he candidly admitted that he would not assert that this was in his opinion a case of arachnitis.
Then we have the gentleman who comes all the way from Scotland to inform us, as the next proposition, that Mr. Cook’s was a case of epileptic convulsions with tetanic complications. Now, I asked him this question, “Did you ever know a case of epilepsy, with or without tetanic convulsions, in which consciousness was not destroyed before the patient died?” He said, “No; I cannot say that I ever did, but I have read in some book that such a case has occurred.” “Is there anything to make you think that this was epilepsy?--Well, it may have been epilepsy, because I do not know what else to ascribe it to; but I must admit that epilepsy is characterised generally by a loss of consciousness.” “Well, then, what difference would tetanic complications make?” That he is unable to explain. I remind you of that species of evidence in which the witnesses resorted to the most speculative reasoning, and put forward the barest possibilities without the shadow of a foundation. But this I undertake to assert, and I refer to the evidence to prove it, that there is not a single case either to which they have spoken as coming within their own experience, or of which they have spoken as the result of reading, in which there were the formidable and decisive symptoms of marked tetanus which existed in this case of Mr. Cook.