Cross-examined by the ATTORNEY-GENERAL--In all cases of epilepsy there are violent convulsions. I cannot tell you how many I have seen assume a tetanic character; perhaps twenty.
Has it gone as far as opisthotonos?--Not the extreme opisthotonos of tetanus. The whole body has been straightened out and the head thrown back. I heard Mr. Jones describe Mr. Cook’s symptoms, that the body was so bowed that he could not raise it, so bowed that it would lean upon its heels and the back of its head if it had been turned over.
Have you ever seen anything in epilepsy approaching to these symptoms?--I have never seen anything approaching to it. I have never seen a body so stiffened that it would rest on the head and heels.
Is that symptom peculiar to tetanus?--You may have convulsions of the same character occurring from other causes--tetanic convulsions from the operation of various poisons.
Keep to natural diseases. Did you ever know these symptoms of opisthotonos, in that shape or to that extent, arise from anything but tetanus?--Not within my own experience. I have read of epilepsy being accompanied with tetanic convulsions. Epilepsy, when it assumes that marked character, is accompanied with unconsciousness. I have read in a case of Dr. Marshall Hall’s that sometimes unconsciousness is not present. He does not mention whether death took place in this case or not. That would make all the difference.
You said that gritty granules would be likely to produce convulsive diseases. What extent of development, in your judgment, must such granules reach to produce an action in the spinal marrow?--I should say there is no relation between the size of the granules and the extent of the effect produced.
Would you expect when they began to get to the size that they would have any effect on the nervous system--that they would begin to show their effect more or less gradually?--No, in epilepsy I have myself observed several granules in the membrane of the brain; and any disturbing cause in the system, I think, would be likely to produce convulsions. I believe that the granules in this case were very likely to irritate the spinal cord, and an attack might very likely come on at once in a fit of epilepsy. There would be pain during the continuance of the violent spasms of the patient, not necessarily pain merely from the spasms. These granules might or might not produce arachnitis.