You might expect a recurrence of the paroxysm?--Certainly. The subsidence will not depend on the strength of the dose; it will depend on whether the individual is to recover or not. I have seen four or five instances of recoveries.
Is it not generally known that the effect of strychnia is very varied in different individuals?--No, I do not think so. There would be a little variation in time, but in the main features of the case there is no variation.
Do not you find this difference, that from the same dose in the same species you get no paroxysm, or you get a series of paroxysms ending in death?--Yes, that is true; but the attacks are the same for all that. The symptoms are the same.
What do you say about the Sunday night fit?--I was disposed to think it was a fit. I cannot tell you what it was; I have formed no opinion.
What do you ascribe Mr. Cook’s death to?--It is irreconcilable with everything I am acquainted with.
By LORD CAMPBELL--Is it reconcilable with any known disease which you have ever seen or heard of?--No, my lord.
Re-examined by Mr. SERJEANT SHEE--Do you mean to say it could not be the result of any variety of convulsions, however violent, though not classed under a particular description of convulsion?--We are learning new facts every day, and I do not conceive it to be impossible that some peculiarity of the spinal cord, unrecognisable except the examination be made immediately after death, may produce symptoms like these.
When you say it is irreconcilable with anything you have heard of, do you include anything you have heard of strychnia poison as well as anything else?--Certainly I do.
Is the vomiting of the pills just before death inconsistent with what you have known and observed of strychnia poison?--It is not consistent with anything I have observed.
Have you ascertained whether, if you touch an animal which is beginning those minor premonitory symptoms, but which as yet has had no paroxysms, this brings the paroxysms on?--Yes.
Was not the Romsey case exceptional from the manner in which the strychnia was administered and the quantity of the dose?--Yes, it was. It is quite consistent with all I am saying that the ringing of the bell by the lady the moment she felt anything of uneasiness would produce the paroxysm which ultimately was observed. In my judgment, it is not safe to argue from the symptoms of a case in which the paroxysm took place only a few moments after the ingestion of the poison, and it was in a fluid state, to what may be the probabilities in another case.