Does any observation occur to you on the screaming?--The screaming foreran the vomiting. I have never seen an animal vomit after taking strychnia, nor scream as an expression of voluntary exercise. Where there is so much spasm there is an inability on the part of the patient to vomit. I have a case, which is related in the 10th volume of the _Journal de Pharmacie_, in which attempts were made to give emetics without success.
With reference to the post-mortem observations of animals poisoned by strychnia, could you form any opinion on the post-mortem examination of Mr. Cook whether he had been under the influence of poison?--They differ materially in the particulars I have mentioned. The heart is stated to be empty and contracted, the state of the lungs not congested, the state of the brain not congested.
In the case of the paroxysms of the animals what has been the course of the subsiding of the paroxysm?--Gradual. I have never known a case of a severe paroxysm return, and then a long interval of complete repose for several hours. I have known it for half an hour.
I have experimented on the bodies of animals poisoned by strychnia with a view of discovering the strychnia poison from a few hours up to the forty-third day, the body being perfectly putrid in the latter case. In no one case have I failed to discover the poison.
Suppose a person to have died under the immediate effects of strychnia poison, in the first paroxysm after its administration, and his stomach to have been taken out and put into a jar on the sixth day after death, in your opinion must strychnia have been found in the body on proper chemical analysis?--If it were there.
Adverting to the statement about the stomach being put in a jar, brought up to London, and then immediately submitted to examination, in your judgment was that in an unfavourable or favourable condition for ascertaining whether the strychnia was there?--It would give a little more trouble; I do not see anything else. It is not my opinion that the analysis may be defeated or confused by the existence in the stomach of any other substance which would produce the same colours.
Supposing death to have been caused by a dose of strychnia poison sufficient, but not more than sufficient, to destroy the animal, in your judgment would it be so decomposed by the process of absorption as that you would not be able to detect it by those tests in any portion of the system?--No.
