Now, independently of that, does the state of knowledge upon this subject enable you to predicate with anything like certainty or accuracy the period that would be required in the human subject before such poison would begin to operate after it has been taken into the stomach; does the state of science enable you to form an opinion as to the precise time, or near the precise time, that it would require for this poison to operate?--I do not think we can fix from our present knowledge the precise time for the poison beginning to operate. When we give poison to an animal for the purpose of watching the effect of the poison, we give it in a manner in which it would act most rapidly, whether in the fluid or the solid form. We take care that the animal is fasting, and have every circumstance favourable for the action of poison. We mix it up with materials that are readily soluble in the stomach. I have seen a good many cases of tetanus arising from wounds, but very few from natural diseases.
Is there, in your opinion, any marked difference between what I may call natural tetanus and the tetanus of strychnia?--I would not rest much upon the little difference of particular symptoms, but rather upon the course and the general circumstances attending them. First, that in all the natural forms of tetanus the symptoms begin and advance much more slowly; and, secondly, they prove fatal much more slowly. When once set up in natural forms of tetanus there is no intermission. Where the first paroxysm does not prove fatal there are short intermissions in tetanus from strychnia. I heard the evidence given by Elizabeth Mills of what took place on the Monday, and by Mr. Jones of what took place on the Tuesday night when Mr. Cook died.
Now, of the two classes of tetanus, to which should you refer the spasm and other symptoms spoken to by those two witnesses?--To strychnia, or one of the natural poisons containing it--nux vomica, St. Ignatius’s bean, snakewood, and a poison called exhetwick. They belong to different plants of the same genus, from all of which strychnia may be obtained. There is no natural disease that I have ever seen or that I otherwise know to which I can refer these symptoms which I have heard described.