Q. After her first convulsion she was quieter?
A. She was. “Upon opening the abdomen, a strong smell of laurel-water was perceptible; the colon, one of the large intestines, was not altered from its usual appearance, but the small intestines appeared of a purple colour, and the veins were much distended with blood; the stomach contained some hay mixed with laurel water; its internal surface was not inflamed, except in a small degree near the lower orifice of the stomach; the lungs appeared remarkably full of blood; the small vessels upon their surface being as visible as if they had been injected with red wax.”
Q. Whether you in general concur in sentiments with Dr. Rattray, as to the effect of laurel-water?
_Mr. Wilmer._ Do you mean upon the human body, or upon brutes?
A. It has in four instances been fatal in the human body; I do not know it of my own knowledge, but from my reading.
Q. Have you any doubt of its being fatal?
Q. Now do you apprehend the quantity contained in that bottle is sufficient to take away life?
A. I imagine one bottle of that size full of laurel-water, would be sufficient to kill in half an hour’s time any man in this court.
Mr. _Bradford Wilmer_. Cross-examined by Mr. Green.
Q. Were there any symptoms in this case peculiarly different from the symptoms attending a case of epilepsy or apoplexy?
A. The appearance of the body in the putrid state in which it was when I had an opportunity of observing it, could give me no information to form an opinion upon respecting the cause of the death.
Q. Have you had any opportunities in your own experience of observing epilepsies?
A. I have. They are of two kinds, either primary or symptomatick. It happens sometimes that without the least previous notice, a man in the most perfect state of health, in the midst of pleasure or engaged in business, as Suetonius says of Julius Cæsar, may in a moment, be seized with the epilepsy, his senses will leave him, he will fall down, be convulsed, foam at the mouth, his tongue will be black, and he either may die or recover. As to the symptomatick epilepsy, I can speak from experience: a patient of mine had a violent pain and tumour in his finger; as soon as the pain, which gradually went up his arm, reached his arm-pit, he fell down epileptick, and convulsed. But if previous to an epilepsy, the patient heave very much at the stomach, and shew signs of sickness, I should conclude the cause of that epilepsy was in the stomach.