Mr. _W. Cooper_, sworn.—* * Dead bodies necessarily sink in water, if no distention of their parts buoy them up; this distention sometimes happens before death, at other times soon after, and in bodies that are drowned after they lie under water.
Dr. _Crell_, sworn.—My Lord, it must be reading, as well as a man’s own experience, that will make any one a Physician: for without the reading of books in that art, the art itself cannot be attained to: besides, my Lord, I humbly conceive, that in such a difficult case as this, we ought to have a great deference for the reports and opinions of learned men: neither do I see any reason why I should not quote the fathers of my profession in this case, as well as you gentlemen of the long robe quote _Coke_ upon _Littleton_ in others. * * I shall only insist on what _Ambrose Pare_ relates in his Chapter of Renunciations. *
Mr. _Harriot_ (a Naval Surgeon) sworn.—* * When we threw men overboard that were killed, some of them swam and some sunk * * (when a dead body is thrown overboard) I always observed that it did sink. *
Mr. _Bartlet_ (a Naval Surgeon), sworn.—* * I never saw any bodies float, either of the men that were killed in our ship, or in the ships that have been near us; I have not seen a body on the surface of the water.
We have merely made comparatively short extracts from this trial, as more copious quotations, both of the evidence, and pamphlets subsequently published, would have occupied too great a space. The whole will be found in _Howell’s State Trials_, and is well worthy of the attention of the Medical or Legal reader.
Extracts from the Evidence of Doctor Anthony Addington, on the trial of _Mary Blandy_ at Oxford 1752, for the Murder of her Father by Arsenic.
Dr. Anthony Addington & Dr. William Lewis sworn.
_Counsel._ Did you, Dr. Addington, attend Mr. Blandy in his last illness?
_C._ When was you called to him the first time?
_Dr. A._ On Saturday evening August the 10th.
_Dr. A._ He was in bed; and told me, that after drinking some gruel on Monday night, August the 5th, he had perceived an extraordinary grittiness in his mouth, attended with a very painful burning and pricking in his tongue, throat, stomach, and bowels, and with sickness and gripings; which symptoms had been relieved by fits of vomiting and purging.