Q. Epilepsies proceed from various causes?

A. Numerous causes.

Q. Will not the loss of blood occasion an epilepsy?

A. I believe not.

Q. What quantity of blood was there in the stomach?

A. I did not measure it; I conclude about two pints; it lodged in the cavity of the thorax.

Q. Might not that occasion convulsions?

A. I do not know; but if I might be allowed to reason from analogy, I should conclude it would, for in all slaughtered animals, when the blood runs out from them in a full stream, they lie quiet, but they never die without convulsions. The loss of blood will evidently occasion convulsions.

Mr. Wheeler. From the appearances of the body, and after the evidence you have heard given both by Lady Boughton and the other witnesses, what do you attribute this gentleman’s death to?

A. After having heard Lady Boughton’s evidence, and therefore being acquainted with the symptoms which preceded the death of Sir Theodosius Boughton, I am clearly of opinion that his death was occasioned by a poisonous draught administered to him by Lady Boughton on the morning of his death.

Court. Is the heaving in the stomach or the belly a circumstance which attends an epilepsy?

A. It is not.

Q. You are a Physician and live at Birmingham?

A. Yes.

Q. You have heard the evidence that has been given?

A. I have.

Q. What in your judgment was the cause of the death of Sir Theodosius Boughton?

A. I think he died in consequence of taking that draught, after the taking of which he was seized in so extraordinary a manner.

Q. Mention the particular reasons you have for thinking so?

A. It does not appear, from any part of the evidence that has been this day given, that the late Sir Theodosius had any disease upon him of a nature either likely or in a degree sufficient to produce those violent consequences which happened to him, neither do I know in nature any medicine, properly so called, which administered in any dose, and in any form, could possibly produce the same effects. I know nothing but a poison speedy in its operation that could be attended with such terrible consequences: As to the appearances of the body upon dissection they were certainly, as far as could be collected at that distant period from the time of the death, and in such hot weather, similar to those appearances which are found in the bodies of animals that are killed by poisons collected from vegetable substances, not from mineral ones.

Q. Will you please to look at that phial?

A. The vehicle of it is laurel-water.

Q. Would that quantity be sufficient to cause death?

A. I do not know how this is distilled, or how firm it may be, but I know it may be made in this quantity to destroy animal life in a few seconds. I do not know who distilled this, but I have made it frequently myself, and in such a degree of strength as to destroy animal life in a few seconds; if it is distilled enough to collect the essential oil, a tea-spoonful of it would destroy animal life in a few seconds.

Court. If it was made on purpose?

A. Certainly; I dare say as strong a poison might be made from bitter almonds as that.

Q. Do you or not, from the evidence you have heard, believe Sir Theodosius Boughton died of poison?

A. I do.

Court. You are not to give your opinion from the evidence in general, but upon the symptoms those witnesses have described?

A. By the symptoms those evidences have described, I am of opinion that Sir Theodosius Boughton died of poison.

Q. You are I believe professor of anatomy in the university of Oxford?

A. I am.

Q. You have heard the symptoms attending the death of Sir Theodosius Boughton described by the witnesses produced to-day?

A. I have.

Q. What in your judgment occasioned the death of Sir Theodosius Boughton?

A. From the description of the state of the young Baronet’s health, previous to his taking the second dose, which was supposed to be similar to that which he had taken two or three days before, and from the violent nervous symptoms that immediately followed the taking thereof, it is my opinion that he died in consequence of taking the second dose; which instead of being a composition of jalap and rhubarb only, proved to contain a poison, and of what nature that poison was, appears sufficiently from the description that Lady Boughton gives of its smell when she poured it out in order to give it to her son; her ladyship said it smelt like the taste of bitter almonds, which particularly characterises the smell of laurel-water. Perhaps it may not be improper to produce some laurel-water for the jury to smell at, that they may judge how well it agrees with the description that Lady Boughton has given of the supposed physick. The violent nervous symptoms that came on subsequent to his taking the second dose took place so soon, and were so different from what attended the taking of the first, that undoubtedly they were caused by something it had in it very different from the contents of the first, much more active, and as it proved more deleterious. Jalap sometimes disagrees with the stomach and may produce sickness, but with respect to Sir Theodosius Boughton this medicine did not create any sickness when given the first time.

Court. Could all the ingredients in the medicine mentioned by Mr. Powell produce in Sir Theodosius Boughton the effects described?

A. No; I apprehend they could not; and as a proof of it, they did not produce any such effects in the first instance, or dose.

Q. Are the symptoms which have been described by Lady Boughton such as would attend an epilepsy, or is there any and what difference?

A. The epilepsy is distinguished by a total abolition of sense, but an increase of motion in several of the muscles, so that the patient will appear much convulsed, and seems to see and hear every thing that is said and done, and to observe whatever is passing; yet when the fit goes off he has no knowledge or recollection of what has happened. Apoplexy is a sudden privation of all the powers of sense, and voluntary motion: the person affected seeming to be in a profound sleep, accompanied with considerable noise in breathing. As so little therefore is said of convulsions as a part of Sir Theodosius’s symptoms, the state in which he lay seems to have been more of the apoplectick kind than epileptick.

Q. It has been described by Lady Boughton that soon after taking this draught the stomach heaved very much, and a noise could be perceived as issuing from it; now is that in your judgment to be attributed to either epilepsy or apoplexy, or the effect of the medicine?

A. The effects of the medicine I think undoubtedly, and not spontaneous epilepsy or apoplexy; it is very immaterial whether you call the symptoms epileptick or apoplectick; for which ever they resembled most I consider them but as symptomatick.

Q. Was the heaving of the stomach the effect of apoplexy or epilepsy, or of this draught?

A. No doubt, I think the draught was the cause, especially as laurel-water, which the draught seems to have contained from its peculiar smell, will produce similar effects.

Q. Then your judgment is, that the fatal effects were produced by the medicine thus taken?

A. I think there can be no doubt of that as they commenced almost as soon as he swallowed the draught; and a mixture such as he is supposed to have taken, is known to have the power of producing them.

Q. And from your knowledge of the effects produced by laurel water, your opinion is that laurel-water was the poison thus administered to Sir Theodosius Boughton?

A. It is. Dr. Rutty relates a case of a girl of eighteen years of age and in perfect health, who took a quantity, less than two spoons full of the first runnings of simple water of laurel leaves; whereupon within half a minute she fell down, was convulsed, foamed at the mouth, and died in a short time.

Q. Could those effects be produced (speak from your own judgment) by laurel-water?

A. I have no doubt of it. Dogs and other quadrupeds (as we are informed) that take it, fall immediately into totterings and convulsions of the limbs, which are presently followed by a total paralysis; these convulsions, with some additional circumstances, as foaming at the mouth and loss of sense, constitute the epilepsy which is described among the effects of vegetable poisons.

Q. From the appearances of health in Sir Theodosius Boughton, and from the medicine not having occasioned any bad symptoms before, you conclude his death was occasioned by some other medicine substituted instead of that or in addition to it?

A. Most certainly; especially as the smell of it bespoke its having received the addition of a very poisonous ingredient.

Q. Have you never known instances of persons being taken suddenly when engaged in pleasure or business, or at dinner, dying convulsed, epileptick, or apoplectick?

A. I have; but those who die suddenly of apoplexy are generally persons of a full habit; and who are neither so thin nor so young as Sir Theodosius Boughton.

Q. Have you never known instances of persons of a thin habit being attacked by an apoplexy or an epilepsy?

A. By epilepsy they may.

Q. Have you never heard of a person having the appearance of perfect health being seized with an epilepsy without any primary cause giving any warning, have you never heard of people in perfect health being seized with an epilepsy or apoplexy?

A. Yes; apoplexy proceeding from repletion or the sudden bursting of a blood-vessel; epilepsy may proceed from a variety of causes partial or general, in the head or elsewhere; but very seldom I believe proves so suddenly fatal.

Q. Might not those have happened to Sir Theodosius Boughton?

A. There can be no doubt of the possibility of their attacking him, but I think there is no reason to go so far for a cause as to possibility, when this medicine as all the world knows will effect it.

Q. That is assuming as a fact that he took two ounces of laurel-water?

A. A much less quantity would be sufficient for the purpose, if we may credit Dr. Rutty’s account.

Q. You collect that from the similarity of the smell?

A. We have nothing else to judge from but the similarity of the smell.

Q. Is not that the case with a variety of things; will not black cherry-water have that smell?

A. Black cherry-water is said to have the same smell, but it is now out of use; I don’t suppose there is an apothecary in the island who has it, and therefore it could not be substituted by accident for the other vehicle.

Q. Will not bitter almonds have that smell?

A. Yes; and spirits flavoured with them are said to be poisonous to the human species.

Q. You ground your opinion upon the description of its smell by Lady Boughton?

A. Yes; we can ground our opinion upon nothing else but that and the subsequent effects.

Q. Have you heard the evidence that has been given by these gentlemen?

A. I have been present the whole time.

Q. Did you hear Lady Boughton’s evidence?

A. I heard the whole.

Q. Did you attend to the symptoms her ladyship described, as appearing upon Sir Theodosius Boughton, after the medicine was given him?

A. I did.

Q. Can any certain inference upon physical or chirurgical principles be drawn from those symptoms, or from the appearances externally or internally of the body, to enable you, in your judgment to decide, that the death was occasioned by poison?

A. I was in London then, a gentleman who is in Court waited upon me with a copy of the examination of Mr. Powell and Lady Boughton, and on account of the dissection, and the physical gentlemen’s opinion upon that dissection.

Q. I don’t wish to go into that, I put my question in a general way?

A. The whole appearances upon the dissection, explain nothing but putrefaction.

Q. You have been long in the habit of dissecting human subjects? I presume you have dissected more than any man in Europe?

A. I have dissected some thousands during these thirty-three years.

Q. Are those appearances you have heard described, such in your judgment, as are the result of putrefaction in dead subjects?

A. Entirely.

Q. Are the symptoms that appeared after the medicine was given, such as necessarily conclude that the person had taken poison?

A. Certainly not.

Q. If an apoplexy had come on, would not the symptoms have been nearly or somewhat similar?

A. Very much the same.

Q. Have you ever known or heard of a young subject dying of an apoplectic or epileptic fit?

A. Certainly; but with regard to the apoplexy not so frequent, young subjects will perhaps die more frequently of epilepsies than old ones; children are dying every day from teething, which is a species of epilepsy arising from an irritation.

Q. Did you ever in your practice, know an instance of laurel-water being given to a human subject?

A. No, never.

Q. Is any certain analogy to be drawn from the effects of any species of poison upon an animal of the brute creation, to that it may have upon a human subject?

A. As far as my experience goes, which is not a very confined one, because I have poisoned some thousands of animals, they are very nearly the same, opium for instance will poison a dog similar to a man; arsenic will have very near the same effect upon a dog, as it would have, I take it for granted, upon a man; I know something of the effects of them, and I believe their operations will be nearly similar.

Q, Are there not many things which kill animals almost instantaneously, that will have no detrimental or noxious effect upon a human subject; spirits, for instance, occur to me?

A. I apprehend a great deal depends upon the mode of experiment; no man is fit to make one, but those who have made many, and paid considerable attention to all the circumstances that relate to experiments, it is a common experiment which I believe seldom fails, and it is in the mouth of every body, that a little brandy will kill a cat: I have made the experiment, and have killed several cats, but it is a false experiment; in all those cases where it kills the cat, it kills the cat by getting into her lungs, not into her stomach, because, if you convey the same quantity of brandy, or three times as much into the stomach, in such a way as the lungs shall not be affected, the cat will not die; now in those experiments that are made by forcing an animal to drink, there are two operations going on, one is a refusing the liquor, by the animal, its kicking and working with its throat, to refuse it, the other is a forcing the liquor upon the animal, and there are very few operations of that kind, but some of the liquor gets into the lungs. I have known it from experience.

Q. If you had been called upon to dissect a body, suspected to have died of poison, should you or not have thought it necessary to have pursued your search through the guts?

A. Certainly.

Q. Do you not apprehend that you would have been more likely to receive information from thence than any other part of the frame?

A. That is the track of the poison, and I should certainly have followed that track through.

Q. You have heard of the froth issuing from Sir Theodosius’s mouth, a minute or two before he died, is that peculiar to a man dying of poison, or is it not very common in many other complaints?

A. I fancy it is a general effect, of people dying in what you may call health, in an apoplexy, or epilepsy, in all sudden deaths, where the person was a moment before that in perfect health.

Q. Have you ever had an opportunity of seeing such appearances upon such subjects?

A. Hundreds of times.

Q. Should you consider yourself bound, by such an appearance, to impute the death of the subject to poison?

A. No, certainly not; I should rather suspect an apoplexy, and I wish in this case, the head had been opened to remove all doubts.

Q. If the head had been opened, do you apprehend all doubts would have been removed?

A. It would have been still farther removed, because, although the body was putrid, so that one could not tell whether it was a recent inflammation, yet an apoplexy arises from an extravasation of blood in the brain, which would have laid in a coagulum. I apprehend although the body was putrid, that would have been much more visible than the effect any poison could have had upon the stomach or intestines.

Q. Then in your judgment upon the appearances the gentlemen have described no inference can be drawn from thence that Sir Theodosius Boughton died of poison?

A. Certainly not; it does not give the least suspicion.

Q. Having heard the account to-day that Sir Theodosius Boughton, apparently in perfect health, had swallowed a draught which had produced the symptoms described, I ask you whether any reasonable man can entertain a doubt that that draught whatever it was produced those appearances?

A. I don’t know well what answer to make to that question.

Q. Having heard the account given of the health of this young gentleman on that morning, previous to taking the draught, and the symptoms that were produced immediately upon taking the draught, I ask your opinion as a man of judgment, whether you don’t think that draught was the occasion of his death?

A. With regard to his being in health, that explains nothing; we frequently, and indeed generally see the healthiest people dying suddenly, therefore I shall lay little stress upon that; as to the circumstances of the draught, I own they are suspicious, every man is just as good a judge as I am.

Court. You are to give your opinion upon the symptoms only, not upon any other evidence given.

Mr. Howorth. Upon the symptoms immediately produced, after the swallowing of that draught, I ask whether, in your judgment and opinion, that draught did not occasion his death? A. I can only say, that it is a circumstance in favour of such an opinion.

Court. That the draught was the occasion of his death? A. No; because the symptoms afterwards are those of a man dying, who was before in perfect health; a man dying of an epilepsy or apoplexy, the symptoms would give one those general ideas.

Court. It is the general idea you are asked about now, from the symptoms which appeared upon Sir Theodosius Boughton immediately after he took the draught followed by his death so very soon after; whether, upon that part of the case, you are of opinion that the draught was the occasion of his death? A. If I knew the draught was poison, I should say, most probably, that the symptoms arose from that; but when, I don’t know that that draught was poison, when I consider that a number of other things might occasion his death, I cannot answer positively to it.

Court. You recollect the circumstance that was mentioned of a violent heaving in the stomach? A. All that is the effect of the voluntary action being lost, and nothing going on but the involuntary.

Q. If you are at all acquainted with the effects and operations of distilled laurel-water, whether the having swallowed a draught of that, would not have produced the symptom described? A. I should suppose it would; I can only say this of the experiments I have made of laurel-water upon animals, it has not been near so quick; I have injected laurel-water directly into the blood of dogs, and they have not died; I have thrown laurel-water, with a precaution, into the stomach, and it never produced so quick an effect with me, as described by those gentlemen.

Q. But you admit that laurel-water would have produced symptoms such as have been described? A. I can conceive it might.

Mr. Newnham. Would not an apoplexy or an epilepsy, if it had seized Sir Theodosius Boughton at this time, though he had taken no physic at all, have produced similar symptoms too? A. Certainly.

Q. Where a father has died of an apoplexy, is not that understood, in some measure, to be constitutional? A. There is no disease whatever, that becomes constitutional, but what can be given to a child. There is no disease which is acquired, that can be given to a child; but whatever is constitutional in the father, the father has a power of giving that to the children; by which means it becomes what is called hereditary; there is no such thing as an hereditary disease; but there is an hereditary disposition for a disease.

Mr. Howorth. Do you call apoplexy constitutional?

A. We see most diseases are constitutional; the small-pox is constitutional, though it requires an immediate cause to produce the effects. The venereal disease is hereditary. I conceive apoplexy as much constitutional as any disease whatever.

Q. Is apoplexy likely to attack a thin young man who had been in a course of taking cooling medicines before? A. Not so likely, surely, as another man; but I have, in my account of dissections, two young women dying of apoplexies.

Q. But in such an habit of body, particularly attended with the circumstance of having taken cooling medicines, it was very unlikely to happen? A. I do not know the nature of medicines so well as to know that it would hinder an apoplexy from taking effect.

Court. Give me your opinion in the best manner you can, one way or the other, whether upon the whole of the symptoms described, the death proceeded from that medicine, or any other cause? A. I do not mean to equivocate, but when I tell the sentiments of my own mind, what I feel at the time, I can give nothing decisive.