The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1866-10-06 00:00:00

A LADY POISONED BY HER MEDICAL
ATTENDANT.

A very singular and exceedingly painful case of
accidental poisoning occurred at the village of NVardley,
near Uppingham, hiutian,lnhire, on the 9th inst., the
victim being the wife of Mr. Simkin. On the following
day an inquest was held on the body before Mr. Shield,
coroner, when the following facts were adduced in
evidence :

Mrs Simpkin ;the deceaseril had for some time suffered
from ill-health, and had been attended by Mr spencer, who
Is an old practitioner, realist gat liallaton. on the Slat of
August she complained of being unwell, and said she had a
pain In her hack and ahotilders, which she attributed to
rheumatism. On • subsequent day she was taken seriously
unwell at an archery meeting, and had to he taken home
On that occasion she had • fit, and complained of • pain In
her head, which she attributed to neuralgia. Front that
attack she recovered, and on the Sunday she died she was
apparently in excellent health and spirits, lout WY still
taking medicine, In the evening as Mr. Simpkin, ole•
ceased's husband, was going over to liallaton to see •
brother of his, who was unwell, his wife requeete I him
to call at Mr. Spencer's for some mediocre he was
to send her. He accordingly did so, sod he saw Mr
Spencer, who gave him a bottle of mixture wrapped
up in the usual way. Ile then returned home, which he
reached about ei.rht o'clock, and placed the medicine on the
table In the hall Dilt a. he had received It When he entered
the room the deceased asked for the medicine. and, on being
told where It was, she fetched It, and tore off the paper the
bottle was wrapped In. She then opened the bottle and
smelt the contents, hut did not take any of It Just then.
Shortly after nine o'clock the family went upstairs to bed, the
deceased taking her medicine with her. She did not go direct
to her own bedroom, but went to the bedchamber of
Miss Spurgeon, a lady who wee staying 111 the house,
where she remained about twenty minutes. On leaving
that room to go to her own she inquire I for a glen from
which to take some of the mlxthre. It is supposeoi she then
took a dose end got tote bed. She ba-1 not, however, been
lag in rut before she awoke her husband, who had fallen
asleep before she went to bed, and complained of being un
and asked hi rn what time be Intended getting up in the morning.
/the the o.olelosed, Olt, t feel so feebly,- and cortatodiced
shuddering and screening out. She complained also of
path. in her legs, and said, "Don't let my legs go to sleep"
Mr. Simian called to Miss Spurgeon to go to him, and when
she got Into the room the do ceued was quite black th the
face and convulsed, the hotly and leg. kept jerking, and her
limbs were rigid The convulsirons carne on lu fits, hut she
was stiff all the time. They gave deceased some brandy, bet
she could not take it, her teeth being firmly net They also
rubbed her limbs, and placed her legs in hot water but she
never rallied, and died in about twenty minute. from the time
of being first selste Mr Spencer was sent for. but before
he arrived she was dead. thr his being told that Mrs. &main
had said she wished she had never taken the medicine,
he observed that there could not have been anything in the
mixture he had sent her calculated to hurt her tie then
took up the bottle and drank some himself. A few minutes
after he had drank it he also became seriously ill, anti had •
fit of convulsions, twitching of the limbs, and stiffening of
the Joints. That, however, he attributed to the shock of
hearing that MN Simkln had died so suddenly, and said he
had been slightly unwell on the road, haring vomited.
He nearly always he remarked to Mr. &mirth, felt sink and
unwell if he rode directly after dinner. Mr Simpkin,
however, appears to have enterralud some suspicion that
there was something wrong with the medicine, and
ordered It lobe taint] care of. He then Bent tor Mr. bell,
another medical gentleman, who at on. attended Mr.
Spencer, and under whose care he gradually recovered. The
next day Mr. Misspent sent for Inspector Harrison, of
Uppingham, and communicated to him what had taken pls.,
anti directed him to make inquiry into the circumstances.
From whet he the Inspector) then learnt he at once com-
municated with Mr Shield, the coroner, and that gentleman
directed an inquest to be hell and a poet:lnurtem examine-
Von of the holy of tee decease., laty to rue made The
medicine and the viscera were placed In bottles, sea.ed up,
...rid taken by Mr. Mitchell, the chief constable of Rutland'
shire, to London, and delivered over to Professor Te)lor.

•
At the adjourned inquest held on Monday, the 24th, ' •
no evidence was taken, but the coroner stated that he
had received a reply from Dr. Taylor, and also from I •
the Secretary of State, stating that if on the report
of Dr. Taylor's examination of the medicine and the '
viscera it was thought necessary he would be author- .
iced to attend the inquest. With regard to the letter •
from Dr. Taylor, that he (Mr. Sheild) said was pri-
rate, and he did not feel at liberty to read it; but he •
observed that the doctor remarked in his letter that
the facts in the case were of such a nature that he
thought the Secretary of State Wad sure to authorize
his attendance, and he mentioned that Thursday
would be the day he should be able to attend the in-
quiry if authorized. The inquest was accordingly ad-
journed until Thursday, the 27th. On that dry the '
inquiry was resumed, and the following additional evi-
dence given:—
Mr Bell, surgeon, after deposing to making a post ronrfein
examination, and to placing the stomach In bottleu and
sealing it up, and delivering it Into the custody of mr.
Mitchell, the chief constable, proceeded to describe the
symptoms be found Mr. Sommer suffering from when called
In to attend him. Be geld : I found hint sitting in an easy
chair, with his waistcoat and shirt unbuttoned Ills pulse
was 120 and very weak. Ills tongue had a brown appear-
ance, and the surface r f his body vs. cold and flabby, and
there was profuse perspiration. He was lying hack perfectly
helpless, and with his eyes shut A lire was made up, and
be became warmer. His pulse then went down to 112, and
became stronger. About five o'clock he called out to me
and Mr ilimkln, and asked us to hold him. He then had
convulsions, throwing himself back, and raising himself up.
1 There was great rigidity of the muscles, and tear& convul-
sions. He also got very black In the face, and had great
, difficulty in breathing Ile likewise had twitching of the
arms. That fit lasted about a minute, but he lad similar
symptoms, more or leas secure, from the time I flat saw him
until I left at a quarter past seven in the morning. He ap
peered to tare a pain in the stomach, and kept drawing
himself up. There were frequent involuntary twitchings of
the face sad hitching of the skin of the stomach and face.
He was, however, never unconscious, neither less he lick
while I was there, although he coniplained of feeling sick.
When I went to see him again at eleven o'clock he bad
vomited • little.
Dr Alfred 'Taylor, heving deposed to receiving the bottles
containing the contents of the stomach and the medicine i
from Chief Constable Mitchell, proceeded to relate the re-
sult of his examination awl analysis of the same Ile said
the large bottle contained It a of liquid, including vied.
ment, and the small one 2i, • , also including sediment,
making altogether die, or of, third of the total capacity of
the large bottle, line. Toe liquid was separated from the
sediment. It tuted very bitter. A chyrnical analysis
showed that the liquid-coetalited tea dissolved form and.
and strychnine In tee proportion 01 1 7 grain to an ounce,
the brucia, from Its greater Folubility, being lit larger pro-
portion. The 'ary seitiment obtainal from the large bottle
weighed 52 grains, and that (coin the small bottle weighed
3 grains, making is'? grains of undissolved matter from the
two bottles. l'his sediment was tested and toned to be
nearly pure strychnia. A quarter of a grain of the sediment
produced tetanic convulsions in • rabbit in 30 minutes
and caused the death of the animal, with the usual symptoms
of strychnia poisoning, in ten minutes more. The sediment
or andissolved residue from the two bottles was examined
for bismuth, but none was found In It. He mentioned
that fact because he had seen from the prescription that
it was stated to have contained bismuth. The liquid In
the bottles contained much brucia, with some airy chnla
On evaporation 11 grains were obtained from an ounce of
it. Hence, in the four ounces there would be 88 grains dis-
solved. Hence the two bottles the weight of dry sediment,
principally s chats, was 82 grains; the weight of brucla,
stryelma, an her soluble matter ill grains; total grains
oi
In 4 ounces 0 • xture, 15 grains. Three tablespoonfuls, the
dose marked on the large hot le, are equivalent to nearly
two ounces, hence such a mixture would contain in a single
dose, if It were shaken, a fatal dose of sirychula. Half a
Kral. of etrychnla has proved sucffilent to destroy the life of
a human adult in twenty minutes, and In the sediment shine
there was enough to kill 16 persons. The stomach contained '
three ounces OS partly-digested food, in which we. starchy
matter; the stomach was quite healthy, and its contents pre-
sented the appearance usually seen in the bodies of persons
who have died soddenly in a state of health, and while
digestion was going on. The application of the usual
, tests and processes to the stomach, duodenum, and i A, sopha-
, gun, as well 55 50 their contents, showed that strychnine was
present in a small quantity in each cue. The largest pro-
portiou was found in the duodenum, dome powdery
matter scraped from the surface of the cesophagus was by
1 the usual tests foond to be atrycl,nine. Taking thew facts
1 and the statements in the depositions—namely, that do-
ceased took • dose of the mixture and died In about half an
hour afterwards, I am of opinion that her death was entirely
, doe to stryanlos. from the appettranost, Ms symptoms

7ffireftWind—the—reetilt—of the analysis, I have
window', that the deceased died from strychnine, and not
front natural causes It is possible that old samples ot
bismuth might be mistakem for strychnine, as they are very
much elite in appearance, but they are very different in
their effect. The oasis very simple, and the other In a very
Potent poison. Any human being taking • dose like the one
alleged to have been taken by the deceased would certainly
die from the tffect Generally, strychnine I. only kept in
very small quantities, while bismuth la kept In large bottles.
All bottles containing drugs ought to be diatinctly labelled.
Au experienced person ought to know the difference be-
tween bismuth and drychnine by the weight, the one beim
mace heavier than the other.
Utivsg evidence was adduced to show that there had.
been no tampering with the medicine after it left Mr..
Spencer's surgery, and that the bottle was dot opened
by any ono except the deceased. There can be little
doubt from the above evidence that strychnia bad been
mistaken for Nemeth.

The Coroner explained to the jury that the first
question they had to consider was, how the deceased
came to joerdeal,h. If by poison, by whom was the
poison administered, and whether it was administered
, accident or from groom ignorance, or gross neglect.
I If through either of the letter causes, then the party
so administering it would be in law guilty of "Mast-
slaughter.'
ltlr. Douglas, Market fiarborough, was
present to watch the Mite on behalf of the deceased's
Pamily ; and Mr. Brown of Uppinghato, on behalf of
Mr. Spencer.
The jury, after consulting a short time, returned a
verdict that "deceased died from strychnine, ad-
ministered by Mr. Spencer with gross neglect."
Upon the delivery of the verdict, Chief Constable
Mitchell, who had been present during the proceeding.,
took Mr. Spatter into custody on the charge of man.
slaughter. He was shortly afterwards admitted to
bail, himself in 5001. and two sureties in 2501. each.
The case will be tried at the next wires.