The Press.
London, England, 1855-12-22 00:00:00

Sad ant Volta.

THE RUGELEY POISONING CASE.
Tnz public have acareely recovered from the nega-
tive result of the Wooler trial when another singular
and equally mysterious poisoning case is brought
before them. Mr. John Parsons Cook, a young man
well known upon the turf, in good health at the last
Shrewsbury races, and winning two races with his
horse, Polestar, was suddenly taken ill after the
races, and died in five days from the first attack.
The suddenness of his death and other circumstances
oozing out led to a post-mortem examination by Dr.
Taylor, who clearly expressed bis belie f t hat Mr.
Cook had died from tetanus, produced by strychnine.
The investigation held before the coroner of
Rugeley last week elicited the following facts :—Upon
the morning of the 18th of November a letter W
received by Mr. Jones, a sttrgeon at Lutterworth
and a personal friend of Mr. Cook, from Mr. W.
Palmer, a surgeon of Rugeley and the companion of
Mr. Cook, stating that Mr. Cook was suffering from

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a severe bilious attack, and requesting Mr. Jones to
come and see him as soon as pos-ible. Mr. Jones
states that he found Mr. Cook in bed and very weak,
but not apparently suffering from a bilious attack.
In the course of the evening Alt. Palmer, sith Mr.
Bamford, another medical man, came in, and after a
consultation they agreed to continue the morphine
pills given on the preceding night. About eleven
p.m., Mr. Palmer came over with the pills, and Mr.
Cook, though strongly objecting, took them, and
almost immediately vomited, but did not throw off
the pills. Mr. Jones then states that, at the request
of Mr. Cook, he slept in the same room, but had
hardly been in bed twenty minutes when Mr. Cook
jumped up, exclaiming that he was ill, and desiring
Mr. Junes to send instantly for Mr. Palmer. In about
ten minutes Mr. Palmer arrived from the house
opposite, making the remark that he thought be had
never dressed so quickly in his life, and, bringing
with him two pills, induced Mr. Cook to take them.
He did so, and immediately after, with I.oud screams,
flung himself back in strong convulsions. In a few
minutes he exclaimed that ha should be pliffocated,
requested to be turned on his right side, and died.
Mr. Bamford in his evidence stated that, when
called in on the 17th November, he found Mr. Cook
suffering from violent voinitings, that he bad pre-
scribed for him, and given the medicines, a saline
draught and some opiate pills, to Mr. Palmer. He
believed Mr. Cook to have died from congestion of
the brain.

Mr. Harland, who was present at the post-mortem
examination, could not explain the oause of death.
It was not apoplexy nor over-excitement.
Elizabeth Mills, the servant at the hotel, deposed
to Mr. Cook's illness, and stated that Mr. Palmer on
the 18th sent some broth over for Mr. Cook, which
Mr. Cook wk.uld nut take, and that on the night
before his death, when Mr. Palmer had arrived, she
went into the room, and saw Mr. Cook beating the
bedclothes with his hands :

Mr. Palmer had been there about nine o'clock. The de-
ceased screamed twice before I went to him. He said his
illness was in consequence of some pills which he had
taken about halfpast ten. He looked very wild with his
eyes, and his head was moving shout convulsively. Alter
he had been beating the bed his arms became perfectly
straight, and so did his legs, but he was perfectly sensible.
He said to Mr. Palmer, who was soon there, " Oh,
_doctor,
1 shall die." To which he replied, "Oh no, my lad, you
won't." Mr. Palmer then went and fetched two pills and
some mixture of a dark thick kind in a ‘‘ine-glase. It
smelt like opium. He took the pills first and then the
draught, end vomited it back immediately. We l'ioked
for the pills, but neither I nor Mr. Palmer could find them.
I remained with him until three o'clock. Ha liaised me to
rub his hands. They were stretched out, quite Ka., and
were cold and moist.

The witness then corroborates Mr. Jones' evidence
with reference to the symptoms at death, and utli.ms
that about ten minutes after Mr. Cook's death, as
Mr. Jones came out she went into the room, End
found Mr. Palmer searching the pockets of a c at
she believed t, be Mr. Cook's. He also looked under
the pillows, and she remarked that a small Wu:log-
book had disappeared from off the wild of the
looking-glass. Mr. Jones, upon being recalled, co
roborated the fact about the bett►ng bouk, which he
had looked for but could not find. Mr. Palmer had
obstrved to him that the book was of no value to pay
one.
- -

-..-.
Dr. Taylor, having at considerable length &ailed
the results of the minute analysis to which the in-
testines were subjected by him and Dr. Rees, said :
My belief is that he died from tetanus, and that tetanrs
was caused by medicine given to him shortly before his
death. I believe that the pills administered on Monday
night and Tuesday night contained strychnine. Ido not
believe that the medicine prescribed by Mr. Bamford could
have produced any such effects as those I have heard de-
scribed. It is not possible fur them to have produced the
effect, either one or the other. On Monday night and
Tuesday night, after those pills were taken, there was pot
the slightest indication of morphia in the body. Further
than this, we find no mercury in the liver or other parts of
the body ; and I do not think that mercury could have
been taken on the Monday and Tuesday nights as calomel,
as well as on the other nights, without discovering traces
if
of mercury in the liver, and there were none. The witness
Mills has accurately described the symptoms produced y
a small dose of strychnine, such as would be caused
pills given at half past ten on Monday night ; and. a
symptoms on Tuesday night would be those produced by
a larger dose of strychnine given in the pills taken on that,
night. There is an absence of any nstural cause, or any
natural disease, to account for this tetanus. The brain and
spinal marrow are healthy; there is no insensibility before
death—perfect consciousness, and that effect of spasm on
the nervous system which a poisonous dose of strychnine
would cause.
Charles Roberts, -the apprentice to a chemist at
lingeley, swore to Mr. Palmer having on the 20th of
November purchased six grains of strychnine, two
drachms of Prussic acid, and two ounces of solution
' of opium.
The evidence now given was of a most singular
nature. Mr. Fishier, a friend of Mr. Cook, deposed
that during the races, on the evening of the a. coed
day's racing, while at the Raven Hotel, be irtpueA.

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