The Sun.
London, England, 1865-07-06 00:00:00

THE TRIAL OF DR. PRITCHARD.

THIRD DAY.

EPINBURGII, Wednesday, July 5.
The Judges took their seats soon after 10 o'clock, and
the prisoner, accompanied by his brother, who is from Ply-
mouth, was placed in the dock.. The following witnesses
wore examined this forenoon :
Alex. 111'Call, superintendent of the central district of the
Glasgow police, said he apprehended the prisoner on tho
20th March. Two letters, produced, were found upon him.
Witnessvisited the prisoner's house on the 21st, and found
several diaries in the consulting-room, and recetved the
bottle produced from Mary M'Leod. The bottle was
about half 6111 of a brownish-coloured liquid. On the
22d witness again visited the house, and took posses-
sion of several paper packages in the consulting-room. A
quart bottle of ginger wine was in a locked press in the
prisoner's pocket. Witness also found a phial in the
open press in the consulting-room with the letters
" timon" on the torn label. Three other phials, two corked
and one with a glass stopper, were in the same press.
Another phial was on the mantel-piece of the ante-drawing-
room. Witness received a quantity of bed linen and body
clothing from Mary Patterson. On Saturday the 25th of
March, witness found two pass-books in the locked press
in the consulting-room.—(All these articles, and those sub-
sequently mentioned, were produced.] Witness handed
some of the articles to the sheriff's officer, and the phials to
Dr. Penny. In a desk in the consulting room witness
found three prescriptions, some letters in a bookcase, and
other prescriptions on a table, all in the same room.
Cross examined—Witness did notremove 35 bottles from
the locked press, which included brandy, whisky, and
chloroform. The medicines were in the unlocked press.
Those bottles were examined by two scientific gentlemen
in the house. The keys of the consulting-room and of the
locked press were afterwards given to the prisoner's bro-
ther Charles, and witness did not know what had become
of the 35 bottles.
John Murray, sheriff's officer, Glasgow, said he received
the clothes and linen from the previous witness, and
handed them to Dr. Maclagan. A parcel of tapioca which
witness received from Mary. Patterson he sealed and
handed to Dr. Penny. Witness obtained a quantity of ta-
pioca from the grocer's from whom that found in the pH-
' sonar's house had been bought, and gave it to Dr. Penny.
John Campbell, manager of the branch of the Glasgow
Apothecaries Company in Sauehiehall-street, said he had
known the prisoner for four years. Ho had made pur-
chases, at witness's establishment only, within the last
nine months, and had a running account. Witness pro-
duced from the books a copy of the prisoner's account,
which contained the following items :—September 19th,
1864, ten grains of strychnine ; November 4, half ounce
bottle of tincture of conium malculatum,—that is, hem-
lock ; November 18, an ounce of laudanum, and an ounce
of tartarised antimony, or tartar emetic ; November 24,
an ounce of tincture of aconite ; December 8, an ounce of
tincture of aconite ; December 9, an ounce of tincture of
conium ; February 4, 1865, an ounce of tincture of conium ;
February 7, an ounce of tartarised antimony and an
ounce of tincture of aconite ; February 9, an ounce of
tincture of aconite ; February 11, two ounces of tincture
of digitalis ; February 18, an ounce of tincture of
conium. All those articles were poisons. The pri-
soner invariably got or ordered the medicines him-
self. Two grains of tartar emetic was an ordinary
dose. In an ounce there were 435 k grains. Witness
never before served an ounce of tartar emetic to a medical
mail in Glasgow. It was an unusually large quantity,
and struck witness as being a strange circumstance. Two
ounces would be as much as witness would serve to the
whole of the medical profession in Glasgow in 12 months,
and he had a large dispensing business. On one occasion
it was 'leming's tincture of aconite that was served to the
prisoner, which was six times as strong as the ordinary

tincture. Chloroform was the chief article served to the
prisoner, and amounted to 1320 z. between July 13 and
bee. 9, 1864. That was a very unusual quantity, and more
than all the rest of witness's customers put together. In
the course of hiu 22 years' experience as a dispensing
apothecary ho never knew so much poison furnished to any
medical man. The labels on the bottles produced were
partly destroyed, but witness identified the letters " aco"
on one of them as his assistant's writing.
John Currie, chemist, Sauchiehall-stroet, Glasgow, said
he had known the prisoner for some time, and had served

him with medicines. Witness had made an extract from
his book of the prisoner's account, which contained the
following items :—February 18, 1865, two ounces of solu-
tion of morphia, and an ounce of Fleming's tincture of
aconite ; March 8, a solution of atropine, one drachm (with
one grain to drachm) ; March 9, one drachm of solution of
atropine (with two grains to drachm) ; March 13, half an
ounce of Fleming's tincture of aconite ; March 14, one
drachm of solution of atropine (with two grains to drachm) ;
March 16, one drachm and five grains of solution of atro-
pine (with five grains to drachm). Witness supplied
several of the above, and he was certain that all the rest
were served to the prisoner. The prisoner usually gave
the orders himself, but sometimes sent a note.
Dr. Maclagan, profeSsor of medical jurisprudence in the
University of Edinburgh, said ho had been a medical prac-
titioner for many years, and had given great attention to
the toxicological department of chemistry. On the 21st
March witness made a post-mortem examination of Mrs.
Pritchard's body, in conjunction with Dr. Littlejohn,
and found it presented no appearance of a recent morbid
action beyond a little irritation of the alimentary canal ;
and nothing to account for death. They, therefore, re-
moved the internal organs for further examination. On
the 11th April witness, in conjunction with his assistant,
Dr. Gamgee, and Dr. Littlejohn, subjected to chemical
examination the various organs and contents of organs
removed from Mtn. Pritchard's body. It having been
stated that antimony was suspected, witness made a trial
experiment immediately on his return from the post-mor-
tem examination, with three drachms of the urine, and
obtained unmistakeable evidence of. the presence of anti-
mony. Being obliged to go to London to attend the
funeral of a relative, he requested Dr. Gamgeo, his assistant,
with Dr. Littlejohn, to carry on the preliminary process in
his absence.

Dr. Gamgoe said he had been assistant to Professor
Maclagan since April, 1863, and had had considerable ex-
perience of chemical analysis. Professor Maclagau went
to London on March 22, and returned on the 24th. He
directed witness to evaporate what had been taken from
Mrs. Pritchard s body to dryness, and to digest a certain
portion in filtered water acidulated with tartaric acid.
Two ounces and five drachms of fluid were thus obtained,
in which antimony would be found if it were present
in the intestines. An ounce of that fluid was submitted
to a stream of sulphuretted hydrogen gas, and
a yellow precipitate was obtained, which was collected and
washed, and reserved for Dr. Maclagan. The remainder
of tho tartaric and solution was also reserved.
Dr. Littlejohn corroborated the statements of the previ-
ous witness.

Professor Maclagan was re-called, and read his reports,
which described the process to which the yellow precipi-
tato was subjected. Tho result, he said, was unequivocal
evidence of the presence of antimony, and he came to the
conclusion that the antimony he found had been admin-
istered in the form of tartar emetic, one of the two forms
in which antimony is soluble in water. Ho found antimony
in the urine, the bile, the blood, and the liver. Traces
of antimony were also found on several chemises and
other articles which had been stained with urine. Witness
also made an examination of the body of Mrs. Taylor, and
subsequently an analysis of her viscera. Tho body was
found healthy, and there wore no external appearances to
account for death. The chemical analysis showed no traces
of vegetable poison, but revealed the presence of antimony
in the alimentary canal, the blood, the liver, the muscular
substance of the heart, the spleen, the rectum, the brain,
and other parts.

••. . „
Cross-examined—The first experiment with the urine
was by Reinsch's process, which gave a violet deposit.
Witness would not consider the analysis worked out con-
clusively by that experiment alone, ae it was better to carry
assurance to the minds of other people by adding other cor-
roborative tests. Witness atteinpted to estimate the quan-
tity of antimony in the urine, but the amount yielded was
too small to enable him to weigh it with sufficient accuracy.
Re-examined—Witness gave Dr. Penny portions of the
organs found in the two bodies. Witness made another
examination of portions of Mrs. Pritchard's body last week,
and again obtained an orange precipitate, which yielded
the sulphuret of antimony. He also obtained a black pre-
cipitate, which indicated the presence of sulphuret of mer-
cury. By another corroborative experiment upon, fresh
material never manipulated before, witness got more sul-
phuret of antimony. The whole contents of the intestines
yielded 5.712 grains of tartar emetic.
Cross-examined again-111, itness also found mercury on
making the last-named experiment.

Professor Penny, of Glasgow, said he analysed the -vis-
cera of both bodies and the articles found in the prisoner's
house. He found antimony and mercury in the viscera—
antimony in the tapioca, and antimony and aconite in the
bottle of Battley's solution found in Mrs. Taylor's pocket.
Antimony was found in some of the phials taken from the
prisoner's house. The powders prescribed by Dr. Pater-
son accounted for the mercury.

Professor Maclagan, of Edinburgh, recalled, said his
conclusions were that both deaths must be ascribed to an-
timony given in repeated small doses. All the symptoms
described by the witnesses respecting the illnesses agreed
with poisoning by antimony. Nothing indicated gastric
the other. Witness
sfeuvseprecitnedthae onestro asncgdeeporerssarnogplpeoxiysoinnlike aconite at the last
in Mrs. Taylor's case, and saw no symptom of opium.
Professor Penny and Dr. Meiktejohn said that, after
hearing the evidence, they ascribed death to chronic
poisoning by antimony, but found the influence of a strong
narcotic also in Mrs. Taylor's case.

Mr. Hugh Orr, bank agent, Glasgow, and Mr. H. Bal-
main, assistant manager of the Clydesdale Banking Com-
pany, said the prisoner's bank accounts were overdrawn.
Mr. W. Finlay, secretary to the Scottish Equitable Assur-
ance Society, said the prisoner had insured hiS life for
£1,500, and borrowed £255 upon the policy. _
Mr. D. J. Macbriar said he was trustee for £2,000 for
Mrs. Taylor. In July last she lent the prisoner £5OO to-
wards buying a house. In her will she left two-thirds of
her property to Mrs. Pritchard and her family.
The prisoner's statements before Sheriff Alison were
read, in which he denied ever administering antimony.
This concluded the case for the prosecution, and the
Court adjourned.