The Sun.
London, England, 1859-09-24 00:00:00

THE CONVICT SMETRURST.

The Freeman publishes the following analysis of
a pamphlet issued by Professor Geoghegan, of the
Royal College of Surgeons, Ireland, in which the
medical evidence in Smethurst's case is investi-
gated :

" Professor Geoghegan arrives at the conclu-
sion, 'that the medical evidence, when taken
alone, is decisive as to the cause of death ;" but
he sees no reason to admit that .the conviction
was had solely on that portion of theevidence for
the prosecution. 'On the contrai74 is probable,
from the statements of the learns; judge, whose
ability and integrity were so cwiclious on that
occasion, that the jury attached suchT more weight
to the overwhelming body of moral facts' . .
' unintelligible on any other hypothesis than that of
the guilt of the accused.' After reviewing the symp-
toms of the murdered lady's fatal illness, and the
morbid appearances discovered within the body on
dissection, and which, extensive as they were,
eould not have been of more than two or three
weeks' standing,' the learned professor observes—
'The chemical inquiries established the presence of
arsenic in one or two. of the evacuations passed
about three days before death, and of antimony in
the contents of the small intestine, in the ccecum,
blood, and kidney. Every requisite proof was thus
supplied of this being a case of poisoning ; each
of the recognised sources of medical evidence in
such cases—the symptoms, with the medical his-
tory, the morbid appearances, and the chemical re-
searches—furnished respectively its appropriate
train of facts, the whole concurrent and harmonious.'
Proceeding, then, to consider the value to be at-
tached to each portion of the medical evidence, and
reminding us that cases of poisoning are not to be
estimated by the symptoms alone, he observes, ' As
regards the morbid appearances, although when.
viewed alone they cannot be considered as distinc-
tive, yet, taken as a whole, and estimated in their
nature, progress, and extent, they were clearly re-
ferable with much more justice to irritant poisoning
than to any other disease, or rather combination of
diseases. The condition of the stomach is one with
which experienced observers are familiar as the result
of the action of irritant poison in, one moreover,which,
when unaccompanied by chronic disease of the
organ, is rarely, if ever, found due to any other
cause.' . . . On the whole, then, in Miss
Bankes's case, the symptoms, taken together with
the appearances on dissection, when viewed in their
intrinsic characters and combination, and irrespec-
tively of chemical results, create' the strongest pos-
sible presumption in favour of death by poisoning.
If it now be shown that the exceptions taken
against the chemical department of the proof are
immaterial, the strong presumption thus created
becomes converted into certainty.' And then,
having animadverted and disproved the futile ob-
jections which were made to the chemical evidence,
Professor Geoghegan concludes that the evidence
remains unshaken, that arsenic and antimony—not
prescribed by the attendants—not normal consti-
tuents of the human body, and totally incapable
under the circumstances of being referred to phar-
maceutical impurity—existed in the body of the de-
ceased. Accident and suicide were negatived by
the general facts. The inference is plain." The
medical circumstances, therefore, elicited on the
Smethurst trial, when taken in their integrity and
viewed in their legitimate and relative bearings, ap-
pear to me, says Professor Geoghegan, to establish
the fact of death by poison as conclusively as in any
case that has fallen within the range of my reading
or experience as having formed the subject of a
criminal trial.' And then as to the medical evidence,
or rather conjectures and extravagant theories for
the defence, he justly says The specious yet fal-
lacious process of dismemberment of the body of
medical facts—a procedure allowable, no doubt, to
members of the bar, but unworthy of those in search
of truth, seems to have been almost the sole cause of
the self-imposed difficulties of the newspaper critics.
If the group of medical data—symptoms, appear-
ances, and chemical results is to be disjointed, in-
stead of being viewed as a consistent whole—if, in
cases where all, on careful examination, are seen to
harmonise, the facts are to be explained away by
crowding a series of remote and isolated possibili-
ties into the case, the establishment of the cause of
death in any charge of poisoning would be impos-
sible.'

" It must be remembered that, in a similar mas •
terly investigation of the murder committed by
Kirwan, Professor Geoghegan established his guilt
incontrovertibly."