The weekly Louisianian. [volume] (New Orleans, La.) 1872-1882, 1872-08-31
=. KILLING no. MURDER,

KILLING no MURDER. ..
f: q 80 --.- = -
The medical testimony on the late trim
Of Stokes for the murder of Col. Fisk, j.
another sad illustration, not only Of til,
uncertainties Of drug medication, but O
the unreliability Of tho. evidence of ply.
sicians concerning it w seldom lea,
OF a case in court involving questions il,
medical jurisprudence, in which eminen,
medical men do cot fatty contradict eacl,
other. 1t was so in the case Of Mrs: Whar.
ton, who was lately tried in Baltimore on
q charge Of numbering by poisoning In
that case some professors of medical col
leses attributed the death to poison, and
others to disease In the case ST Fisk. tho
medical evidence WAS so conflicting that
Judge 1nsraham, in charging the jury,
confessed that he did not know what to
say, and passed the matter with tho
remark: ''The jury had heard con-
tlary opinions from all the medical men.
and they should try and extract sense from
| them"
Suppose there is no sense to be extract.
ed? We do not inpeach the intelligence
nor veracity Of the medical witnesses.
Ihe difficulty inhcres in their system. In
the language of an eminent author to his
medical class, ''Tho effects Of our reme-
dies are i'll the highest tlegree uncertain"
"A dose that will occasion but q slight Of.
feet at one time, may produce SPEEDY
death or the same patient at another time.
A large dose of opium, alcohol, clhoroform
or aconitc may be safely borne so long as
the vital organism is struggling with some
other foo to life. But if that cause is sud-
denly removed, and tile struggle suddenly
subsidies, then sudden death is almost Ger.
tain to result from the medicine,
1t was proved inconteztibly that Fisl,
received pistol-bulleta in tho abdomen;
that the wound was most bungliaely
probed, and the patient swallowed soon
after ten ounces Of brandy, and by tho
hypodcrmic injection morphine enough to
kill several well persons And now We
have the question to settle, did Fisk die
OF the bullet, the probe, or the morbhine3
was the shooting, the surgery, or the
medicine the cause Of his >saking off? NJ
wonder the jury could not agree as to the
cause OF death, when the physicians tlis-
agreed. some imputing tie death to the
wound, and others declaring it was caused
by morphine. -5.
Bat We think The point is clear enough.
On the post-nso'tem examination the organs
were oil in healthy couaition. There
had not been hemorrhagei nor peritoncal
Inflammation, nor displacement of the
bowels or contents sufficient to bo dan
gerous. We sec no other conclusion.
therefore, than that Fisk was doctored to
death. If the bullet wound had been
necessarily fatal; death cotild not have re-
suited from it, with little inflammation
and trivial hemorrhage, under sevetal
days. But it did *ake- place in few
hours. and, Independent of tho medication
there is nothing tn account for the death
OF the patient. Stokes may or may not
have intended murder, yet as the patient
did not die of the wound which Stokes
gave him, but Of the medicine which his
physicians administered, the law pro-
the deed of Sto les manslaughtey,
and the deed Of the doct sjustitia5le hon,-
icide.-Science Of Health: