The Sun. — 1859-09-24 (London, England)

THE CONVICT SMETRU.RSE  The Freeman publishes the following analysis of a pamphlet issued by Professor Geoghegan of the Royal College of Surgeons, Ireland, iu which the medical evidence in Smethurst's case is :investigated :—, " Professor Geoghegan arrives at the ,conclusion, 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 the evidence for the prosecution. On the contrary, it is probable, from the statements of the learned judge, whose ability and integrity were so conspicuous on that occasion, that the jury attached much 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 symptoms 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.poisolaing • each of the recognised sources of medical evidence in such cases—the symptoms, with the medical history, the morbid appearances, and the. chemical researches—furnished respectively its appropriate train of facts, the whole eoneurrent and harmonious.' Proceeding, then, to consider the value to be attached 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, althongh when viewed alone they cannot be- considered. as distinctive,-yet, taken as a whole, and estimated in their nature, progress, and , extent, they were clearly referable with much more justice to irritant poisoning than to any other Aiseaso, 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 poisonin, one morcoVer,which, when unaccompanied by chronic, disease 1-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 appearanceson dissection, when viewed in their intrinsic characters and combination, and irrespectively of chemical results, create the strongest . possible presiunption in favour of death by. poisoning. If it now he shown that the exception& 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 objections 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. constituents of the human body, and totally incapable under the circumstances of being referred to pharmaceutical impurity—existed in the body of the de'ceased. Accident _.and suicide were _negatived by the general facts. The inference is . The medical circumstances, therefore, elicited, on the Smethurst trial, when taken in their integrity and viewed in their legitimate and relative bearings, appear 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 asto the medical evidence, or rather conjectures and extravagant theories for the defence, he justly says The specious yet fallacious 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, appearances, and chemical results is to be disjointed, instead 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 possibilities into the case, the establishment of the cause of death in any charge of poisoning would be impossible.  " It must be remembered that, in a similar mas,erly investigation of the murder committed by Kirwan, Professor Geoghegan established his guilt Lneontrovertibly."