Part 6 (2/2)

What do you really suspect it to be?--I really suspect it to be white a.r.s.enic.

Please to proceed, sir.--As soon as the maid had left me, Mr. Norton, the apothecary, produced a powder that, he said, had been found at the bottom of that mess of gruel, which, as was supposed, had poisoned Mr.

Blandy. He gave me some of this powder, and I examined it at my leisure, and believed it to be white a.r.s.enic. On Monday morning, August the 12th, I found Mr. Blandy much worse than I had left him the day before. His complexion was very bad, his pulse intermitted, and he breathed and swallowed with great difficulty. He complained more of his fundament than he had done before. His bowels were still in pain.

I now desired that another physician might be called in, as I apprehended Mr. Blandy to be in the utmost danger, and that this affair might come before a Court of judicature. Dr. Lewis was then sent for from Oxford. I stayed with Mr. Blandy all this day. I asked him more than once whether he really thought he had taken poison? He answered each time that he believed he had. I asked him whether he thought he had taken poison often? He answered in the affirmative. His reasons for thinking so were because some of his teeth had decayed much faster than was natural, and because he had frequently for some months past, especially after his daughter had received a present of Scotch pebbles from Mr. Cranstoun, been affected with very violent and unaccountable p.r.i.c.kings and heats in his tongue and throat, and with almost intolerable burnings and pains in his stomach and bowels, which used to go off in vomitings and purgings. I asked him whom he suspected to be the giver of the poison? The tears stood in his eyes, yet he forced a smile, and said--”A poor love-sick girl--I forgive her--I always thought there was mischief in those cursed Scotch pebbles.” Dr. Lewis came about eight o'clock in the evening. Before he came Mr. Blandy's complexion, pulse, breath, and faculty of swallowing were much better again; but he complained more of pain in his fundament. This evening Miss Blandy was confined to her chamber, a guard was placed over her, and her keys, papers, and all instruments wherewith she could hurt either herself or any other person were taken from her.

How came that?--I proposed it to Dr. Lewis, and we both thought it proper, because we had great reason to suspect her as the author of Mr. Blandy's illness, and because this suspicion was not yet publicly known, and therefore no magistrate had Dr. Addington taken any notice of her.

Please to go on, Dr. Addington, with your account of Mr. Blandy.

On Tuesday morning, August the 13th, we found him worse again, His countenance, pulse, breath, and power of swallowing were extremely bad. He was excessively weak. His hands trembled. Both they and his face were cold and clammy. The pain was entirely gone from his bowels, but not from his fundament. He was now and then a little delirious. He had frequently a short cough and a very extraordinary elevation of his chest in fetching his breath, on which occasions an ulcerous matter generally issued from his fundament. Yet in his sensible intervals he was cheerful and jocose; he said, ”he was like a person bit by a mad dog; for that he should be glad to drink, but could not swallow.”

About noon this day his speech faltered more and more. He was sometimes very restless, at others very sleepy. His face was quite ghastly. This night was a terrible one. On Wednesday morning, August the 14th, he recovered his senses for an hour or more. He told me he would make his will in two or three days; but he soon grew delirious again, and sinking every moment, died about two o'clock in the afternoon.

Upon the whole, did you then think, from the symptoms you have described and the observations you made, that Mr. Blandy died by poison?--Indeed I did.

And is it your present opinion?--It is; and I have never had the least occasion to alter it. His case was so particular, that he had not a symptom of any consequence but what other persons have had who have taken white a.r.s.enic, and after death had no appearance in his body but what other persons have had who have been destroyed by white a.r.s.enic.[7]

When was his body opened?--On Thursday, in the afternoon, August the 15th.

What appeared on opening it?--I committed the appearances to writing, and should be glad to read them, if the Court will give me leave.

[Then the doctor, on leave given by the Court, read as follows:--]

”Mr. Blandy's back and the hinder part of his arms, thighs, and legs were livid. That fat which lay on the muscles of his belly was of a loose texture, inclining to a state of fluidity. The muscles of his belly were very pale and flaccid. The cawl was yellower than is natural, and the side next the stomach and intestines looked brownish. The heart was variegated with purple spots. There was no water in the pericardium. The lungs resembled bladders half filled with air, and blotted in some places with pale, but in most with black, ink. The liver and spleen were much discoloured; the former looked as if it had been boiled, but that part of it which covered the stomach was particularly dark. A stone was found in the gall bladder. The bile was very fluid and of a dirty yellow colour, inclining to red. The kidneys were all over stained with livid spots. The stomach and bowels were inflated, and appeared before any incision was made into them as if they had been pinched, and extravasated blood had stagnated between their membranes. They contained nothing, as far as we examined, but a slimy b.l.o.o.d.y froth.

Their coats were remarkably smooth, thin, and flabby. The wrinkles of the stomach were totally obliterated. The internal coat of the stomach and duodenum, especially about the orifices of the former, was prodigiously inflamed and excoriated. The redness of the white of the eye in a violent inflammation of that part, or rather the white of the eye just brushed and bleeding with the beards of barley, may serve to give some idea how this coat had been wounded.

There was no schirrus in any gland of the abdomen, no adhesion of the lungs to the pleura, nor indeed the least trace of a natural decay in any part whatever.”

[Sidenote: Dr. Lewis]

Dr. WILLIAM LEWIS[8] examined--Did you, Dr. Lewis, observe that Mr.

Blandy had the symptoms which Dr. Addington has mentioned?--I did.

Did you observe that there were the same appearances on opening his body which Dr. Addington has described?--I observed and remember them all, except the spots on his heart.

Is it your real opinion that those symptoms and those appearances were owing to poison?--Yes.

And that he died of poison?--Absolutely.

[Sidenote: Dr. Addington]

Dr. ADDINGTON, cross-examined--Did you first intimate to Mr. Blandy, or he to you, that he had been poisoned?--He first intimated it to me.

Did you ask him whether he was certain that he had been poisoned by the gruel that he took on Monday night, August the 5th, and on Tuesday night, August the 6th?--I do not recollect that I did.

Are you sure that he said he was disordered after drinking the gruel on Monday night, the 5th of August?--Yes.

<script>