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Testimony of Dr. Waterhouse

Question. Considering the symptoms, without regard to the fact
that strychnine was found to be present in the contents of the
intestine, would you be willing to say that Mrs. Stanford died of
strychinine poisoning?

Answer. Decidedly not.

In looking over the evidence in regard to the death of
Mrs. Stanford I fail to find one characteristic symptom of strych-
nine poisoning. As far as the testimony of the various witnesses
goes, no one saw Mrs. Stanford in a convulsion or spasm until the
spasm just preceding death. Mrs. Stanford, when she walked out
into the all to call Miss Berner and Miss Hunt, did say she was
awakened by a spasm which threw her out of bed, and followed this
by saying she thought she had been poisoned. Now, this spasm might
have been hysteria, or a mild attack of angina pectoris or a sudden
start from a dream due to her indigestion, or what not, but she never
would have got up and walked out into the hall immediately after a
typical convulsion from strychnine poisoning, and even if she had
not got up and walked out into the hall she would have shown signs
of extreme exhasution. These were entirely absent, only nervous
excitement being present. In fact, she did not even want to sit
down when Miss Berner wished her to. But laying this aside, if
it were strychnine poisoning, there followed an interval of some
twenty-five minutes during which if she were suffereing from strych-
nine poisoning and had already had one convulsion, she would have
been in the highest degree of muscular irritability, the slightest
external irritation setting her off into another convulsion, and
everything affecting the sensory nerves jarring on the patient.
Instead of this, we find that Miss Berner and May Hunt, the maid,
were constantly rubbing her, putting her feet in warm water and
giving her water to drink, but this did not produce a muscular con-
traction, nor the sign of a convulsion, nor did she even object to
what would set a patient suffering from strychnine poisoning nearly
wild, with the single exception of the time, when Miss Berner first
asked her to take a drink of warm water to make her vomit and then
Mrs. Stanford said she could not, because her jaws were rigid.
Miss Berner distinctly states that Mrs. Stanford said this was a
rigidity and not a mere queer feeling in the muscles of the jaws
such as occasionally comes as a premonitory symptom with other
things of strychnine poisoning. Now this is a symptom which in
strychnine poisoning usually comes late and only when all the rest
of the body is in a violent convulsive seizure, which is the
classical diagnostic point between strychnine poisoning and lock jaw.
She also, accoring to Miss Berner, said this by opening her mouth
and not through closed teeth, and besides this to remedy it Miss
Berner rubbed her cheekes "until they were red" which is the very
thing which if any of the muscles of the body were rigid already,
would have set the patient off into a violent convulsion. Instead
of this Miss Berner gets her to take two glasses of warm water
after it. Clearly this was hysteria or at least a nervous symptom.
Now, in spite of all this internal stimulation, there is not the
slightest sign of a convulsion. In the case of strychnine poison-
ing, surely if there had already been one convulsion, and there
was one coming later, the slightest irritation, a draft of air, a
bright light, toughing of the patient, giving the patient water
to drink, much more the violent rubbing and putting the feet and