The learned judge then proceeded to comment on the evidence of Mrs. Ashley, and others, who deposed to the perfect health and good spirits of the deceased up to a few minutes of the discovery of her lifeless body, and to the medical evidence of the perfect state of her internal bodily organs, leaving no doubt that she had not died from natural causes. He then went to the evidence of Messrs. Champneys and Pickering, the surgeons, who, on opening the body of the deceased on the day following her death smelt the odour of the prussic acid.[17] “There, then,” he said, “was evidence at once of the presence of prussic acid in the stomach on the day following a sudden death accompanied by appearances, such as would be symptomatic of sudden death from that powerful poison. Mr. Cooper, the chemist, analysed the contents of the stomach subsequently and obtained a quantity of pure Prussian blue from it, and before he proceeded further with the evidence on this point, he would observe, that the jury should never lose sight of the conduct of the prisoner during the whole of the proceedings. He then proceeded to comment on the evidence of the presence of prussic acid in the stomach immediately after death, and the allegation of the Prisoner’s counsel, that it was producible from apples, and that it might have been produced from natural causes in the stomach, which contained a quantity of apple pulp. He pointed out that from all the medical evidence, it was proved that, that acid was contained not in the apple, but in the pip, and that pips were not found in the pulp in the deceased’s stomach. It was also proved that prussic acid had been obtained from the pips themselves only by a process of distillation, and was not produced by the mere natural process of digestion.[18] No one would die from eating apple pips, although a person might be killed by the prussic acid obtained from them by a chemist. Besides, the action of the acid was sudden and immediate, and the deceased had died in the manner she would have done after suddenly swallowing some.” With respect to the evidence regarding the odour of the acid being perceptible under this or that circumstance, said the Judge:—