On the other hand, if the symptoms do not begin soon after food, drink, or medicine has been taken (the circumstances being such as to exclude the possibility of poison being introduced by a wound, by the lungs, or by any other channel but the stomach), the presumption on the whole is against poisoning; and sometimes the evidence to this effect may be decisive. The principle now propounded may be often a very important one in the practice of medical jurisprudence; for when united with a little knowledge of the symptoms antecedent to death, it may be sufficient to decide the nature of the case. Thus it is sufficient, in my opinion, to decide the celebrated case of the Crown Prince of Sweden. The prince, while in the act of reviewing a body of troops on the 28th May, 1810, was observed suddenly to waver on his horse; and soon afterwards he fell off while at the gallop, was immediately found insensible by his staff, and expired in half an hour. As he was much beloved by the whole nation, a rumour arose that he had been poisoned; and the report took such firm root in the minds of all ranks, that a party of military, while escorting the body to Stockholm, were attacked near the city by the populace, and their commander, Marshal Fersen, murdered; and Dr. Rossi, the prince’s physician, after narrowly escaping the same fate, was in the end obliged to quit his native country. Now, no other poison but one of the most active narcotics could have caused such symptoms, and none of them could have proved so quickly fatal unless given in a large dose. It was proved, however, that on the day of his death the prince had not taken any thing after he breakfasted; and an interval of nearly four hours elapsed after that till he fell from his horse. This fact alone, independently of the marks of apoplexy found in the head after death, and the warning symptoms he repeatedly had, was quite enough to show that he could not have died of poison, as it was incompatible with the known action of the only poisons which could cause the symptoms. This is very properly one of the arguments used by the Medical Faculty of Stockholm, which was consulted on the occasion.[76] The same circumstances will often enable us to decide at once a set of cases of frequent occurrence, particularly in towns,—where the sudden death of a person in a family, the members of which are on bad terms with one another, is rashly and ignorantly imputed to poison, without any particular poison being pointed at; and where, consequently, unless the morbid appearances clearly indicate the cause of death, a very troublesome analysis might be necessary. In several cases of this kind, which have been submitted to me, I have been induced to dispense with an analysis by resting on the criterion now under consideration. The following is a good example.