Cook, John Parsons, -1855; Palmer, William, 1824-1856 -- Trials, litigation, etc.; Trials (Murder) -- England -- London
preferred mercury to any other specific for his complaint. He had,
besides that, traces about his person which have been so often referred
to, the result of disease, that they need not be more particularly
mentioned than they have been already, as to the extent of which and the
character of which some little doubt exists; but they did not come by an
ordinary and chaste mode of life, you may depend upon it; and
altogether, as far as it went, he seems to have been about as loose a
young man as one is in the habit of meeting, without being utterly lost
to all sense of honour and propriety, which I do not mean to suggest
that he was.
[Sidenote: Serjeant Shee]
His body was opened; the soreness of his tongue was manifest; I rather
collect that it was not actually sore at the time of his death--yet that
there were what they call follicles, and symptoms, if not recent, at
least not very ancient, of actual ulcers; the inside of his mouth, too,
had been ulcerated, or the skin taken off by some sort of soreness
attributed to decayed teeth. We all of us probably have decayed teeth;
but that does not happen to us which happened to him--it was sore on
both sides. The sores about his mouth he thought himself were
syphilitic, and could not be persuaded by the very respectable
gentleman, Dr. Savage, to attend readily to his advice. He thought he
was not weak enough, I think he said fool enough, to take quack
medicines; but weak enough to take the advice of any medical quack who
had assurance enough to give advice to him, believing that the best
thing for his complaint was mercury; and he was apprehensive, I believe,
that what are the worst symptoms of that disease for which mercury is
given, namely, spots upon the body, would make their appearance, and
that possibly (I believe such things do happen) some day or other he
would find on the morning of a race his face covered with large
copper-coloured blotches, which would plainly show what life he had been
leading. That was the sort of man he was. Many such a man has reformed
and become a good and respectable member of society. I should be sorry
to say anything unduly harsh upon a man who is gone; but the state of
his health is a material subject for our inquiry here. It is plain that
he had in his own opinion been affected by virulent syphilis, and that
that had not corrected his habits, for he had become recently diseased.
The medical men who attended him before concurred in this opinion; and
when his body was opened, in addition to all those plainer symptoms of
illness to the eye, on the second post-mortem examination, there was
between the delicate membrane which covers the spinal marrow, and which
is called the arachnoid, I believe--I think I am right--there was
pressing upon the arachnoid, and embedded to some extent in the next
covering, not so delicate, though still delicate, called the dura mater,
granules, as given in evidence, of such an extent as I will satisfy you
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