But, supposing they were not there?--There would be the washings of the stomach. If the stomach was sent me with no contents, I would wash the stomach and proceed with that. If you had tried on the tissues of the deceased’s body I suppose you would have been able to ascertain whether there had been any strychnia?--That is my opinion. So that the time that has elapsed since Cook died would not matter. If you had an opportunity to operate on it, you would have found the strychnia?--If it had been there, I feel satisfied I should find it. LORD CAMPBELL--Do you mean then or now?--I do not see that the time would prevent it. * * * * * [Sidenote: H. Letheby] Dr. HENRY LETHEBY, examined by Mr. KENEALY--I am a Bachelor of Chemistry and Professor of Medicine in the London Hospital; also a medical officer of health to the city of London. I have for a considerable time studied poisons. I believe in every case of this kind tried in this Court during the last fourteen years I have been engaged on behalf of the Crown. I have been present during the examination of the medical witnesses at this trial and heard them describe certain symptoms attending the death of Mr. Cook. I have seen many deaths by strychnia in the lower animals. I have seen several cases of nux vomica in the human subject, one of which was fatal. The symptoms in the animals do not accord with the symptoms in this case. In the first place, I have never known such a long interval between the administration of the poison and the coming on of the symptoms. The longest interval has been three-quarters of an hour, and then the poison was given in a form not easy of solution, and when the stomach was full. I have seen the symptoms begin in five minutes after the poison was administered. A quarter of an hour would be the average. Another reason is that in all the animals I have seen, and the human subject also, when under strychnia, the system has been so irritable that the very slightest excitement, as an effort to move, a slight touch, a noise, or a breath of air, will set them off in convulsions. I do not think it at all probable that a person to whom a dose of strychnia had been given could rise out of bed and ring a bell violently. Any movement at all would excite the nervous system, and there would be spasms. It is not likely a person in that state of nervous irritation could bear to have his neck rubbed. Where poisoning by strychnia does not end fatally, the paroxysm is succeeded by other paroxysms, which gradually shade themselves off. They generally become less and less, over a period of some hours. My experience agrees with Dr. Christison, that it would last over a period of sixteen or eighteen hours before the man gets better. I do not hesitate to say that strychnia is of all poisons the most easy of detection. I have detected it in the stomach, in the blood, and in the tissues of animals in numerous instances.