Dr. ALFRED TAYLOR, examined by the ATTORNEY-GENERAL--I am a Fellow of the College of Physicians, a lecturer on medical jurisprudence at Guy’s Hospital, and the author of a well-known treatise on poisons and on medical jurisprudence. Among other poisons, I have made strychnia the subject of my attention. It is the produce of the nux vomica. There is also in the nux vomica a poison of an analogous nature called bruchsia, which differs from it only in point of strength. The difference of the two poisons is relatively estimated from one-sixth to one-twelfth, bruchsia being one-sixth to one-twelfth the strength of strychnia. I have never witnessed an instance of the action of strychnia on the human subject. I have tried a variety of experiments, I think about ten or twelve, on animal life with strychnia. Rabbits have always been used for these experiments. The symptoms produced by the poison have been on the whole very uniform. I have given a quantity varying from one-half to two or three grains. I have found half a grain sufficient to destroy the life of a rabbit. I have given it in both solid and liquid form. When given in a fluid state it produced its operation in two or three minutes; when given in a solid state, in the form of pill or bolus, from about six to eleven minutes, I think. The time is influenced by the strength of the dose, and also by the strength of the animal. The poison is first absorbed into the blood; it is then circulated through the body, and the poison especially acts on the spinal cord. That is the part of the body from which the nerves affecting the voluntary muscles proceed. The entire circulation through the whole system is considered to take place about once in four minutes. LORD CAMPBELL--Are you speaking of the human circulation?--Yes; the circulation in the rabbit is quicker. Examination resumed--How is it the absorption would be quicker in a rabbit?--I think it is from the effects produced; that will also depend on the state of the stomach, as to whether there be much food in the stomach and whether the poison comes in immediate contact with the inner surface of the stomach. The poison must first, I believe, be absorbed before it acts on the nervous system. [Sidenote: Alfred Taylor]