The Art of Cross-Examination Part 17

_Witness._ "I found out from a druggist that the woman had taken seven grains of morphine."

_Counsel._ "You made no diagnosis at all until you heard from the druggist?"

_Witness._ "I began to give artificial respiration."

_Counsel._ "But that is just what you would do in a case of morphine poisoning?"

_Witness_ (hesitating). "Yes, sir. I made, of course, a working diagnosis."

_Counsel._ "Do you remember the case you had before that?"

_Witness._ "I remember another case."

_Counsel._ "When was that?"

_Witness._ "It was a still longer time ago. I don't know the date."

_Counsel._ "How many years ago, on your oath?"

_Witness._ "Fifteen, probably."

_Counsel._ "Any others?"

_Witness._ "Yes, one other."

_Counsel._ "When?"

_Witness._ "Twenty years ago."

_Counsel._ "Are these three cases all you can remember in your experience?"

_Witness._ "Yes, sir."

_Counsel_ (chancing it). "Were more than one of them deaths from morphine?"

_Witness._ "No, sir, only one."

_Counsel_ (looking at the jury somewhat triumphantly). "Then it all comes down to this: you have had the experience of one case of morphine poisoning in the last twenty years?"

_Witness_ (in a low voice). "Yes, sir, one that I can remember."

_Counsel_ (excitedly). "And are you willing to come here from Philadelphia, and state that the New York doctors who have already testified against you, and who swore they had had seventy-five similar cases in their own practice, are mistaken in their diagnoses and conclusions?"

_Witness_ (embarra.s.sed and in a low tone). "Yes, sir, I am."

_Counsel._ "You never heard of Helen Potts until a year after her death, did you?"

_Witness._ "No, sir."

_Counsel._ "You heard these New York physicians say that they attended her and observed her symptoms for eleven hours before death?"

_Witness._ "Yes, sir."

_Counsel._ "Are you willing to go on record, with your one experience in twenty years, as coming here and saying that you do not believe our doctors can tell morphine poisoning when they see it?"

_Witness_ (sheepishly). "Yes, sir."

_Counsel._ "You have stated, have you not, that the symptoms of morphine poisoning cannot be told with positiveness?"

_Witness._ "Yes, sir."

_Counsel._ "You said you based that opinion upon your own experience, and it now turns out you have seen but one case in twenty years."

_Witness._ "I also base it upon my reading."

_Counsel_ (becoming almost contemptuous in manner). "Is your reading confined to your own book?"

_Witness_ (excitedly). "No, sir; I say no."

_Counsel_ (calmly). "But I presume you embodied in your own book the results of your reading, did you not?"

_Witness_ (a little apprehensively). "I tried to, sir."

It must be explained here that the attending physicians had said that the pupils of the eyes of Helen Potts were contracted to a pin-point, so much so as to be practically unrecognizable, and _symmetrically_ contracted--that this symptom was the one _invariably_ present in coma from morphine poisoning, and distinguished it from all other forms of death, whereas in the coma of kidney disease one pupil would be dilated and the other contracted; they would be unsymmetrical.

_Counsel_ (continuing). "Allow me to read to you from your own book on page 166, where you say (reading), 'I have thought that inequality of the pupils'--that is, where they are not symmetrically contracted--'is proof that a case is not one of narcotism'--or morphine poisoning--'but _Professor Taylor has recorded a case of morphine poisoning in which it_ [the unsymmetrical contraction of the pupils] _occurred_.' Do I read it as you intended it?"

_Witness._ "Yes, sir."

_Counsel._ "_So until you heard of the case that Professor Taylor reported, you had always supposed symmetrical contraction of the pupils of the eyes to be the distinguis.h.i.+ng symptom of morphine poisoning, and it is on this that you base your statement that the New York doctors could not tell morphine poisoning positively when they see it?_"

_Witness_ (little realizing the point). "Yes, sir."

_Counsel_ (very loudly). "_Well, sir, did you investigate that case far enough to discover that Professor Taylor's patient had one gla.s.s eye?_"[25]

_Witness_ (in confusion). "I have no memory of it."

_Counsel._ "That has been proved to be the case here. You would better go back to Philadelphia, sir."

There were roars of laughter throughout the audience as counsel resumed his seat and the witness walked out of the court room. It is difficult to reproduce in print the effect made by this occurrence, but with the retirement of this witness the defendant's case suffered a collapse from which it never recovered.

[25] The reports of six thousand cases of morphine poisoning had been examined by the prosecution in this case before trial, and among them the case reported by Professor Taylor.

It is interesting to note that within a year of Harris's conviction, Dr.

Buchanan was indicted and tried for a similar offence--wife poisoning by the use of morphine.

It appeared in evidence at Dr. Buchanan's trial that, during the Harris trial and the examination of the medical witnesses, presumably the witness whose examination has been given above, Buchanan had said to his messmates that "Harris was a ---- fool, he didn't know how to mix his drugs. If he had put a little atropine with his morphine, it would have dilated the pupil of at least one of his victim's eyes, and no doctor could have deposed to death by morphine."