188 Lobelia inflata, 
frequently with impunity, in the dose of a common tea-spoonful of 
the powdered seeds or leaves, and often repeated.* If the medicine 
_ * William Rawle Esq. has put into my hands the report of this trial; and it may 
not be without a useful tendency to insert it here. In a medical and civil point of view 
itis we ah mime 
“ COMMONWEALTH versus SAMUEL THOMPSON. 
* At the beginning of this term (Nov. 1809), the prisoner Thompson was indicted 
for the wilful murder of Ezra Lovett, j jun. by giving him a poison called Lobelia on the 
ninth day of January last, of which he died onthe next day. On the twentieth of De- 
cember, at an adjournment of this term, the prisoner was tried forthis offence, before 
the chief justice, and the judges Sewall and Parker, 
*¢ On the trial it appeared i in evidence, that the prisoner, some time in the fies 
ing December, came into Beverly, where the deceased then lived ; announced himself 
as a physician ; and professed an ability to cure all fevers, whether black, grey, green, 
or yellow: declaring that the country was much imposed upon by physicians, who were 
all wrong if he was right. He possessed several drugs, which he used as medicines, 
and to which he gave singular names. One he called coffee; another well-my-gristle ; 
and a third ram-cats. He had several patients in Beverly and in Salem, previous to 
Monday the second of January, when the deceased, having been for several days con- 
fined to his house by a cold, requested that the prisoner might be sent for as a phy- 
sician. . 
: He ecajabagin came, and ordered a large fire to be kindled to heat the room. 
He then placed the feet of the deceased, with his shoes off, on a stove of hot coals, and 
wrapped him in a thick blanket, covering his head. In this situation he gave him 2 
powder in water, which immediately puked him. Three minutes after he repeated the 
dose, which in about two minutes operated violently. He again repeated the dose, 
which in a short time operated’ with more violence. These doses were all given within 
