1866. | Science and Crime. 349 
So much for the identification of the body ; now for the evidence 
which saddled the murderer with the crime. 
The blows upon the head of the deceased which caused his 
death had been inflicted, the medical men said, with “some sharp 
cutting instrument,” and it appears that on the day of the disap- 
pearance of Davies, Coe had borrowed an axe of a man called Swan, 
which he afterwards returned secretly and in a dirty state. This 
axe was carefully examined, and, as it had been cleaned by Coe 
on his being remonstrated with by Swan for returning it in such a 
state, it showed no external traces of blood; but the investigators, 
Dr. William B. Herapath, F.R.S. (of Bristol), and Mr. Brown, the 
gentleman already referred to, removed the handle and examined 
that portion of it which had been concealed by the blade. There 
they found what appeared to be stains of blood. This it was 
clearly proved to be by spectrum-analysis, and by ordinary 
microscopic observation. Dr. Herapath said, in his examination, 
that finding the evidence resulting from the detection of globules 
to be small, “I obtained more numerous sections of the coloured 
surface of the handle of the hatchet—immersed them in distilled 
water and obtained thereby a slightly coloured solution, which 
after filtering, was ready for chemical tests, and for optical ex- 
amination by the micro-spectroscope. I subjected this fluid to the 
action of light, and it had undoubtedly the properties peculiar to a 
solution of blood. When a solution of blood was examined in this 
instrument (instrument here produced) the fluid absorbed some of 
the rays of light, and thus altered the spectrum or rainbow. 
Within the green and on the border of the yellow rays two dark 
absorption bands were produced by the blood fluid. Only one 
other substance* would produce two dark bands—that is cochineal 
dissolved in ammonia, but the position of the two bands was 
different. The spectroscope alone would not enable me to readily 
distinguish between the two, but combined with chemical examina- 
tion it would satisfactorily do so. From this optical test I was 
satisfied that the sections of the hatchet had been stained with 
blood—and by chemical analysis I also demonstrated it was blood. 
The combination of the three tests showed that the substance on 
the hatchet must have been blood.” 
The globules, or blood-corpuscles we should rather say, resem- 
bled those of the human subject; or, as Mr. Brown, the surgeon, is 
reported to have said in cross-examination, “The globules of the 
blood on the hatchet were nearly the same size as those of a pig, 
which is the nearest in size to that of a human being.” 
The accused, therefore, had been last seen with the murdered 
man in the neighbourhood of the scene of the murder; he had 
borrowed and returned at the time of the disappearance of the 
* Dr. Herapath should have said, “ is at present known to produce.” 
