PLEADING FOR A SON'S LIFE. 225 



It might be suggested that the poison, which was not 

 enough to kill a healthy person, was sufficient to destroy 

 a woman who was without it dangerously ill. If there 

 were only the doubt, said Jerome, it should be decided 

 on the side of clemency. But there was not doubt. 

 Poison that in its operation resembles the disease would 

 hasten a sick person's death, even though not given in a 

 dose poisonous by itself. If it should prove to have a 

 contrary operation, it would prolong life. So the common 

 people use the flesh of vipers against elephantiasis, eu- 

 phorbium against palsy. But arsenic or white orpiment 1 

 is warm and dry, since, therefore, lipyria is cold and moist r 

 such poison would in this case rather be a benefit than a 

 hurt ; its effect would in fact be to prolong life, not to 

 destroy it. It is therefore clear that neither did the 

 poison alone in this case cause the death, nor was it, as 

 the physicians say, a concomitant cause. 



Having pleaded on his son's behalf so far according to 



scholastic forms, the anxious advocate proceeded to discuss 



the argument from other points of view. He turned next 



to the mood in which the attempt was made, the animus 



of the accused criminal. It was asserted that he killed 



deliberately and with malice aforethought. 'The accused 



himself made confession that he renewed and dropped the 



idea as he and his wife alternately quarrelled and made 



i " Arsenicum seu auripigmentum album." Op. cit. p. 1119. 



VOL. II. Q 



