November, 1881. 
THE CHEMIST AND DEUGGIST. 
55 
attempted to introduce an instrument to procure abortion, and 
through unskilfulness in opening the womb, penetrated the 
vagina behind. 
Dr. Atkinson and Mr. R. Strickland, coroner, were next 
examined. 
J. J. Shillinglaw, secretary of the medical board, deposed 
that the prisoner’s name did not appear on the Medical 
Register. 
To Mr. Casey : Had not the pharmaceutical chemist s 
register. 
This closed the case for the Crown, and a certificate of the 
prisoner being a pharmaceutical chemist was handed in. 
Mr. Chomley, in addressing the jury, said the counsel for the 
prisoner had introduced a new matter, and that was that the 
prisoner had been in the habit of carrying on the practice of a 
medical man, and was known as “ Dr. Wall.” That necessi- 
tated him (Mr. Chomley) calling attention to the fact that the 
prisoner carried on the practice in direct violation of the Medical 
Practitioners Statute. That statute made it a criminal offence 
for any person to hold himself forth as a medical practitioner, 
or to use the title. A certificate, showing that the prisoner 
was a pharmaceutical chemist, had been put in, and the 25th 
section of the statute provided that every unqualified person who 
prescribes or practises as a medical man is liable to a penalty 
of £10 and six months’ imprisonment, so that the very certifi- 
cate put in the prisoner’s favour renders him liable to that 
penalty. The main facts of the case were undisputed. They 
had it proved by the witnesses, Storey and Beale, and admitted 
by the prisoner, that he went to the house, that he was in the 
house with the unfortunate woman, and when he left she was 
dead. Drs. MacGillivray and Atkinson, who are well-known 
and skilled in their profession, and of high repute in the city, 
had given their evidence fairly, and without the slightest bias 
towards the prisoner, and they both concurred that death had 
been caused by the wound, and that it must have been caused 
by some person trying to force an instrument into the womb. 
The prisoner knew the woman was pregnant, and the attempt 
was utterly indefensible and utterly inexcusable, and the effect 
must have been to procure abortion. 
Mr. Casey then addressed the jury. Some of the jury knew 
the prisoner as well as anybody, and he would ask them to divest 
themselves of all that they had heard outside the four walls of 
the court. The prisoner had been practising in Bendigo the 
whole time that he had lived here, and he would ask whether 
they considered this old grey -haired man unqualified, he having 
started to practise in the early days of the diggings, and con- 
tinued ever since. The prisoner had gone through the trying 
ordeal, and nothing had been said as to whether or not his 
name was untarnished, and it was for the jury to say whether 
they would consign him to the public executioner. They 
would, to find that the prisoner was guilty of murder, have to 
say that he was guilty of malice aforethought. The prisoner 
was not wholly unqualified, as he had a certificate as 
pharmaceutical chemist, but it did not matter whether 
he was qualified or not in this case. Were the same 
charges laid against Drs. MacGillivray and Atkinson, 
the same responsibility would attach to them, according 
to law, as to Wall. Mr. Casey then cited cases, showing 
that an unqualified man was not guilty of murder in per- 
forming an operation which caused death. Many unqualified 
persons had practised where people could not afford medical 
men. Here they had the prisoner poaching upon the doctors, 
so to speak. There, before Drs. MacGillivray and Atkinson, 
with their bits of parchment, the prisoner was indicted for 
murder. Those men came into court by the rules of etiquette, 
and when they were asked a question they set their ingenuity 
at work to puzzle counsel. They were inspired with a feeling 
against the prisoner, and had said they would not consult 
with him, and certainly had not said anything in favour of the 
prisoner. The evidence of Mr. Wrixon showed an unneces- 
sarily hostile feeling. The prisoner, in the presence of Sergeant 
Webb, on the following day after the occurrence, asked Mr. 
Wrixon whether he remembered prisoner telling him about 
the woman suffering from hydatids. The fact of the prisoner 
having asked straight out, satisfied them that there was no 
triangular connection between the girl and Mr. Wrixon and 
prisoner. They would have to consider what was in the 
prisoner’s mind when he went there, he being pressed to a 
certain extent, and as Dr. MacGillivray had said, he had 
used the proper instrument, if not pushed too far, to relieve 
the uterus of any collection of serum. He was not going to 
deny that the wound was made, but they had an entire 
absence of all intention to kill. Dr. Atkinson had suggested 
that he thought the wire had come out of the catheter, 
which then went the wrong way and caused the wound. If 
that was so, it was not a crime, but only an accident. It was 
consistent with his innocence, and the circumstantial evidence 
was not consistent with his guiltiness. 
His Honour summed up, and said that it was a feature 
worthy of notice that there was no conflict of evidence 
between the doctors. The only thing, however, that bore out 
the charge of murder was the statement of the prisoner that 
he told the girl she was pregnant. He thought it his duty to 
put the aspect of manslaughter to them, and asked them to 
consider the prisoner as a medical man, though, for the in- 
formation of the outside public, he would say that he had no 
right whatever to the title of doctor. If a man used a well- 
known medical instrument, and, owing to his unskilfulness, 
he kills the person in the operation, he is guilty of man- 
slaughter. One of the undisputed facts was that, whether the 
intention was to remove hydatids from the womb or to procure 
abortion, he never introduced the instrument into the womb, 
but forced it up through the vagina. The question shortly 
was, if they thought he showed gross want of skill it was 
manslaughter. 
The jury retired, and after half an hour’s deliberation, 
returned a verdict of “ guilty of manslaughter,” and the 
prisoner was remanded for sentence. 
Unexpectedly Light Sentence. 
James Egan Wall was placed in the dock to receive sentence 
for manslaughter. 
The prisoner, on being asked whether he had anything to 
say, remarked that he would like to say something. He hoped 
there would be no objection to his going into the case diffusely, 
and he did so with a view to obtaining more justice than he 
had so far. He would begin by asking to have the uterus 
brought there, and examined by whom His Honour thought 
advisable, and he would prove incontestably that it was 
diseased, notwithstanding that Drs. Atkinson and MacGil- 
livray ’s evidence was that it was not, but was in a normal 
state. He had tried “ Heaven’s hard ” at the inquest to have 
it produced, but he did not know why it was not, unless it was 
to prevent him from showing the traces of hydatids. (The 
prisoner here entered into a minute description of the natural 
disease he alleged the woman was suffering from, but the 
details are unfitted for general publication. He also at great 
length endeavoured to ref ute the evidence of Drs. MacGillivray 
and Atkinson.) 
The prisoner then proceeded : By reference to old works it 
would be found that such a disease (hydatids) should be treated 
in the same way that he did, and that some instrument should 
be used to relieve the water. His Honour having stated — and 
the fact of the uterus having been kept from him in the most 
extraordinary manner by the coroner — that he should not have 
performed the operation, he was willing to wait before his 
Honour passed sentence, that the examination of the uterus 
might be made by independent and disinterested authorities. 
He denied that the blood ever came from use of the stilette 
touching the veins, and if those medical men came there to 
give evidence for him, they would have put it down as he had 
stated. It was impossible for blood to find its way up, and 
that did not correspond with the medical evidence. There 
was a pressure of 4-8 lbs. on the abdomen to bear anything 
downward, and that alone would have been sufficient to keep 
the blood down. That was incontestable. He did not think 
the poor woman knew she was pregnant, but he had written 
to her telling her she was. He did not perform the operation 
to take away a child. He could have caught the foetus with 
the greatest ease. Nothing could have been easier than for 
him to do it, but he never went there for the purpose, and he 
did not think the public would think that his purpose was to 
procure abortion. Not a man in the colony had more expe- 
rience in female diseases than he had. “ Never since my hair 
turned grey have I not been called to attend such cases. I 
was not drunk ; my hand was not unsteady, and it was the 
greatest ease for me to perform such an operation, and I think 
the public of Sandhurst know that. Mr. Strickland threatened 
to put me out at the inquest for speaking, and would not allow 
the uterus to be shown.” He (prisoner) had given her 
medicine to prevent blood-poisoning from the water caused by 
the disease, and he was was surprised that a new bottle 
of medicine, which he showed to Sergeant Webb after 
the occurrence, had not, in justice to himself, been pro- 
duced. There was no evidence to show it either, and to keep 
the thing back was not fair, and not justice. He was sur- 
