TRIAL OF DR. PRITCHARD. 
73 
Dr. Pritchard s house, gave evidence to the effect that Mrs. Taylor appeared quite well 
in health on the day before her death. 
Dr. \\ illiam L. Gfairdner deposed to having been called in to see Mrs. Pritchard, whom 
he found in a state of great exhaustion. She had been sick, but the most remarkable 
symptom was the violent state of excitement and the spasms in the hands. She was 
holding up her arms in bed, and the wrists were turned in ; her thumbs were also turned 
m towards the wrists. His first impression was that she was intoxicated by the stimu¬ 
lants champagne and chloroform she had taken, and he gave strict orders that the stimu¬ 
lants should be discontinued. He was much puzzled to know what was the matter 
with her, and he wrote to Dr. Taylor, Mrs. Pritchard’s brother, as he was not satisfied 
with the treatment which had been adopted. 
Dr. James Paterson gave similar evideuce. He was called in to see Mrs. Taylor, who, 
U as informed by Dr. Pritchard, had, in the act of writing a letter, fallen from her 
cnaii to the floor. He found her lying on the bed, having all the appearance of a sud¬ 
den seizure. She was perfectly unconscious, the pupils of the eyes much contracted. 
His conviction was that she was suffering from some powerful narcotic. Mustard plas¬ 
ters were applied to the lower extremities, but from the first he considered the case to be 
hopeless. After her death he was applied to for a certificate, but refused, and referred 
the Registrar to Dr. Pritchard. His impression was that she was being poisoned by an¬ 
timony, but he did not go back to see her, because she was not his patient; he did not 
consider it to be his duty. 
Dr. J. Moffat Cowan stated that he was called to see Mrs. Pritchard, at the request of 
the prisoner. 
John Campbell, manager of the Glasgow Apothecaries’ Company’s branch in Sauchie- 
hall Street, paid the prisoner had a running account with that establishment, and read 
entries proving the purchase by him of several quantities of tincture of aconite, tartarized 
antimony, strychniue, and other poisons. On three occasions he had obtained one ounce of 
tincture of aconite, and on two occasions one ounce of tartar emetic. Witness deponed 
that one ounce of tartarized antimony was an unusual quantity to sell. Two grains was 
the ordinary dose for an emetic, and the ounce contained 435^ grains. He had never 
sold an ounce of tartarized antimony to any other medical man in Glasgow, and the 
quantity purchased by the prisoner struck him. Two ounces would serve their business 
for twelve months, and they had a very large dispensing business. The quantity of 
aconite purchased was also unusual, and one or two ounces would cover all they sold of 
it in a twelvemonth. The prisoner had also purchased a very large quantity of chloro¬ 
form 132 ounces between July and December, which exceeded all their sale to other 
persons. Witness had been a dispensing apothecary for twenty-three years, and had 
never sold so much poison to any medical men. Identified several phials produced. 
John Currie, chemist, Sauchiehall Street, spoke to having furnished the prisoner in 
February and March with several quantities of solution of morphia, tincture of aconite, 
and solution of atropine. Several of the quantities had been sold by his assistant, but 
he had no doubt they had all been supplied. 
The medical witnesses in the case were then called. The reports to which the wit¬ 
nesses spoke were nine in number, and the following is a brief statement of their pur¬ 
port :—No. 1 was a medical report by Dr. Douglas Maclagan, Professor of Medical Ju¬ 
risprudence in Edinburgh University, and Dr. H. D. Littlejohn, Edinburgh, of the post 
mortem examination of the body of Mrs. Pritchard. It was dated the 21st of March, and 
stated that the body appeared to be that of a healthy woman of about the age stated on 
the coffin-plate, 39 years. It concluded,—“ We have to report that this body presented 
no appearances of recent morbid action, beyond a certain amount of irritation of the 
alimentary canal, and nothing at all capable of accounting for death. We have, there¬ 
fore, secured the alimentary canal and its contents, the heart and some of the blood, the 
liver, the spleen, the left kidney, and the urine, in order that these may be submitted to 
chemical analysis.” No. 2 was the chemical report of Dr. Maclagan on the death of 
Mrs. Pritchard. “ It having been stated to me that antimony was suspected in this case, 
immediately on returning from the post-mortem examination, I made a trial experiment 
in presence of Dr. Littlejohn, and my assistant, Dr. Arthur Gamgee, with three drachms 
of the urine, and obtained from this unmistakable evidence of the presence of antimony. 
Being obliged, in consequence of the death of a relative, to go to London, and having, by 
the above experiment, ascertained that my researches must be directed towards the uis- 
vol. vii. a 
