Trial of Dr. Pritchard

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W. Hodge, 1906 - Murder - 343 pages
Dr. Pritchard was tried in Glasgow, 1865, for the murder of his wife and mother-in-law, Mrs. Michnel Taylor.
 

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Page 51 - Glasgow, being all to be used in evidence against you at your trial, will be lodged in due time in the hands of the Clerk of the High Court of Justiciary, before which you are to be tried, that you may have an opportunity of seeing the same...
Page 204 - It provides that the trustees "shall pay one-third part thereof to my son Michael Waistel Taylor, presently in Penrith ; and they shall invest in such way and manner, and in such securities or security of such kind as to them shall seem best, the other two-third parts, and pay the interest or annual produce thereof to my daughter, Mary Jane Taylor or Pritchard, spouse of Edward William Pritchard, surgeon in Hunmanby, and that upon her own receipt as alimentary to her, and exclusive of the...
Page 241 - If you answer the first of these questions in the affirmative, and the second and third in the negative, you are then shut up to this other question — Who committed the murder?
Page 163 - ... remainder of the acid solution, amounting to one ounce and three drachms, was subjected to a process intended to determine the quantity of antimony present in the contents of the intestines ; but though the presence of this metal was determined with the greatest facility, I found that the amount yielded by the materials which I used was too small to enable me to weigh it with sufficient accuracy. I also made an experiment with the contents of the intestines, directed towards the discovery of...
Page 163 - Edinburgh on the 24th March. I then subjected these materials to the following examination. The orangeyellow precipitate was boiled in a tube with pure hydrochloric acid, and the solution thus obtained was mixed with water, when a white precipitate formed. The fluid containing this precipitate was again subjected to a stream of sulphuretted hydrogen gas, and again gave a deposit of an orange-yellow colour. One fluid drachm of the tartaric acid solution was treated by Heinsch's method, and another...
Page 163 - Keinsch's method, and another fluid drachm was treated by Marsh's process. By each of these well-known methods, and thus operating upon a quantity of fluid corresponding to a forty-second part of the contents of the intestines, I obtained unequivocal evidence of the presence of antimony. By digesting a small quantity of the dried residue of the intestinal contents with distilled water, filtering and subjecting the filtrate to...
Page 186 - In the liver, kidney, and other viscera,, the antimony was deposited in a state insoluble in water. 3rd. That the contents of the intestines contained the largest proportion of antimony, next the heart, then the liver, kidney, and spleen , less in the stomach, and the smallest quantity in the rectum, brain, and blood. Not knowing the total weight either of the contents of the intestines, or of the several organs hero enumerated, I was unable to calculate the total quantity of antimony in these matters,...
Page 303 - Reports of Trials for Murder by Poisoning; by Prussic Acid, Strychnia, Antimony, Arsenic and Aconitine; including the trials of Tawell, W. Palmer, Dove, Madeline Smith, Dr. Pritchard, Smethurst, and Dr. Lamson. With Chemical Introductions and Notes on the Poisons used.
Page 270 - That exhausts all I think it necessary to say upon what I have represented as the first question for your consideration — namely, whether the two deceased ladies, one or both of them, died by poison ; and you will consider whether in the circumstances it is possible to resist these conclusions — First, that Mrs. Pritchard died from the action of antimony alone, administered in large quantities, as present in her body — I should say in large quantities ; and, second, that Mrs. Taylor died from...
Page 178 - The amount was equal to 1'5 grain per fluid ounce of the liquid. It contained no mercury. (I am at present engaged in examining it for other substances.) The seven paper packages [C] comprised in this production were marked No. 1 to No. 7 inclusive*. No. 1 containod n small lump of crystallised nitrate of silver, weighing 16'5 grains.

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