1817. with the said Scripture, and lived with him as a house- SCHOHARIE keeper, but said that she had no carnal connection with ABRAHAM CASLER. him. (Signed.) Abraham Keyser, jun. In the month of May last he discovered that the prisoner had his irons sawed off, and does not know of his making any effort to escape. On his cross examination, this witness says that prisoner once returned the key, which he had forgotten, although it was not the only lock which fastened the door, as he, the witness, had a pad-lock at the bottom of the door which was locked at the time. Prisoner's Testimony. Joseph J. Casler. Witness does not recollect the conversation on board of the sloop, mentioned by Thomas Hammond in his evidence. Roswell Scripture. The wife of the prisoner has kept house for witness, and was subject to fits, whilst she kept house for him, from July to December, 1814, she had the epelepsy, or fallen sickness sometimes three or four times in twenty-four hours." The jury found the prisoner guilty by their verdict. The court sentenced him to be executed on the third Friday of October, 1817, between the hours of 10 o'clock in the forenoon and 2 o'clock in the afternoon. Report of Wm. James M'Neven, M. D. and professor of chemistry in the University of New-York, made to his excellency governor Clinton, in compliance with his demand of my remarks at large on the scientific part of the testimony, in the case of Abraham Kesler, indicted for poisoning his wife with white arsenic and laudanum, and found guilty by the verdict of the jury. 1. The scientific part of the testimony is contained in The People V. Kesler. 1817. V. Kesler. SCHOHARIE the evidence of the physicians who saw the deceased before or after death. Dr. Burton Carpenter was applied The People to for medicines during her illness, and saw her shortly before she died, for the first and only time. Previously he had purchased powders to be administered to her, composed of opium, camphire and emetic tartar; and early in the complaint, that is on Monday or Tuesday, gave prisoner half an ounce of opium; but states on his cross-examination, that when he visited her on Thursday evening, when she appeared to him dying, he saw no symptom which led him to believe that she was dying because she had taken too much opium. 2. After having been buried two months the deceased was dug up to be examined. Dr. James W. Miller was present at the opening of the body, and testifies "there appeared to have existed an inflammation." Now inflammation proceeds from so many and such various causes, that physicians are very generally agreed nothing certain can be learnt from the appearance of it after death, especially when putrefaction of the parts is far advanced, as it was in this case of two months interment. It is true, that if there is poisoning from arsenic, taken by the mouth, there must of necessity be inflammation of the stomach; but the converse does not hold, and where there is inflammation there is no manner of necessity of its being from arsenic. Any conclusion to be drawn. from the appearance of inflammation in this case, must therefore depend for corroboration altogether on other facts. 3. Dr. Miller and Dr. Joseph White, though they evince considerable acquaintance with the subject of arsenical poison, and the best modes of detecting it, have, nevertheless, omitted so many important circumstances 1817. V. Kesler. in the experiments they made, and neglected other ex- SCHOHARIE periments so entirely, that their testimony is wholly unsatisfactory. Dr. James W. Miller found attached to The People the inner coats of the stomach, and in the smaller intestines, some particles of a vitreous appearance which showed white when scratched with a knife; some of those particles were placed on a heated iron and a dense white smoke arose from their combustion. Remarks. In the first place the white dense smoke alone proves nothing. I placed corrosive sublimate, calomel, tartar emetic, oxide of bismuth, each of them on a heated iron, and they rose with a smoke more or less dense, and with most readiness in the order I have named them: the first and second very readily, the third and fourth when the iron was red hot. Now it will be recollected that one of these substances, namely, the emetic tartar, was given by Dr. Burton Carpenter to the prisoner for the purpose of being administered to the deceased. 4. Dr. James W. Miller put some of the same particles between two plates of polished copper, and placed those on the fire until they were brought to a red heat. On cooling he found the plates whitened towards their edges. Remarks. I put oxide of tin, commonly called putty of tin, between two plates of bright copper, and surrounded it with a circle of powdered charcoal, after the best manner of making the experiment with arsenic, then brought the plates to a strong red heat, and the consequence was a whitish stain towards the edges of the copper. I made another experiment after the same manner, with calomel, and there appeared an irregular white 1817. V. Kesler. SCHOHARIE ning towards the edges, but less distinctly than in the former case. I made a third experiment, with charcoal The People alone, and having raised the heat pretty high there was left in the place of the charcoal a pale brass coloured circumscribed spot, that appeared white in comparison of the red copper colour round it; rubbing did not at all lessen this whitish stain. An experienced eye would perhaps distinguish all these stains from the whitening of arsenic; but in a capital case I would not like to convict on a shade or colour. 5. In his cross-examination, Dr. James W. Miller accounts for there being no garlic smell discerned, when the white powder found in the stomach of the deceased was put on heated iron, and between the copper plates, by saying that tar was kept burning in the room, and that this, together with the smell of the corpse, might have prevented his discovering it. Remarks. The true reason is not here assigned. Neither the odour of garlic nor the stain on copper is produced by the white oxide of arsenic, when heated, without the addition of some inflammable ingredient. If the white substance was really oxide of arsenic, and that it had been thrown on live coal, or on a hot iron, surrounded and confined by carbonaceous matter, a smell of garlic would infallibly have been felt; for then the oxide would have been at least partially reduced; and it is in this, or the entirely metallic state, it burns with an aliaceous smell. To have omitted these precautions, or seemingly not to have known their indispensable necessity, proves a want of a familiarity with chemical experiments in the physicians, and tends very much to weaken our reliance on all their chemical conclusions. But even the smell of garlic, if not corroborated by other concurring facts, would not have been enough, for hy- SCHOHARIE drogen gas burns with a faint smell of arsenic. 1817. V. Kesler. 6. Dr. James W. Miller took home about two tea The People spoonfulls of the contents of the stomach, and diluted them with a pint of water. He made experiments with this fluid, and obtained a certain precipitate. Remarks. The notes of the trial do not inform us whether the doctor diluted the contents of the stomach with distilled water, or clear rain water, or common well water. If with the latter, little or no reliance can be placed on the experiments; for there is no well water whatever, even the best, but will afford a precipitate with nitrate of silver. Dr. Miller performed with the diluted contents of the stomach the experiment of Mr. Hume, as modified by Dr. Marcet, and says there was a precipitate of an orange colour. I often made the experiment, and always obtained a yellow precipitate, such as that obtained by Hume and Marcet. On the present occasion I made the following: I took a glass of lime water and presented to the surface of it a glass rod, dipped in a solution of nitrate of silver, and another dipped in aqua ammonia, there was immediately a copious precipitate of an orange brown colour by reflected light. The experiment will succeed with or without ammonia. The public journals acquaint us with the opinion of Mr. Brande of the Royal Institution of London, occasioned by a trial in Cornwall, of a similar nature, it would seem, with this. He says that the yellow precipitate which white arsenic produces in solution of nitrate of silver, exactly resembled that which phosphoric acid occasions, and that both are soluble in ammonia. Brande concludes, that in any case of importance, no reliance should be placed on the above test. I repeated Mr. |