Page:The Art of Cross-Examination.djvu/213

THE CROSS-EXAMINATION OF DR. mates that "Harris was a fool, he didn't know how to mix his drugs. If he had put a little atropine with his morphine, it would have dilated the pupil of at least one of his victim's eyes, and no doctor could have deposed to death by morphine."

When Buchanan's case came up for trial it was discovered that, although morphine had been found in the stomach, blood, and intestines of his wife's body, the pupils of the eyes were not symmetrically contracted. No positive diagnosis of her case could be made by the attending physicians until the continued chemical examination of the contents of the body disclosed indisputable evidence of atropine (belladonna). Buchanan had profited by the disclosures in the Harris trial, but had made the fatal mistake of telling his friends how it could have been done in order to cheat science. It was this statement of his that put the chemists on their guard, and resulted in Buchanan's conviction and subsequent execution.

Carlyle Harris maintained his innocence even after the Court of Appeals had unanimously sustained his conviction, and even as he calmly took his seat in the electric chair.

The most famous English poison case comparable to the Harris and Buchanan cases was that of the celebrated William Palmer, also a physician by profession, who poisoned his companion by the use of strychnine in order to obtain his money and collect his racing bets. The trial is referred to in detail in another chapter.