ad passed. Yet the girl died a few hours later,
and you still attribute it to the original disease. How do you come to
that conclusion?"

"Diphtheria causes death in several ways. Commonly the false membrane
grows more rapidly than it can be removed, and the patient is
practically strangled, or asphyxiated by it. It is in such a condition
that tracheotomy is essayed, affording a breathing aperture below the
locality of the disease. It is not uncommon for the patient apparently
to combat the more frightful form of the disease, so that the false
membrane is thrown off, and the parts left apparently in a fair state
of health, so far as freedom to breathe and swallow is concerned. But
then it may happen, especially in anaemic individuals, that this fight
against the disease has left the patient in a state of enervation and
lowered vitality, which borders on collapse. The extreme crisis is
passed, but the danger lurks insidiously near. At any moment a change
for the worse might occur, whilst recovery would be very slow. When
death comes in this form, it is a gradual lessening of vital action
throughout the body; a slow slipping away of life, as it were."

"Exactly! So that such a condition might readily be mistaken for a
gradually deepening coma?"

"Yes, sir. Whilst the term coma is applied to a specific condition,
the two forms of death are very similar. In fact, I might say it is a
sort of coma, which after all is common in many diseases."

"So that you would say that this coma, did not specifically indicate
morphine poisoning?"

"No, sir, it could not be said."

"How was the pulse?"

"The pulse was slow, but that is what we expect with this form of
death."

"So that the slow pulse would not necessarily indicate poison?"

"Not at all."

"Was the breathing stertorous?"

"Not in the true sense. Respiration was very slow, and there was a
slight difficulty, but it was not distinctly stertorous."

"How were the pupils of the eyes? Contracted?"

"No, they were dilated if anything."

"Now then, Doctor--please consider this. Dr. Meredith told us that a
symptomatic effect of morphine death, would be pupils contracted and
then dilating slowly as death approached. Now did you observe the
contracted pupils?"

"No, sir."

"What effect does atropine have upon the pupils?"

"It dilates them."

"Dr. Meredith admitted that he injected atropine. In your opinion
would that account for the dilatation of the pupils jus