r the bodily secretions having been examined. Some sediment
found in a tumbler of punch was asserted by Dr. Aiken to consist
largely of tartar emetic. This tumbler was not connected with Mrs.
Wharton, except by being found at her house in a position where, in
the language of one of the State's witnesses, "hundreds of persons"
had access to it. It was carried about in the pocket of a lady
inimical to Mrs. Wharton, and into at least one drug-store, before it
reached Professor Aiken, whose analysis was as faulty as before. Any
tartar emetic present in the sediment might have been procured in
a pure form by the simple process of dialysis. The only apparatus
necessary for this would have been a glass vessel divided into two
compartments by a piece of hog's bladder stretched across it. These
chambers having been partially filled with distilled water, and the
sediment of the tumbler put into one of them, the tartar emetic
would have left the other ingredients and passed into the second
compartment. By taking the water out of this and evaporating it, the
poison would have been obtained in a pure crystalline state, and might
have been brought into court. But Dr. Aiken thought it sufficient for
him to "satisfy himself:" as he stated on the witness-stand, he did
not consider it his business whether other people were or were not
satisfied. Consequently, the court was only favored with a memorized
report of the color tests used by him, exactly as in the previous
trial. One of the reactions which he said he obtained antimony does
not conform to.

Drs. Williams and Chew unhesitatingly stated on the witness-stand that
they recognized poisoning as early as the Saturday of Mr. Van Ness's
illness.[23] Yet they gave no antidote. They employed on Monday and
Tuesday a treatment which, although well adapted to a case of natural
disease presenting such symptoms, would in a case of poisoning have
materially increased the risk to life. They did not save the matters
vomited: they did not save the secretions, which would certainly
have contained antimony if Mr. Van Ness had been poisoned as alleged.
According to their testimony, Mr. Van Ness received six doses of
poison on as many different days, four of the doses administered under
their eyes; yet they gave no warning to the unfortunate victim or to
his friends. If the theory they upheld be correct, that Mrs. Wharton
poisoned both General Ketchum and Mr. Van Ness, the extraordinary
spectacle was