e he would at once have settled the case. As it
is, there is no proper evidence of the guilt of Mrs. Wharton. The
probabilities are in favor of her innocence, because the symptoms were
certainly widely divergent from those induced by poison, if not, as I
believe, absolutely incompatible with poisoning. The medical gentlemen
who attended Mr. Van Ness, by destroying all the evidence, have made
a just conviction and an absolute proving of innocence equally
impossible.

If it were necessary, further illustrations of the deficiencies of our
criminal processes could be detailed. Some little time since, upon the
chemical evidence of Professor Aiken, a poor colored woman was hung
in Anne Arundel county, Maryland. She died protesting her innocence,
and the general impression appears to be now that she did not commit
the crime. A prominent member of the Maryland Bar told me recently
of a case tried in that State, in which the accused, as he stated,
certainly did kill the deceased with arsenic, yet in which, by showing
the insufficiency of Professor Aiken's analysis of the stomach, he
obtained the acquittal of the prisoner.

It cannot be stated too strongly that the trouble is not in the
science of toxicology, nor in the real students of it. So far as
mineral poisons are concerned, any qualified expert will determine
the question of poisoning with the unwavering step of a mathematical
demonstration.

The legal recognition of the true character and position of the
expert, and of certain principles of medical jurisprudence, would
probably improve the present status, but it is doubtful whether some
other method of reform may not be more available. Professor Henry
Hartshorne, at the last meeting of the American Medical Association,
suggested that the court should appoint in poisoning cases a
commission to collect the scientific testimony and make report on the
same. This seems at first sight practicable, but suppose the court
had appointed, as is not at all improbable they would have done,
Professors Aiken and Chew and Dr. Williams as the commission in
Mrs. Wharton's case? The result would certainly have been an unjust
conviction.

In Spain and some other countries of Europe the custom is to refer
the case to the local medical society. If the opinion afterward given
is unanimous, the court is bound by it; if any member object to the
opinion, the case is referred to the medical society of the province;
if the disagreement continu