you decide that she died of diphtheria, of Bright's
disease, of poison retained in the system, or even of the last dose
which was taken by her, you are bound to acquit our client, unless
indeed you should adopt the extraordinary conclusion, that the final
dose of morphine alone produced death, and that Dr. Medjora himself
administered it, intending that it should destroy his beloved wife,
for whom he had retained skilled medical service and nursing, and at
whose bedside he even tolerated the presence of his bitterest enemy,
because he knew that the man possessed the greatest skill available in
the vicinity of the house where the poor girl lay ill. Had he intended
to injure his wife, had he premeditated poisoning her, do you think
that he would have allowed a man to be nigh, who would be only too
glad to find a pretext upon which to charge him with a crime, but who,
moreover, was possessed of exactly the experience and ability needed
to detect the symptoms of a deadly poison? The proposition is
preposterous, and I am sure that such intelligent gentlemen as
yourselves will cast it aside from you. But if the prosecution fail to
prove that the girl did not die from natural causes, then they fail
utterly to make out their case. Upon this point the law is most
explicit. In fact in one of our great text books, a work recognized by
the entire legal profession as the highest authority, I find a passage
which seems almost to have been written for your enlightenment in this
very case. I will read it to you:

"'It does not follow that because a person is wounded and
dies, the death is caused by the wound; and the burden in
such cases is on the prosecution to show beyond reasonable
doubt that the wound in question produced death. It may
happen also, where poison has been administered, that death
resulted from natural causes. The presence of poison may be
ascertained from symptoms during life, the _post mortem_
appearances, the moral circumstances, and the discovery of
the existence of poison in the body, in the matter ejected
from the stomach, or in food or drink of which the sufferer
has partaken. But to this should be added proof that the
poison thus received into the system was the cause of death.'

"I think that passage most clearly indicates to you the task which the
prosecution have undertaken. Upon what do they rely for the
accomplishment of their purpose? Two thin