1191 Page – Leo Frank Georgia Supreme Court Appeals Records, 1913, 1914

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scopic test of the wall of the vagina it was found that some of the small blood vessels had congested blood in them, these facts would not necessarily indicate violence of any kind during life, it being also known that there had been a digital examination by the physician just after death and before embalming, and that the physician performing the post mortem had removed the wall of the vagina with his hand and scissors. Any epithelium can be very easily stripped after death. The digital examination could have stripped it. So could the removal for purposes of post mortem examination. If the subject had had a menstrual period a day or so before death and she was found in the act of menstruating at the time of death, this would account for the congested blood vessels, and it would also make the epithelium much easier to strip. Even if an opinion could be expressed as to violence before death, it would be impossible to say that it occurred from five to fifteen minutes before death. From an examination of the private parts of Leo M. Frank he appears to be a perfectly normal man. A black eye could be inflicted after death. As long as the blood is not coagulated. A lick on the back of the head could produce a black eye.
CROSS EXAMINATION
There are sexual inverts who are absolutely normal in physical appearance. If I had a subject where there was a blow on the head, going practically to the skull, with no injury to the brain, and the face was livid, the tongue hanging out, with deep indentation in the neck, the flesh pushed out of place, with blue nails and lips, I would say that death was produced by strangulation, in the absence of other facts. A blow on the eye could produce a swollen condition after death. Even assuming that the doctor who went into the uterus and vagina with his fingers was very careful and did not rupture or injure the parts or cause dilation, and if the microscopical examination showed a dilation of the blood vessels of the vagina, discoloration of the walls, and swelling of the parts, the menstrual flow have brought about this condition, and it would not necessarily be due to violence. Menstruation would not produce discoloration except there would be an increased reddening on account of the increased amount of blood. This change of color will be found wherever epithelium was, in the uterus and in the vagina. It would produce swelling wherever the mucous membrane was. A doctor could not look at cabbage in various stages of digestion and venture an opinion as to how long it had been in a woman's stomach. Doctors do not know, even approximately, how soon after a stomach receives a certain substance before hydrochloric acid is found in a free state. It may be delayed for hours, it may be found earlier. Digestion has no fixed rule at all. The usual rule is the hydrochloric acid is found within a range of about half an hour. The time when it begins to descend depends upon the character of the food in the stomach and as to how the glands are acting.