1192 Page – Leo Frank Georgia Supreme Court Appeals Records, 1913, 1914

Visible Translated Text Is As Follows:

161

RE-DIRECT EXAMINATION.

The human tongue could not produce any sign of violence in the vagina.
Where there is a skull wound an inch and a half long cutting through the
little arteries like the wound-described above there would bleed and if the body
lay in one place 30 or 40 minutes there would be bleeding and if the body is
picked up and carried about 40 feet and dropped at another place I would
expect to find blood there. Skull wounds bleed very freely, and there would
be blood wherever the body was.

DR. J. C. OLMS'I'EAD sworn for the Defendant.

Practicing physician for 36 years. Given the facts that a young lady
13 or 14 years old died and 8 or 10 hours after death the body was embalmed
with a preparation containing 8 per cent formaldehyde, and the body is ex-
humed at the end of 9 or 10 days, and a post-mortem examination shows a
wound on the left side of the back of the head about an inch and a half long,
with cuts through to the skull, but no actual fracture of the skull, but a hem-
orrhage under the skull corresponding to the point where the blow was deliv-
ered, with no injury to the brain, it would not be possible for a physician
to determine whether or not that wound produced unconsciousness before
death. Such a wound could have been made within a short while after death.
It is impossible to tell from the mere fact of discoloration whether an eye
was blackened before or after death. If the post-mortem made on the same
subject 9 or 10 days after death showed upon an examination of the contents
of the stomach a mixture of wheat bread and cabbage like this (State's Ex-
hibit G), it being possible to distinguish a cabbage leaf, and 32 degrees of
acidity, it would not be possible to determine from these facts or any other
chemical facts that might be found there how long that had been in the
stomach with any degree of accuracy. It is impossible to tell when hydro-
chloric acid begins to be secreted in a given case. The hydrochloric acid
follows a curve; as a rule it ordinarily begins to rise until it reaches a certain
point and then gradually goes off according to the character of the food and
the amount in the stomach. After death free hydrochloric acid and pepsin
do not remain in such a state in the stomach that you could tell 9 days after-
ward the exact time of death. The hydrochloric acid disappears after death,
and neither it nor the pepsin would be present in any degree 9 or 10 days after
death. Embalming fluid destroys the pancreatic juices so that it would be
impossible to find them. Cabbage like that (State's Exhibit G) is liable to
obstruct the opening of the pylorus, and to delay digestion. Food of that
character might remain in the stomach undigested for 10-or-12 hours irrespec-
tive of the acid found there. If shortly after death a doctor makes a digital
and visual examination of the vagina, opening the walls of the vagina with
his hand, and finds no signs of violence, and then 9 or 10 days after death
a post mortem examination shows the epithelium detached from the walls of
the vagina in a number of places, and a microscope shows on parts of the