1193 Page – Leo Frank Georgia Supreme Court Appeals Records, 1913, 1914

Visible Translated Text Is As Follows:

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vagina removed from the body that the blood vessels are congested, this may be due to menstruation or the natural gravitation of blood to those parts and is not necessarily indicative of violence. Manipulation of the membrane would account for the displacing of the epithelium. The use of embalming fluid would make a diagnosis of rape utterly unreliable. Strangulation might result in a distension of the blood vessels. The entire pelvic vessels are always more or less congested during menstruation. No one could make a digital examination of the vagina of a corpse without disturbing the epithelium. It would be impossible for a doctor finding those conditions in the vagina by means of a microscope 9 or 10 days after death to tell that violence had been inflicted from 5 to 15 minutes before death.
CROSS EXAMINATION.
There are medical tables showing that wheat bread digests in about 2-1/2 hours and cabbage in about 4-1/2 hours. If cabbage cooked in the same way and bolted down in the same way is taken from the stomach of a living person within 30 or 50 minutes after having been eaten and is found in a similar condition to that of cabbage taken from the dead person's stomach 10 days after death, that would not necessarily mean that the latter cabbage had been in the stomach an equal length of time.

DR. W. S. KENDRICK, sworn for the Defendant.

I have been a practicing physician for thirty-five years. I was Dean of the Atlanta Medical College. I gave Dr. Harris his first position there. If a young lady between thirteen and fourteen years of age died and a post-mortem examination was made within eight or ten days after death, by a physician who makes a digital and visual examination to determine whether there is any violence to the vagina or not, and inserts his fingers for the purpose of deciding, and the body is embalmed, and after nine days it is disinterred and another post-mortem performed, and the physician performing the post-mortem takes a half dozen stitches and sees nothing with his naked eye by way of congestion, but by the use of a microscope finds that some of the epithelium is stripped from the wall of the vagina, I don't think that the finding of the epithelium stripped from the wall would indicate anything unusual. I don't think that would indicate any act of violence. A female's menstrual periods brings about congestion and hemorrhages of the blood vessels every time. The congestion gradually subsides within two or three days. That would not be any indication of violence, nor could you tell how long before death the violence had been inflicted. If a young lady had a wound on the back of the head about an inch and a half long cutting to the skull and the skull was open and a small hemorrhage was found, that did not involve pressure on the brain and the brain itself was not injured, I am positive that no man examining the body nine or ten days after death could have any way of telling whether that wound would produce unconsciousness