1194 Page – Leo Frank Georgia Supreme Court Appeals Records, 1913, 1914

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or not. It would be a pure conjecture if he said anything on that subject. Skulls are sometimes fractured without unconsciousness. Each stomach is a law to itself. It is a known fact that some stomachs will digest different substances quicker than others. I don’t think that there is an expert in the world who could form any definite idea of either chemical analysis of the liquids of the stomach or by the condition of the cabbage lodged in the stomach as to how long it had been in the stomach.

CROSS EXAMINATION.

I am not a specialist of the stomach, but I am and have been teaching diseases of the stomach and all these cases come under my jurisdiction. Dr. Westmoreland is a surgeon, not a stomach specialist. Dr. Hancock is not a stomach specialist. If you find starch granules in the stomach undigested and cabbage undigested and thirty-two degrees of hydrochloric acid in the stomach and no dextrose and no maltose, the small intestines for six feet absolutely empty, the sides and glands of the stomach all normal, I would not have an opinion as to how long that cabbage was in the stomach for the reason that each case will order itself. Yes, there are certain general principles dealing with these matters. Hydrochloric acid appears early during digestion and in small quantity, and goes up. The main things in the stomach are pepsin and hydrochloric acid. As soon as a piece of cabbage or bread gets into the stomach the hydrochloric acid begins to attack it and works until it has a clear field and leaves nothing in the stomach, and thereafter the hydrochloric acid descends. I have made no effort whatever to find out how rapidly hydrochloric acid descends and ascends. I should think though that whenever you find no hydrochloric acid the process of digestion is ended and that if you find undigested things in the stomach and hydrochloric acid in a small degree, that the process of digestion had not been finished. That’s the general rule. That does not apply in all cases. For instance, I can’t digest cabbage at all, but it will put me in bed. Each stomach is a law unto itself, so far as digestion goes, any statement to the contrary is incorrect. There are certain laws that apply to most people. I haven’t read a work on digestion in ten years. If there be four different stages of digestion, I think it would be impossible for an expert to tell by an examination what stage of digestion certain things were in. There are so many exceptions to the rule. As to whether the cabbage had been digested or not, if whole pieces of cabbage were there I could tell, but if you could not find the cabbage either with the naked eye or the microscope, I would say that it had been digested. I don’t know how long it takes an ordinary stomach to digest turnips. If a 13-year-old child ate cabbage and bread on Saturday and her body is found that night about three o’clock, with the tongue out, deep indentations in the neck, a small flow of blood from a wound in the back of the head, a discoloration of blood over her pantlets, one of the drawers legs torn, the stocking supporter torn loose, rigor mortis had set in since 16 to 20 hours, all blood had settled down in that part where gravity had