duties, was employed in settling a large estate. He habitually rose
early, often at 5 A.M., and generally worked until eleven o'clock at
night. During this period he suffered from severe nervous headaches,
and probably from other symptoms of an overworked nervous system, but
on this point the testimony disagreed. His stomach is at all times so
sensitive that brandy nauseates him. On the 19th of June, after taking
some claret on an empty stomach at Mrs. Wharton's, he felt very
badly, suffering from lightness of the head or giddiness and general
wretchedness, with stiffness and numbness in the back of his neck.
On the 20th he stopped at Mrs. Wharton's about 4 P.M., having eaten
nothing for seven or eight hours, and took raspberries with cream,
and drank claret. This claret, he stated, "had a taste like peach
leaves."[19] Directly after this he had an attack similar to, but
much more violent than, that of the day before. Some little time
after this, whilst in a condition of profound relaxation, he took some
brandy, and at once emptied his stomach by a single spasmodic effort
of vomiting, with immediate relief. The weather was extremely hot
during the whole time in which the various attacks here narrated took
place.

On the 24th of June, Mr. Van Ness rose at 5 A.M., but was forced to
return to bed by a severe headache. At 9 A.M., after dressing, he
said to his wife that he would not eat at home, but would stop at Mrs.
Wharton's on his way to the office, to get a cup of her "nice black
tea." A piece of toast was all he ate before his return to Mrs.
Wharton's from the banking-house at 4 P.M. Mrs. Wharton then offered
him some lager beer, and, partly at his own suggestion, put into it
something out of a bottle labeled "Gentian Bitters." He found the
liquid so bitter that he took but a part of it.[20]