No attempt was made to prove that Mrs. Wharton had at any time in her
possession strychnia, the poison alleged to have been used by her. As
on the previous trial, the case centred upon the expert testimony, but
there was no direct chemical evidence, neither the food, the matters
vomited nor the bodily secretions having been examined. Some sediment
found in a tumbler of punch was asserted by Dr. Aiken to consist
largely of tartar emetic. This tumbler was not connected with Mrs.
Wharton, except by being found at her house in a position where, in
the language of one of the State's witnesses, "hundreds of persons"
had access to it. It was carried about in the pocket of a lady
inimical to Mrs. Wharton, and into at least one drug-store, before it
reached Professor Aiken, whose analysis was as faulty as before. Any
tartar emetic present in the sediment might have been procured in
a pure form by the simple process of dialysis. The only apparatus
necessary for this would have been a glass vessel divided into two
compartments by a piece of hog's bladder stretched across it. These
chambers having been partially filled with distilled water, and the
sediment of the tumbler put into one of them, the tartar emetic
would have left the other ingredients and passed into the second
compartment. By taking the water out of this and evaporating it, the
poison would have been obtained in a pure crystalline state, and might
have been brought into court. But Dr. Aiken thought it sufficient for
him to "satisfy himself:" as he stated on the witness-stand, he did
not consider it his business whether other people were or were not
satisfied. Consequently, the court was only favored with a memorized
report of the color tests used by him, exactly as in the previous
trial. One of the reactions which he said he obtained antimony does
not conform to.