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Bree Hurt at Apr 26, 2020 11:49 AM

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WEEKLY NEBRASKA STATE JOURNAL FRIDAY MAY 22 1891 [11?]

Kinney that Sunday morning in the jail, in which Monday referred to Mrs. Sheedy's "lover," and told how she had invited him to watch her take an evening walk with that lover, young Walstrom It also revealed the fact that Monday had taken the cane to the Sheedy residence at about 5 o'clock on the evening of the assault and left it there with Mrs. Sheedy to await his return.

Believed It Was Due To Morphine.

Dr. H. M. Casebeer was called, had lived in Lincoln five years and practiced for sixteen years; graduated from the medical department of the university of Michigan in March, 1876: was present at the Sheedy autopsy with Drs. Beachley, Mitchell, Coroner Holyoke. coroner's jury and one or two others whom witness did not know; witness performed the autopsy, assisted by Dr. Beachley.

The witness explained how the examination had been performed; gave a detailed description of the bones of the [hene?] and face, and located and described the wound inflicted by the blow. He said that the examination had extended to the lower part of the medulla oblongata, the portion lying at the base of the brain with which the spinal cord connects; the medulla oblongata controls the nerves of respiration. A blow upon another portion of the skull might affect the medulla oblongata, but the injury would be apt to be revealed in the autopsy. There was no fracture of the skull revealed in the autopsy.

"Now assuming," said Mr. Lambertson, "that John Sheedy was a man about six feet and over in height, apparently a man of strong physical ability and apparently living in good health, but in fact being affected somewhat with fatty degeneracy of the heart, and in the condition revealed by the autopsy at which you were present, and the brain being affected as revealed by the autopsy: that he was on or about the 11th day of January struck with a blunt instrement which produced a wound such as you have described; that it was dressed and the patient put to bed; that it was not thought at the time to be a severe wound; that he was given at first ten grains of sulfonate, which he vomited; at a later period tens grains more which he vomited, and at a still later ten grains more in a cup of coffee, which he retained, that he then sank into some kind of a sleep, which continued until about 3 or 4 o'clock the following morning, about nine hours after he was struck, at which time he was breathing heavily, only five or six times a minute, the breathing being what is characterized in medical parlance as "heavy or stertorous;" that his pulse was up to 140; the pupils of his eyes being normal; that swallowing or deglutation as it is called, was impossible; that his body was paralyzed; that his kidneys and bowels were torpid, and the urine had to be drawn off with a catheter; that he continued in this profound state of coma, the pulse alternating or changing from time to time, running down some hours before his death to 95, and at times even lower, if not altogether stopping, until about 10 o'clock on the night following the blow, consciousness not having been resumed during the period between 4 o'clock, at the time he went into the comatose condition and the time of his death, and that at 10 o'clock he died, what in your opinion was the cause of his death?"

"Well, I believe that the symptoms foregoing his death are more nearly like shoes of poisoning from opium than anything else, and for the reason that no other cause was discovered for his death, I believe it was due to poisoning by some drug."

"Now if morphine was administered hypodermically, would traces of it be found in the stomach?"

"No, I think not."

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