0703 Sheet – Supreme Court Georgia Appeals of Leo Frank, 1913, 1914

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hardly any change on its chemical property. When it comes in
contact with the formaldehyde it is supposed to be preserved.
It has some neutralizing effect on the alkali present. That
decomposes in time after death, unless hindered by some preservative.
The hydrochloric acids in the stomach also disappear if the stomach
has disintegrated and the preservative has disappeared. It disappears
like the other fluids and tissues of the body unless hindered by
some preservative agent. Sometimes digestion is delayed a good
deal even in a normal stomach by insufficient mastication, too much
diluting of the juices, or anything that hinders the operation of
the mechanical effects. Insufficient mastication is one of the
commonest causes, also the taking of too much liquid. Fatigue
occasioned by extensive walking would hinder it. If the walking
was not too extensive to produce fatigue, it would help digestion
in a normal stomach? Insufficient mastication is the worst cause
of delayed digestion. My estimate was that the cabbage was found
an hour after the process of digestion had begun. I did not under-
take to say when the digestion began. You can't tell by looking
at food in a bottle how much the failure to masticate it delayed
digestion in hours and minutes. It would be just an estimate.
The physical appearance of that cabbage (Defondant's Exhibit 88)
shows indigestion by the layer, character and amount and area
of separation between, and the character and amount of the
layers below. The mere fact that it was vomited up would be proof
positive that no scientific opinion could be made about it. To make a
scientific test, I would have to test the mechanism of the stomach,
the time it was in there and the degree and presence of the differ-
ent acids. The chocolate milk would not naturally stay in a normal
stomach five or six hours? The cabbage would stay in a normal empty
stomach where there was a tomato also three or four hours. I
never made any test of Mary Phagan's stomach and examined the
contents of it.