0878 Sheet – Supreme Court Georgia Appeals of Leo Frank, 1913, 1914

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examination showed plainly that it had not begun to dissolve, or at least, only
a very slight degree, and it indicated that the process of digestion had not
gone on to any extent at the time this girl was rendered unconscious at any
rate. I wish further to state that on examination Mary Phagan's stomach I
found that the starch she had eaten had not even the beginning of alteration;
there were a few of the starch cells which had not even the beginning of the pro-
cess of digestion, having changed into the substance called starch-dextrine,
but these were very much rarer than is the case in a normal stomach, and in
the contents are exposed to the action of the digestive fluids for something
like, say 50 or 60 minutes. The contents taken from the little girl's stomach
were examined chemically, and the result of the chemical examination showed
that there were only slight traces of the first action of the digestive juices on
the starch, thus confirming my microscopic examination, and showed clearly
that only the very beginning of digestion had proceeded in this case.

"As I was saying, of even greater importance in this matter, it was found
that there were 160 cubic solids, or about five and a half ounces of total
contents remaining in the stomach, and after an ordinary meal of cabbage
and bread, this is not the case. Under ordinary conditions, we get out per-
haps on an average of something like a thimble from 50 to 60 or 70 cubic
centimeters, or, say from a half to a third of what was found in this case,
and it was plainly evident that none of this material had gone into the small
intestine, because that was examined for it from the mouth out to the begin-
ning of the large intestine, which is many feet away from it in the neighbor-
hood of something like 25 feet away, and there was very, very little food
found in the small intestine, none at all, as a fact, in the small-intestine, which
showed clearly, as I have said, that the contents of the stomach had not be-
gun to be pushed on into the small intestine at the time that death occurred.
This pushing on begins in about half an hour after such a meal as this, and by
the time an hour is reached, the greater part of what is introduced into the
stomach is already down in the small intestine, so that it becomes very clear
from this that digestion had not proceeded to any extent at all."

The above testimony of Dr. Harris was objected to when offered because
the same was argumentative. It was not, as movant contends, a statement of
fact, scientific or otherwise, from which the jury could for themselves draw
conclusions, but was a mixture of facts and arguments.

The Court declined to rule out this testimony, and declined to force the
witness to abstain from arguments and state the facts. This argument of the
witness was clearly prejudicial to the defendant and failure to rule out the
testimony was error.

21. Because, the Court permitted the witness C. B. Dalton to testify
over the objection of defendant, made when the evidence was offered and
before cross examination, that the testimony was irrelevant, incompetent,
immaterial and illegal, dealt with other matters than the issues on trial and
was prejudicial to the defendant's case; that he knew Leo Frank, visited the
National Pencil Co.'s plant and saw Frank three four or five times; that he
was in the office of Leo Frank, that he has been there three or four times
with Miss Daisy Hopkins, and at these times Frank was in his office; that
the witness had been in the basement, going down the ladder, that Frank
knew he was in the building, but does not know whether Frank knew he was
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