0419 Sheet – Supreme Court Georgia Appeals of Leo Frank, 1913, 1914

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contents in Mary Phagan's case. It showed plainly that it had
not begun to dissolve, or only to a very slight degree, and
indicated that the process of digestion had not gone on to any
extent at the time that this girl was rendered unconscious. I
found that the starch she had eaten had undergone practically
no alteration. The contents taken from the little girl's
stomach was examined chemically and the results showed that
there were only slight traces of the first action of the diges-
tive juices on the starch. It was plainly evident that none of
the material had gone into the small intestine. As soon as
food is put in the stomach the beginning of the secretion
of the hydrochloric acid is found. It is from the quantity of
this acid that the stomach secretes that doctors judge the state
and degree of digestion. In this case the acid had not been
secreted in such an excess that any of it had become what we
call free. In this case the amount of acid in this girl's
stomach was combined and was 32 degrees. Ordinary, in a normal
stomach at the end of an hour it runs from 50 to 60 or 80. I
found none of the pancreatic juices in the stomach which are
usually found, about an hour after digestion starts.
CROSS EXAMINATION.
I don't remember when Mr. Dorsey first talked to me about
making this autopsy. As long as the heart was beating you could
have put a piece of rope around the neck of this little girl and
produced the same results as I found. I took about five or six
ounces altogether out of the stomach. It was all used up in
making my experiments. I know of no experiments made as to the
effect of gastric juices where the patient is dead. The juices
of the body after death gradually evaporate. The chemical analy-