0576 Slide – Georgia Supreme Court Leo Frank Appeals Documents, 1913, 1914

Visible Translated Text Is As Follows:

This cabbage (State's Exhibit G) I don't think has been masticated at all so far as these pieces are concerned. There can be no doubt that these pieces would retard the digestion and the passage from the stomach into the small intestine. The presence of such cabbage would make it very uncertain as to telling before the food would pass out of the stomach. I couldn't say and I don't think anybody could say, how long cabbage and wheat bread in such condition would stay in the stomach. As far as wheat bread and water are concerned the acidity of the stomach with reference to hydrochloric acid may go between 40 and 80 degrees, which is the average height of the acidity. With wheat bread in the shape of biscuit it would take the acidity about an hour to reach the height. With cabbage we don't know how long it would take it to reach that height. The acidity may rise very quickly and decline slowly. It would not necessarily take it one half of the 4 1/2 hours necessary for digestion. When the acidity reaches a certain height it begins to descend. The longer it stays in the stomach it decreases. If you find 33 degrees in the body of a corpse you cannot tell whether it is on the ascending or decreasing scale. There is no data on how long it would take the acidity to reach its height in case of cabbage. If a gallon of the juices of a corpse are taken from the body and a gallon of embalming fluid, which is 8% formalin, is put in, it would destroy the ferment in the pancreatic juices. There would be no way to tell by testing such a body whether any of that pancreatic juice had been in the lower intestine or not, for the only way to tell is to find the action of the ferment, and if the formalin has destroyed it you can tell nothing about that at all. After formalin has been in the body it is difficult to tell how long food has been in the stomach. Formalin destroys the pepsin in the stomach. I never heard of hydrochloric acid being measured by drops before, because it is a vapor. If I investigated a stomach and found wheat bread and cabbage, some of which was in that condition (State's Exhibit G) and approximately a drop and a half or two drops of combined hydrochloric acid, the stomach being taken during a post mortem on a subject that has been interred nine or