0587 Slide – Georgia Supreme Court Leo Frank Appeals Documents, 1913, 1914

Visible Translated Text Is As Follows:

DR. W. S. KENDRICK, Sworn for the defendant.

I have been a practicing physician for thirty-five years. I was Dean of the Atlanta Medical College. I gave Dr. Harris his first position there. If a young lady between thirteen and fourteen years of age died and a post mortem examination was made within eight or ten hours after death, by a physician who make a digital and visual examination to determine whether there is any violence to the vagina or not, and inserted his fingers for the purpose of deciding, and the body is embalmed, and after nine days it is disinterred and another post mortem performed and the physician performing the post mortem takes a half dozen strips and sees nothing with his naked eye by way of congestion, but by the use of a microscope finds that some of the epithelium is stripped from the wall of the vagina, I don't think that the finding of the epithelium stripped from the wall would indicate anything unusual. I don't think that would indicate any act of violence. A female's menstrual periods brings about congestion and hemorrhages of the blood vessels every time. The congestion gradually subsides within two or three days. That would not be any indication of violence, nor could you tell how long before death the violence had been inflicted. If a young lady had a wound on the back of the head about an inch and a half long cutting to the skull and the skull was open and a small hemorrhage was found, that did not involve pressure on the brain and the brain itself was not injured, I am positive that no man examining the body nine or ten days after death could have anyway of telling whether that wound would produce unconsciousness or not. It would be a pure conjecture if he said anything on that subject. Skulls are sometimes fractures without unconsciousness. Each stomach is a law itself. It is a known fact that some stomachs will digest different substances quicker than others. I don't think there is an expert in the world who could form any definite idea by either