DR. H. F. HARRIS, sworn for the State.
I am a practicing physician. I made an examination of the body of Mary Phagan on May 5th. On removing the skull I found there was no actual break of the skull, but a little hemorrhage under the skull, corresponding to point where blow had been delivered, which shows that the blow was hard enough to have made the person unconscious. This wound on the head was not sufficient to have caused death. I think beyond any question she came to her death from strangulation from this cord being wound around her neck. The bruise around the eye was caused by a soft instrument, because it didn't show the degree of contusion that would have been produced by a hard instrument. The outside cuticle of the skin wasn't broken. The injury to the eye and scalp were caused before death. I examined the contents of the stomach, finding 160 cubic centimeters of cabbage and biscuit, or wheat and bread. It had progressed very slightly towards digestion. It is impossible for one to say absolutely how long this cabbage had been in the stomach, but I feel confident that she was either killed or received the blow on the back of the head within a half hour after she finished her meal. I made an examination of the privates of Mary Phagan. I found no spermatozoa. On the walls of the vagina there was evidences of violence of some kind. The epithelium was pulled loose, completely detached in places, blood vessels were dilated immediately beneath the surface and a great deal of hemorrhage in the surrounding tissues. The dilation of the blood vessels indicated to me that the injury had been made in the vagina some little time before death. Perhaps ten to fifteen minutes. It had occurred before death by reason of the fact that these blood vessels were dilated. Inflammation had set in and it takes an appreciable length of time for the process of inflammatory change to begin. There was evidence of violence in the neighborhood of the hymen. Rigor mortis varies so much that it is not accurate to state how long after death it sets in. It may begin in a few minutes and may be delayed for hours. I could not state from the examination how long Mary Phagan was dying. It is my opinion that she lived from a half to three-quarters of an hour after she ate her meal. The evidence of violence in the vagina had evidently been done just before death. The fact that the child was strangled to death was indicated by the lividity, the blueness of the parts, the congestion of the tongue and mouth and the blueness of the hands and fingernails. The lungs had the peculiar appearance which is always produced after embalming when formaldehyde is used. I am of the opinion that the wound on the back of the head could not have been produced by this stick (Exhibit 48 of Defendant).
