On Cooling of the Body after Death

I have been requested to put on paper a few facts relative to the cooling of the body after death. The subject, of interest generally, has become of special importance owing to the late trial, for murder, of a man named Gardner. This man was found guilty and doomed to be publicly strangled. His fate turned exclusively on the vague question whether a dead body could become cold on the external surfaces of the head, chest, and upper and lower limbs, within three or from that to four hours. A negative answer to this question led to his conviction , and the man was so decisively condemned that the judge told him not to hope for mercy. But when the trial was over, the Secretary of State, Sir George Grey, received from medical men so many facts in opposition to the opinion that was expressed at the trial, that he had to reverse the judgment, and to spare the culprit's life. The profession asks, and the public asks, how is it possible that such difference of opinion could exist ? And I believe there is not one thinking person who did not feel anxiety for the Home Secretary, in the dilemma in which he was cast. Happily in cases such as that of Gardner, there are these indications as guides to the official mind; that where there is doubt it is always safe to err on the side of mercy, and that should an error be committed on the side of mercy, none except the professional sight-goers to executions can be any the worse for it, and they not really the worse, but something the better, in regard to their influence on the world, from their own small but vicious centres of power. I hope that never again the life of a human being will be allowed to rest on the question of the time required for the