1812-018: John M. Perry vs. David Higginbotham, surv. partner

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Plaintiff accused defendant of selling him Prudence, unhealthy enslaved woman who suffered from a sexually transmitted disease. Cause includes deposition of physician who examined the Prudence while she was held by Higginbotham. The physician testified that he found the Prudence being kept in a damp cellar during intense cold weather, and that she was salivating due to medication given to her by Higginbotham. The physician diagnosed her with a severe lung infection and some form of a pox spreading over her body. He told Higginbotham to remove Prudence from the cellar because the poor conditions made her health condition worse. He also told him that "his mismanagement of the case endangered the life of the woman" and that the combination of the lung infection and pox "rendered her situation critical and dangerous." The physician was unable to examine Prudence for the STD due to her poor health. The physician was asked to examine the Prudence again while she was in the possession of the plaintiff. The pox had returned. While examining her, the physician discovered that Prudence had an abortion which was "hastened by the circumstances of the woman concealing her state of pregnancy and the medicine administered for the pox." "That a state of pox generally but not always produces abortion - and the disease is hereditary and most generally afflicts the offspring of a mother who is thus afflicted."

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