METHUSELAH ARCHIVE PEOPLE / EZRA LOVETT
Ezra Lovett

Ezra Lovett

d. 1808
role:Patient
connection:A young patient in Beverly, Massachusetts, treated by Samuel Thomson for a bad cold or suspected typhus fever; his death (Thomson's own narrative places the episode in the context of the fall of 1808, though Thomson elsewhere describes the indictment as coming two years after the death, an inexactness in the primary source), after Thomson had already advised the family to call in other physicians and left him in their care, became the basis of Thomson's December 1809 indictment and trial for murder by lobelia poisoning. Thomson was acquitted after the prosecution's sample of alleged 'poison' was identified in court by the botanist Manasseh Cutler as marsh rosemary rather than lobelia.
confirmed:yes
APPEARS IN CASES
NOTES

Ezra Lovett was a young man in Beverly, Massachusetts, whom Samuel Thomson treated for a severe cold that Thomson suspected was typhus fever, the same illness that had recently killed Thomson’s own mother. By Thomson’s own account, he attended Lovett, saw some improvement, then left him in the care of an assistant while called away; when Lovett worsened after exposure to winter cold, Thomson returned, judged the case beyond help, and asked the family to call in other physicians, who attended Lovett until his death the following night. By December 1809, a rival physician had Thomson indicted for Lovett’s murder by lobelia, “a deadly poison” (Thomson’s own narrative describes the death as roughly contemporaneous with the fall of 1808, though it also characterizes the indictment as coming two years after the death, an inexactness in the primary source itself). At trial in Salem, a defense attorney chewed a sample of the alleged poison in open court, and the botanist Manasseh Cutler testified that the substance the prosecution had produced was not lobelia at all but marsh rosemary. The jury acquitted Thomson within minutes.