ALBERT R. MANN 
 LIBRARY 
 
 AT 
 
 CORNELL UNIVERSITY 
 
Cornell University Library 
 
 RA 1051.C24 
 
 A handbook of the practice of forensic m 
 
 3 1924 000 011 696 
 
The original of this book is in 
 the Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31 92400001 1 696 
 
THE NEW SYDENHAM 
 SOCIETY. 
 
 INSTITUTED MDCCCLYIII. 
 
 VOLUME XII. 
 
Noil hypotheses oondo, non opiniones vendito 
 
 quod vidi, soripsi. 
 
 Stoebk. 
 
 LONDON : 
 
 Printed by Jaueb "William Roche, 6, KIrby Street, 
 
 Hatton Garden. 
 
AUTHOR'S PREFACE 
 
 TO THIRD EDITION. 
 
 The rapid sale of the third edition of the " gerichtliche Leichenoff- 
 nungen," originally gave occasion to the publication of this work, the 
 Thanatological Division of which, published first in October, 1856, 
 and reprinted unaltered in December, 1857, may be regarded as but 
 a new edition of the two former volumes ; to this, in September, 
 1858, was added a Biological Division, also equal in bulk to both 
 of the previous volumes. In a very few months it became evi- 
 dent that a new (third) and improved edition would be, required, 
 and in it the entire work is now for the first time offered to the 
 public in a complete condition.* 
 
 In this book, as in all my public lectures for the last thirty-six 
 years, I have specially striven against the prime failing of most authors 
 on forensic medicine, viz., the separation of it from general medicine, 
 and endeavoured to purify it from all irrelevant rubbish, which has been 
 so copiously accumulated in it by tradition, want of experience in 
 forensic matters, and therefore ignorance of the proper relation which 
 the medical jurist bears to the judge, as well as mistaken ideas as to 
 the practical object of the science. No doubt much has already 
 been done in this respect by the advance of general learning in the 
 course of by-gone ages. Questions, such as those we find treated of 
 
 * So great ia the estimation in which, this most valuable work is held, 
 that it has not only been translated into French, Italian, Dutch, and now 
 into English, but a fourth edition of the original is already called for; and 
 the members of the New Sydenham Society lie under a deep debt of grati- 
 tude to Professor Casper for the very great kindness with which he under- 
 took, unasked, the great trouble of revising each sheet of the present 
 translation before it went to press, so as to bring it abreast of the very 
 latest German edition, and ensure that, whatever may be its literary defects, 
 it shall at least faithfully represent the meaning of the author.— Teansl. 
 
vi AUTHOR'S PREFACE TO THIRD EDITION. 
 
 in the older writers — as, " Was Adam a hermaphrodite ? " or, " Can 
 a woman be got with child by the devil ?" are certainly no longer to 
 be met with; but the echoes of real sophistries, in which the medi- 
 cina forensis was so rich, contemptibly-crafty " ifs " and " buts," are 
 still to be found lingering even in writings of the most modern date. 
 The correct appreciation of a single simple dogma, which is as un- 
 questionably correct as it is to be unalterably maintained, leads of 
 itself to the necessary reform in treating of juridical medicine. I 
 mean the dogma that a medical jurist is — a physician — nothing 
 more, nothing less, nothing else; and, as this simple dogma has 
 been grossly misunderstood; to make it still more plain, I again 
 repeat, he is a physician, and not a lawyer, &c. As a Technologist, 
 artist, or any craftsman, &c, must hold his knowledge or experience 
 in his art or trade at the service of justice in the interest of the com- 
 mon weal, so must the physician, and nothing else is required of 
 him. What would be said, however, were a painter, summoned as 
 an expert to give his opinion in a supposed case of fraudulent sale of 
 a pretended Baphael, to proceed to lecture the court on the juridical 
 meaning of the word " fraud," or on the " object of punishment/' 
 &c.?l 
 
 And yet, for many a day, nay, even yet the most recent text- 
 books for medical experts contain the most exhaustive discussions 
 upon the definitions, dolus, culpa, &c, matters which lie altogether 
 beyond the province of medicine, with which the physician has 
 nothing to do, least of all in his forensic capacity. This erroneous 
 blending of medical and legal ideas and objects is also combined 
 with another greater and more consequential error in the practice of 
 forensic medicine. I mean the tendency to endeavour to obtain 
 strict apodictical proof, such as was required by the practice of the 
 older penal courts, founded upon the ancient theory of evidence in 
 the science of penal law, with which juridical medicine has most 
 unseemlily identified herself. 
 
 Apart, however, from the facts— that the modern science of 
 penal law and the practice in criminal courts have relinquished this 
 theory of strict proof,— that we have this strict proof replaced by the 
 mental conviction of the Judge (or jury), attained by a consideration 
 of all the ascertained facts in their entirety. Apart from all this, I 
 demand in what other branch of general medical diagnosis, of which 
 the forensic is but a part, is such indubitable certainty required, or 
 where can it be attained ? Prom this error arose that cursed seep- 
 
AUTHOR'S PREFACE TO THIRD EDITION. vii 
 
 ticism in so many medico-legal matters, which has risen to such a 
 height as to lead in many questions to the complete negation of 
 forensic medicine and of the forensic physician. Let me refer to 
 the discussions regarding the proof of respiration (docimasia pubno- 
 naris), regarding poisoning, doubtful homicide, &c. "Whilst the 
 physician, in making his diagnosis at the sick-bed, collects and care- 
 fully weighs all the facts of the case, not only those afforded by the 
 status prasens, but also everything that can be learned regarding the 
 previous state of health of the patient, and even his mode of life ; 
 shall the same physician in making his diagnosis as a judicial expert 
 ignore the past, enchain that which he most needs to make his 
 labours useful, his judgment, his sound understanding, his reasoning 
 powers, and confine himself exclusively to the "proof" afforded by 
 the natural object at the time of his examination ? 
 
 Every medical jurist of actual experience will agree with me that, 
 with such views no progress can be made in forensic matters, that 
 in many cases, indeed, such as disputed mental conditions, disputed 
 homicide, &c, it may be perfectly impossible to arrive at a convinc- 
 ing diagnosis, without the knowledge of such circumstances as 
 actually belong to the medical consideration of the case, though they 
 do not come before the physician at the time of his examination of 
 it. But such men, whose testimony I appeal to, are but few, for 
 from the nature of the circumstances the opportunity is but rarely 
 afforded of gathering experience in the domain of forensic medicine, 
 and of making personal observations in it on any great scale, it 
 ought, therefore, not to be taken as a reproach when I state the fact 
 that forensic medicine as represented in the medical periodicals and 
 handbooks, particularly of Germany, has been for the most part 
 treated of by men in whom solid scientific attainments, diligence in 
 compilation, and book-learning could not compensate for the want 
 of personal observation. I may name one deceased author who well 
 deserves to be mentioned before all others on account of the extensive 
 influence he so long enjoyed, I mean Henke, who, as a most diligent 
 writer, has worked for forensic medicine as few others have done, 
 without, so far as I know, ever having performed one judicial dis- 
 section, stepped across the threshold of any prison, examined any 
 woman said to have been deflowered, investigated the doubtful 
 mental condition of even one criminal, or of a single case of malm-; 
 gering, or ever having stood as an expert before any court. How 
 many of his predecessors and successors have been and are in the 
 
viii AUTHOR'S PREFACE TO THIRD EDITION. 
 
 same or a similar position ! Confined to their desk alone, the want 
 of personal experience compels them to have recourse to previous 
 writers, and to confirm, by "quotations" what could not otherwise 
 be proved, a method of treatment formerly much indulged in, parti- 
 cularly in German literature, but rated at its proper value, now that 
 medical science -requires living experience and not mere compilation 
 and book-learning. And this has proved another copious source 
 whence many errors and erroneous dogmas have been introduced into 
 juridical medicine ! P. Zacchias (Quasi. Lib. I., Tit. II., Q. VIII.) 
 not only proves by " quotations " the fact (! !) that 8, 9, 12, 36, 72, 
 and 150 children have been born uno enixu ; but he also " quotes " 
 the case of a Countess Henneberg, who is stated to have given 
 birth to 365 children at one time ; to this, however, he cautiously 
 adds : ego judicium abstineo I Science, indeed, no longer suffers 
 from such absurd statements, but the no less nonsensical memoir, 
 which probably few that quote it have read : Lucina sine concubitn, 
 inaugural dissertations, one or two hundred years old, which no 
 one in our century has read, and the like, are still quoted as 
 " authorities " in the most recent handbooks of forensic medicine ! 
 The reader is not to suppose that I am now referring to a mere 
 innocent and resultless parade of learning ; he may convince himself 
 of the reverse from my critique upon Ploucquet's lung test, from 
 the treatise on sexual crimes, on protracted gestation, on " morbid 
 propensities," &c, in which he will find most striking examples of 
 errors of the utmost consequence which have crept into forensic 
 medicine and become current there solely by means of quotations and 
 their uncriticised employment. 
 
 Favoured by the possession during twenty years of a medico-legal 
 appointment, affording very extensive practical opportunities, not 
 only for personal observation in medico-legal matters, but also for 
 collecting the experience of other medical men in their professional 
 intercourse with courts of law, I have endeavoured in the production 
 of this work to confine myself as far as possible to my own personal 
 experience, making use of that of others as sparingly as possible, and 
 that only from the most trustworthy sources, preferring openly to 
 confess my own want of experience in any matter where it has been 
 insufficient. Public criticism has confirmed my hope, expressed at 
 the first appearance of this work, that something novel and peculiarly 
 my own would be found not only in its general design, but also in 
 many of its component chapters, as for instance, in those chapters 
 
AUTHOR'S PREFACE TO THIRD EDITION. ix 
 
 which treat of ability to gain a livelihood or to suffer imprisonment, 
 of disputed sexual relations, of protracted gestation, of superfoetation, 
 of the chronological succession of the phenomena of putrescence, of 
 injuries, poisonings, and burns, of medical responsibility in regard to 
 treatment, of my extended series of experiments upon the dead body, 
 &c, and in the entire treatment of the psychological department. 
 The latter in particular at its first appearance seemed to require some 
 justification when contrasted with the mode in which this subject 
 had been treated by professed alienistes and the authors of the text- 
 books of Forensic Psychology, especially by some of them. In it I 
 have intentionally avoided all purely speculative philosophical dis- 
 cussions, as well as all purely nosological or legal inquiries with 
 which the tenor and the object of forensic medicine has no concern, 
 and which only serve to increase the darkness and confusion of 
 which practitioners seeking for instruction so constantly, and with 
 right complain in regard to the usual mode of treating forensic 
 psychonosology. I have seen, however, with much satisfaction, 
 that my views regarding the treatment of this question, and the 
 uselessness and hurtfulness of a too minute subdivision of mental 
 affections for judicial purposes, are now in complete unison with 
 those of the best of our modern alienistes, men of mature experience. 
 It is a further peculiarity of this book, that I have omitted from it 
 all purely surgical and physiological questions, for instance, all dis- 
 cussions regarding the mortality of injuries of the various organs, 
 the doctrine (never heard of in foro) of the various ages of man's 
 life, &c, because these are all questions of general medical science, and 
 have, therefore, been long well known to the medical jurist. Forensic 
 chemistry I have also excluded from the limits of this work, not only 
 because there already exist so many excellent monographs upon this 
 subject, but also, that I might shun the failing of most of the home 
 and foreign handbooks, in which toxicology is permitted to occupy 
 such an unseemly amount of space, as if questions belonging to it 
 were those that most frequently occurred in foro, whilst they actually 
 are relatively of but rare occurrence, and in their treatment, more- 
 over, the medical jurist is both by law and custom allowed the 
 assistance of a professed chemist. 
 
 In regard to one important item of the book, the collection of 
 illustrative cases, I may remark, that in the first two editions, the 
 Biological Division contained 195 cases, and the Thanatological 346. 
 The present (third) edition has been in this respect materially en- 
 
x AUTHOR'S PREFACE TO THTRD EDITION. 
 
 larged; since 26 new cases have been added to the Biological 
 Division, and 64 to the Thanatological Division) exclusive of 25 
 cases incorporated with the text of the latter), many of these cases of 
 the utmost importance. On the other hand, 10 of the previous 
 cases of minor importance have been suppressed, so that now the 
 entire work contains 221 judicial cases investigated during life, and 
 400 cases investigated after death. Most of these medico-legal dis- 
 sections have been observed along with me by my pupils, among 
 whom there, are constantly many very able and highly-educated young 
 physicians, and this fact I have a perfect right to adduce as addi- 
 tional security for the truthfulness of my illustrative cases. 
 
 In striving to give to this work the form of a Clinical Treatise 
 on Forensic Medicine, I have carefully endeavoured in selecting all 
 the cases to pay special attention to the specific interest possessed by 
 each individual case in relation to the question under consideration. 
 Prom the great number and manifold combinations in the cases, 
 analogies will probably be found amongst them, bearing on the 
 practical treatment of even the most difficult cases. To this end I 
 would willingly have doubled the number of cases, if a regard to 
 the size of the work had not set bounds to my wishes. 
 
 The text of this third edition has also received important additions, 
 and this particularly in the Thanatological Division, almost every 
 chapter of which has been altered. The materials for this have 
 been contributed partly by my own continuous investigations and 
 experiences, partly by a consideration of the views suggested by 
 various authoritative reviewers of the former editions, which I have 
 thankfully made use of, so far as they were consistent with my own 
 convictions ; partly, finally, by the additions to science, up to the 
 going to press of each individual sheet of the work. Thus, special 
 additions have been made to the observations upon the occurrence 
 of spermatozoa, upon tattooing, on the relations between the size 
 and weight of new-born children, and on the centre of ossification in 
 their femoral epiphysis, and on the artificial post-mortem production 
 of the mark of a strangulating ligature. The following chapters are 
 partly new and remodelled, partly much enlarged ; those upon via- 
 bility, protracted gestation, mummification, the diagnosis of blood- 
 stains and hsemin crystals, on gun-shot wounds, burns, poisonings, 
 rupture of the coats of the carotid arteries (in persons hanged), the 
 analysis of the blood after poisoning with carbonic oxide gas, on the 
 prerespiratory movements of deglutition, the injuries to the foetus in 
 
AUTHOR'S PREFACE TO THIRD EDITION. xi 
 
 utero, the hydrostatic test, &c. My treatment of the question of 
 malapraxis has been much misunderstood. Nothing is easier than to 
 attack every possible mode of viewing the matter. Amongst those 
 critical attacks which were worth regarding, I have not been able to 
 discover any positive opinion opposed to mine, for which, had it been 
 anything tenable, I would have gladly exchanged my own. I have 
 thankfully made use of a few hints received chiefly from writers on 
 criminal law, and trust I shall have given occasion to fewer mis- 
 understandings in my present treatment of the subject. In spite of 
 careful weeding of the text, and great economy in printing, the addi- 
 tions to both volumes of this edition have amounted to more than six 
 sheets, for which the publisher has not, however, raised the price. 
 
 Only the statutory definitions of the Prussian statute books are 
 given in extenso, regard has, however, been had to the definitions of 
 other statute books, particularly German ones. Since, however, the 
 definitions of all the more recent statute books, particularly the Penal 
 Codes, under the various heads with which we are concerned, are very 
 similar to those in the Prussian statute books, it would be an 
 unjust reproach to call this a handbook of "Prussian^ forensic 
 medicine, just as much as it would be to call the English andPrench 
 text-books on the subject, treatises on English or Prench science, 
 because they have special reference to the laws of their own country. 
 
 The attempt to give coloured representations of medico-legal 
 objects to supplement the necessarily imperfect description, was a 
 novelty ; the reception which my Atlas, now increased by one plate, 
 has received from the public, has proved that it has supplied a 
 desideratum. 
 
 A similar idea may indeed be entertained of the whole Handbook, 
 to judge from the rapid and extensive sale it has met with at home, 
 and the numerous translations which have been made of it. I have 
 endeavoured to prove my gratitude by the careful manner in which I 
 have revised this third edition. 
 
 CASPER. 
 
 Berlin, April, 1860. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 Page 
 
 §1. Origin of the word " Obduction " . . . 1 
 
 § 2. The dead body . . . . .4 
 
 PAET PIEST. 
 
 Object of the examination of a dead body . . .6 
 
 § 3. General statement . . . . .6 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 On the viability of a child . . . . .7 
 
 § 4. Definition of the term . . . .7 
 
 § 5. Of monsters . . . . .11 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 Supposed period of death. — Survivorship . . .14 
 § 6. General statement . . . . .14 
 § 7. Signs of death . . . . .17 
 § 8. Continuation of the subject. — External hypostases . 19 
 § 9. Continuation. — Internal hypostases . . .21 
 § 10. Continuation. — Internal hypostases . . .22 
 §11. Continuation. — Coagulation of the blood after death . 23 
 § 12. Continuation. — Cadaveric rigidity . . .28 
 § 13. The process of putrefaction . . . .30 
 § 14. Subjective or internal conditions which modify the putre- 
 factive process . . . . .31 
 § 15. Objective or external conditions which modify the putre- 
 factive process. — a. Air . . . .34 
 § 16. Continuation. — 5. Moisture , . . .35 
 § 17. Continuation. — c. Warmth . . . .36 
 § 1 8. Comparison of the phenomena of putrescence according to 
 
 the media . . . . .37 
 § 19, Chronological succession of the phenomena of putres- 
 cence. — Externally . . . .38 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 § 20. Continuation. — Saponification 
 
 § 21. Continuation. — Mummification • • • 
 § 22. Chronological succession of the phenomena of putres- 
 cence. — Internally ■ • . * . 44 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 Determination of the cause of death . • • .56 
 
 . 56 
 
 . 58 
 
 § 23. General 
 
 § 24. Of the kinds of violent death 
 
 PART SECOND. 
 
 Period of the examination of the body . . . .61 
 
 § 25. Suitable and unsuitable time . . . .61 
 
 § 26. Late autopsy. — a. In a putrid state of the body . . 62 
 
 § 27. Continuation. — b. After the completion of an autopsy else- 
 where . . . . . .63 
 
 § 28. Continuation. — c. On disinterred bodies and fragments of 
 
 bodies . . . . . .66 
 
 PAET THIRD. 
 
 Nature of the examination of the body . . . ' . 83 
 Regulations for the performance of the medico-legal examination of 
 
 human bodies . . . . . .86 
 
 I. General directions . . . .86 
 
 II. Proceedings at post-mortem examinations . . 87 
 
 III. Framing the protocpl and report . . .92 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 External inspection of the body . . . .95 
 
 § 29. Inspection of the dead body . . . .95 
 § 30. Continuation.— Anormalities of the body. — (a) Products of 
 
 disease . ' . . . . 102 
 
 §31. Continuation.— (b) Of scars . . . .102 
 
 §32. Continuation.— (c) Of tattoo marks . . .105 
 
 §33. Continuation. — (d) Injuries . . . .109 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 Inspection of the weapons . . 127 
 
 §34. Classification of weapons . _ 127 
 
 § 35. Sharp weapons . . _ 127 
 
 § 36. Blunt weapons . . igi 
 
CONTENTS. xv 
 
 Page 
 
 § 37. Firearms . - . . . . . 134 
 
 §38. Instruments capable of producing strangulation . .136 
 
 § 39. Doubtful blood-stains on weapons . . . 138 
 
 § 40, Continuation. — Chemical examination of blood-stains . 145 
 
 § 41. Of the nature of the weapon, and the mode in which it has 
 
 been employed by the accused . . .147 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 On the inspection of articles of clothing and other matters . 195 
 
 § 42. General statements . . . . .195 
 
 §43. On the investigation of blood-stains . . . 196 
 
 § 44. Investigation of stains of ordure . . . 203 
 
 § 45. Investigation of stains of semen . . . 204 
 
 § 46. Investigation of stains of sulphuric acid on stuffs . 206 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 Internal inspection. — (Dissection) .... 208 
 
 § 47. Practical part of the dissection. — (a) Cranial cavity . 208 
 
 .§ 48. Continuation. — (J) Neck and thorax . . . 209 
 
 § 49. Continuation. — (c) Abdominal cavity . . . 210 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 Minute of the examination of the body (obductionsprotokol) . 212 
 
 § 50. Form and contents ..... 212 
 §51. Continuation. — The summary opinion . . . 215 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 The report of the examination of the body (obductionsbericht) . 223 
 
 § 52. Form and contents ...... 224 
 
 § 53. Continuation. — The written reasoned opinion . . 226 
 
 § 54. Revision of the opinion and sequence of the technical courts 233 
 
 SPECIAL DIVISION. 
 
 PART FIRST. 
 
 Forms of violent death ..... 236 
 
 § 1. General. — (a) Definition of an injury . . . 236 
 
 § 2. Continuation. — (J) Fatal character of the injury . . 237 
 
 § 3. Continuation. — (c) Of the organ injured . . . 240 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 § 4. Continuation.— (d) Idiosyncrasy and accidental circum- 
 
 Fago 
 
 stances 
 
 241 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 244 
 244 
 244 
 249 
 249 
 263 
 
 Death from fatal mechanical injuries . 
 § 5. General 
 
 § 6. Experiments on the dead body 
 § 7. Effects of mechanical injuries . 
 § 8. Illustrative cases 
 § 9. Suicide or homicide 1 . 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 Death from gun-shot . . . . -265 
 
 § 10. The gun-shot wound . . . .265 
 
 §11. Continuation . . . . .268 
 
 § 12. Experiments on the dead body . . .271 
 
 § 13. Illustrative cases . . . . .272 
 
 § 14. Suicide or homicide 1 . . . .281 
 
 § 1 5. Illustrative cases . . . . .286 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 Death from burning . . . . . .295 
 
 § 16. General, and diagnosis .... 295 
 
 § 17. Experiments on the dead body. — The production of vesica- 
 tion after death ..... 299 
 
 § 18. Who is to blame, the person himself, or another. — Sponta- 
 neous combustion . . . .302 
 
 § 19. Illustrative cases . . . . .307 
 
INTKODUCTION. 
 
 § 1. Origin of the Word "obduction." 
 
 It is only within the last two centuries that the use of the word 
 obductio has become general amongst practical and scientific men, the 
 expressions formerly employed in the same sense having been in- 
 spectio, sectio, or disseotio cadaveris. In a former work,* I inquired 
 how it happened that a Latin word signifying to veil, to conceal, to 
 cloak, to obscure, or to cover (as with a curtain), had come to denote 
 an operation having for its object the very reverse, viz., to open up 
 and bring to light, and having since then been favoured with the 
 views and explanations of several distinguished philologists on this 
 point, I select from them the following, as being the most im- 
 portant : — 
 
 1. "According to Heyse's Dictionary of Foreign Words, t 
 obducere was employed by the older Latins to signify to uncover, or 
 open. Nonius Marcettus de compendiosa doctrina per litems ad 
 filium, Cap. iv. (p. 246, in the edition of Gerlach and Roth), ex- 
 plains obducere by aperire, appealing for proof to the following 
 sentence from Lucilius, XXIX., vos interea lumen adferte atque aulaa 
 obducite. And should this be the correct explanation of this passage 
 of Lucilius, the medico-legal signification which has become attached 
 to the word obductio can no longer seem extraordinary." 
 
 2. My distinguished colleague in the University, Professor 
 Boeckh, in opposition to this, thinks, on the authority of a passage 
 
 * Gerichtliche Leichenoflhungen. Erstes Hundert. Dritte Auflage. Ber- 
 lin, 1853, s. 3. 
 
 t Fremdworterbuch. 9 Auflage, s. 513. 
 
2 § 1. ORIGIN OF THE WORD "OBDUCTION." 
 
 in Plautus, that obducere was probably used at first only to signify 
 the "bringing forward" or "production" of the dead body. 
 
 3. Another linguist says, " An appellation is derived either from 
 some principal or accessory circumstance, and if we wish to trace 
 its origin we must keep to the most usual signification of the word 
 employed. For, so far as I know, it is never the rarer, but always 
 the more common meanings of Greek or Latin words that are or 
 have been made use of to express modern ideas. This view 
 makes the signfication offerre, offerre, which Boeckh advocates as little 
 probable as the aperire previously propounded," although, no 
 doubt, ob in composition does convey the idea of towards or opposite 
 to, as in offerre. The presence of the word aulma in the quotation 
 from Lucilius, makes it, moreover, but doubtful proof, for we know 
 that the ancients said 'aulmum mittitur,' the curtain rises ; — and when 
 we say 'the curtain falls/ they used the expression ' aulceum tollitur' 
 And besides, the aperire of Nonnius may be but a misprint for 
 qperire. "We must, therefore, hold fast to the more usual signification, 
 " to veil." It would perhaps seem a little farfetched to call the 
 principal circumstance, the examination of the body, ' a veiling or 
 covering of it/ in opposition to ' aperire' a making plain or recognis- 
 able ; but to this we may retort, that the obduction, when this is a 
 sectio renders the body more or less unrecognisable — figuratively, veils 
 it. A more probable explanation may, however, be found j but for this 
 We must turn to the accessory circumstances, from which so often 
 appellations are derived, particularly in euphemistic expressions, as in 
 the use of the word efferre — to bring to rest, instead of the more 
 correct expression, humare, to cover with earth, to bury ; the German 
 bestatten (to carry to the grave), instead of begraben (to inter). If, 
 now, in the case of the word at present under consideration, we 
 "assume its opposite, viz., producere, proferre, the matter becomes 
 clear at once. Previous to the legal or medico-legal inspection, the 
 body of the unfortunate deceased lies exposed to all, it is, as it were, 
 necessarily brought before all — produeitur. But this ends, when 
 the officials, jurists, and physicians appear, to whom alone the 
 matter belongs. The body is then provisionally removed from view, 
 if not by curtains or coverings, yet just as really by the forthcoming 
 of the officials. It is no longer produced, but specially obduced— 
 concealed ; it is no more brought before the public, but removed 
 from them. If to this we add, that the body, when found, is usually 
 brought from without, and for convenience of further examination 
 
§ 1. ORIGIN OF THE WORD "OBDUCTION." 3 
 
 carefully covered up and carried off to a definite place, where it is shut 
 or locked up and made no longer accessible [obducirt] ; for obducere 
 means often enough, to lock up ; then, indeed, we can no longer 
 doubt why the medico-legal examination of a body has been termed 
 an obduction, a veiling, a concealing, covering, locking-up or making 
 inaccessible of the same." 
 
 4. And lastly, I have to add the following philological explana- 
 tion : — 
 
 " It would, a priori, seem singular that a new definition should 
 be promulgated, and generally accepted, if it were not found suitable 
 and more appropriate than that hitherto employed. And truly 
 the word obductio, though certainly a novel term for the dissection 
 of a corpse, is extremely appropriate to the circumstances ; as we see 
 at once,- when we consider as we ought to do in the case of every 
 technical expression, the primary and peculiar signification of the word. 
 For, as the Lexica teach us, obducere means originally the same as 
 olversari, oboculos versari, obvenire, ob oculos venire, and the like — that 
 is, to bring before the eyes. Differing from objicere and obvertere 
 only in the ratio of the differing signification of the radicals jaeere 
 and vertere. For, while of these latter words the one expresses 
 a certain suddenness and the other a change in the direction, obducere 
 primarily signifies a calm, reflective and methodical bringing forward 
 or laying down of the body ; and has thus, I think, come to be 
 used as the conventional expression for a legal dissection, though it 
 only mediately, or, as it were, by implication, denotes the dissection 
 itself. That the word should in this manner acquire a meaning 
 somewhat opposed, to its ordinary acceptation ought not to surprise 
 us, for every Lexicon teaches us that recludere means to open 
 as well as to shut, and similar apparent contradictions are not 
 infrequent; for all of which good and sufficient reason can be 
 given." 
 
 It matters but little which of these learned explanations we prefer. 
 The word " obduction" has long ere now acquired the right to cir- 
 culate, by being invested with official authority; and we shall 
 continue to use it in its official sense.* 
 
 * The foregoing chapter contains a very necessary, if not very clear, ex- 
 planation of the modern (German) use of the word " obduction." The most 
 of it has been omitted from the latest (3rd) edition of this work ; it is, how- 
 ever retained here, as both interesting and useful to the English reader. As 
 there is however, no valid reason for cumbering our language with any 
 
 B2 
 
4 § 2. THE DEAD BODY. 
 
 § 2. The Dead Body. 
 Statutory Regulations. 
 
 Penal Code of the Prussian States, 1851, § 186. Who- 
 ever buries or in any other way disposes of a dead body, without the 
 knowledge of the magistrates, is liable to a fine of two hundred 
 dollars (£30) or to imprisonment for not more than six months. 
 
 If a mother bury, or otherwise dispose of the dead body of her ille- 
 gitimate child, without first acquainting the magistrate, she is liable 
 to imprisonment for not more than two years. 
 
 Previous to the publication of the New Penal Code, there was no 
 need to inquire, What is a dead body ? But now, that the clandes- 
 tine disposal of the most immature foetus is threatened with punish- 
 ment, this question is sure to arise whenever a mother has thrown 
 aside her three or four months' foetus, because upon the answer given 
 must depend whether an official investigation take place or no. In 
 fact, I myself have several times had to answer this singular ques- 
 tion, and it has also been asked at sundry other times and places, 
 and will be so again. To such a question, a medical man can only 
 reply, that a dead (human) body is a dead human being. And 
 there can be no doubt, that in ordinary medical language, a dead 
 foetus is a dead body, and this all the more, that in case of dispute 
 it would be difficult to say what else it was ? The Supreme Court of 
 Justice has, however, in its decisions, repeatedly given a different 
 opinion for the guidance of jurists. Proceeding on the supposition, 
 that that cannot be dead which has never lived, and could not live. 
 The Eoyal Ober.-Tribunal has in one case pronounced the following 
 judgment : — " The meaning of the expression ' dead body/ can only be 
 determined with relation to the practical purposes of the law, and the 
 ordinary acceptation of the term, and, therefore, the viability of the 
 child must in every case be ascertained before the term dead body can 
 be applied to it." A.nd, in a second case, it has decided, that "inas- 
 much as a foetus born at the fourth or fifth month, and proved to be 
 unviable, as has been established in the case in question, cannot be 
 regarded, either according to ecclesiastical usage or civil law, as a 
 
 useless word, I shall henoeforth replace it by its equivalents— Examination 
 —Dissection— Autopsy— Medioo-legal examination, or Inspection of the 
 body.— Tbansl. 
 
§ 2. THE DEAD BODY. 5 
 
 dead body to which the directions and regulations respecting burial 
 are applicable, therefore, also the punitory enactment, § 186 of the 
 penal code, is not applicable to this case/'* The legal view of the 
 matter does not therefore so much regard the vegetative-organic life 
 which the foetus had in utero, as whether it possessed a capacity 
 for maintaining a separate existence — whether, in short, it were 
 viable. Only after this period has been attained, is, according to our 
 superior courts of law, a dead human being to be considered a dead 
 body. This is a most important point, and we shall return to it, 
 when we come to consider the evidence of life afforded by the hydro- 
 static test. 
 
 * S. Goltdammer, ArcMv fur Preuss. Strafrecht, i. 4 heft. s. 571 ; and 
 for the correct estimate of this view, ibid. 3 heft. a. 396. 
 
PART FIRST. 
 
 OBJECT OF THE EXAMINATION OF A DEAD BODY. 
 
 § 3. Genbeal Statement. 
 
 The medical inspection of a human corpse may have a threefold 
 object. 1. To establish the live birth and viability of a new-born 
 child, where both are doubtful. 2. To ascertain the lmtnown period 
 at which the death occurred. 3. To determine the unknown cause 
 of death. Taken singly, the last is indubitably the most usual and 
 most frequent object of the examination, but the first also very 
 commonly occurs,* while the necessity of determining the period of 
 death from the post-mortem, appearances, though not so frequent, 
 yet presents itself sufficiently often to the medical jurist. And in- 
 stances involving two of these questions, and even all the three, in 
 the case of one body do also occur. "We must consider each 
 separately. 
 
 * In Berlin (and probably in all large towns) new-born children form 
 fully one-fourth of all the cases of medico-legal inspection. 
 
§ 4. ON VIABILITY. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 ON THE VIABILITY OF A CHILD. 
 
 § 4. Definition of the Teem. 
 Statutory Regulations. 
 
 General Common Law. Part II., Tit. 2, § 2. In opposition to 
 the legal hypothesis {that every child horn in lawful matrimony is 
 the child of the husband}, no allegation of the husband can be re- 
 ceived, unless he can convincingly prove that he has had no matrimo- 
 nial intercourse with his vnfe between the 302nd and 2,10th days 
 previous to its birth. 
 
 (Rhenish) Civil Code. Art. 312. The husband may deny the 
 paternity of the child, where he can prove that it was physically im- 
 possible for him to have had matrimonial connexion with his wife 
 within the 300th and 180^ days previous to its birth. 
 
 Statute of 24th April, 1854. § 15. He is to be deemed the 
 father of an illegitimate child, who has been proved to have had 
 connexion with its mother, between the 285^ and 210^/j days 
 previous to its birth. 
 
 General Common Law. Part I., Tit. 1, § 17. . Births without 
 human form or appearance have no claim to family or civil rights. 
 § 18. In so far as such monsters live, they must be nourished, and as 
 far as possible preserved. 
 
 General Common Law. Part. I., Tit. 9, § 371. Should the 
 succession to an heritage depend upon the possible live birth of 
 afcetus yet unborn, at the death of the previous possessor, this event 
 must be waited for. 
 
 Ibidem. Part L, Tit. 12, § 13. The live birth of a child is to 
 be held proven, when it has been heard to cry by witnesses of unim- 
 peachable veracity present at its birth. 
 
 (Rhenish) Civil Code. Art. 725. — 2. A child which is not 
 viable at birth, fyc, cannot inherit. 
 
8 § 4. ON VIABILITY. 
 
 (Rhenish) Civil Code. Aet. 906. — Nevertheless, the bequest or 
 testament shall only be in force when the child is born viable. 
 
 A new-born child is presumed to be viable when, from its 
 maturity, and the formation of its organs, it seems to possess the 
 capacity for maintaining a separate existence, — i. e., of probably 
 attaining the average term of human existence. 
 
 Both conditions must, however, coexist. A well-formed foetus at 
 the fifth month cannot, in the foregoing sense, be supposed to 
 possess the capacity for maintaining a separate existence, nor, in 
 like manner, can this be said of a tenth month's foetus afflicted with 
 congenital ectopia of the thoracic organs, atresia of the rectum, or 
 the like. 
 
 A short life of minutes or hours is here purposely excluded. This 
 opinion coincides with that of several distinguished jurists, — e. g., 
 Mittermaier in his new work {Arch. d. Crim. Rechts., Bd. vii., 1. 
 s. 318), and Edward Henke (ffandb. d. Crim. Rechts., ii., s. 58), 
 who even regards a life of several days as of no consequence, when 
 the child is not truly viable ; whilst other well-known lawyers main- 
 tain an opposite opinion, and hold, that if the child have lived only 
 the shortest possible time after its birth, it is to be regarded as 
 viable, and to be possessed of all the privileges of such a child, as 
 regards legitimacy, inheritance of property, &c. Moreover, the very 
 statute books differ one from the other, for whilst the Prussian 
 Common Law (quoted above), only requires proof of the child having 
 been bom alive to ensure its succession, the civil code and the 
 statute books formed after its model, such as the Sardinian {Code Civil, 
 iii., 2, 705), require also that the child must be viable. But the 
 medical jurist may leave all such juridical questions to the lawyers, 
 and rest contented with the medico-legal definition already given, 
 knowing that no physician in the world would say that a child born 
 in the fifth month, or even a mature child born with complete occlu- 
 sion of the oesophagus or the like, even if it have breathed a few 
 times, or lived for a short while, could yet maintain a separate 
 existence. If in any individual case the judge, for judicial purposes, 
 may desire to know if the child, which the physician has declared 
 non-viable, have lived, he will easily be able to obtain the requisite 
 information.— -There seems to me, however, to be no doubt, as to 
 the answer to the question how far congenital malformations, which 
 may be remedied by art, exclude the supposition of viability ? This 
 question has been recently vehemently discussed in the French 
 
§ 4. ON VIABILITY. 9 
 
 Academy, and Robert has maintained the opinion that a child must 
 always be declared to be viable, even if it have a congenital mal- 
 formation, necessarily fatal if let alone, but which may be remedied 
 by operation, even should that be dangerous, and experience show 
 that its results have been but rarely favourable, and much more so 
 should the congenital malformation, necessarily fatal if let alone, be 
 remediable by some simple procedure, such as a puncture through 
 the merely cuticular occlusion of the rectum, or through the prepuce. 
 Trousseau and Devergie most justly decidedly opposed this view. 
 Robert's example of congenital absence of the rectum, which has 
 been successfully remedied by the formation of an artificial anus in a 
 few rare cases, affords a most striking example of the practical un- 
 tenableness of his position ! The production of such views in court, 
 would open up at once the old contest about the so-called degrees of 
 lethality (vid. Spec. Div., § 2), would revive the question of acci- 
 dental lethality, and lead to vexatious discussions about proper and 
 improper medical treatment. In such a case the social position of 
 the parents, their ability to procure the best medical advice imme- 
 diately after the birth of the child, the skill and boldness of the 
 operator, the possibility of an efficient after treatment, &c, would all 
 conduce to establish a difference in the viability of the children of 
 rich and poor parents, of dwellers in the city, and of dwellers in the 
 country, &c, and all these points wculd be just so many sources of 
 dispute between the parties. For the same reasons it seems hazardous 
 to reckon, as some French authors do, as a third condition of non- 
 viability, such diseases as the child may bring into the world with it, 
 and which are mostly fatal. 
 
 According to most of the modern penal codes (except those of 
 Prussia and Wurtemberg), the murder of a child non-viable from 
 immaturity or fatal malformation is only accounted an attempt to 
 murder. The Prussian code does not recognise any non-viable 
 children, the word viable not being found in the statutes. And it 
 would thus at first sight appear that the medical jurist need not 
 trouble himself at the inspection with the criteria of viabibty. Bat 
 as, on the one hand, it is evident (§ 2.) that in certain conditions, 
 according to the authentic interpretation of the statutes concerned, 
 it may certainly be necessary for the attainment of the judicial object 
 to ascertain and determine the viability of the child; so on the other, 
 the civil code (as quoted) contains certain definitions respecting the 
 viability of a child, which may possibly require to be considered in- 
 
10 § 4. ON VIABILITY. 
 
 the course of the inquiry, though no likelihood of this may appear at 
 the time of the examination of the body. Now, as ever, therefore, 
 the criteria of viability must continue to form part of the medico- 
 legal inquiry in the case of the body of any new-born child. And 
 with reference to this, the presumed age of the foetus is certainly the 
 most important question. Congenital defects of so important a 
 character as of themselves to render a continuance of life impossible, 
 are of extremely rare occurrence, and are then so self-evident, that a 
 doubt as to their importance can scarcely arise. As regards the uterine 
 age of the foetus, the ancient medical strife about the limits of via- 
 bility has, fortunately, had statutory bounds set to it,* so that 
 discussions on that point have now only a scientific value, and are 
 no longer of practical utility to the medical jurist, who has now 
 solely to determine if the foetus have attained the legal terminus a 
 quo the viability commences. The period of 180 days (six calendar 
 months) fixed by the Rhenish statute book, although it have the 
 authority of the Hippocratic writings in its favour, is in no respect 
 so consonant .with nature as the period of 210 days (30 weeks or 7 
 
 * "We feel necessitated so far to expound the statutes : — If their object 
 be, as the lawyers have said, solely to determine the probable father of the 
 child, then it is not easy to see why the 210th day should have been pitched 
 upon and placed alongside of the 280th. That, however, the statutes 
 thereby intended to define that foetal age at which the child is fitted for a 
 separate existence, which is our opinion, is convincingly proved, amongst 
 other things, by the regulations of the obsolete Prussian penal code (General 
 Common Law, Part II., Tit. 20, §.958), according to which a "perfect," 
 that is, a "perfectly mature" child, and "a foetus which is already more 
 than 30 weeks old" (that is, more than 210 days) " are to be looked upon as 
 the same." In respect to the pointing out of such a terminus a quo from 
 which to reckon viability, the Roman law, with its 182 days (according to 
 Hippocrates), has long been in the van. How wisely the lawgivers have 
 acted in setting determinate bounds to the opinions of each individual 
 physician, will be acknowledged by every one at all acquainted with the 
 chaos of fabulous tales on this head extant in both old and new collections 
 and compendiums of Medical Jurisprudence. I need only now refer to the 
 well-known case of Fortunate Liceti, who attained the age of 79 years, and 
 is said by one author to have been born at four months and a-half, by 
 another at five, and by a third at six months, to have been at birth only a 
 span long, and to have been preserved, and, as it were, hatched in an oven, 
 as the Egyptians do chickens ! ! I am well acquainted with the few well- 
 authenticated and carefully observed cases, particularly the deservedly 
 famous one recorded by D'Outrepont. But these few soattered observations, 
 amid the great majority of cases, form rare exceptions, which but confirm 
 the rule. 
 
§ 5. OF MONSTERS. 11 
 
 calendar months), which epoch is distinctly marked by the disap- 
 pearance of the pupillary membrane, and by the descent of the 
 testicles, and has all experience in its favour. The task of the 
 (Prussian) medical jurist is therefore to ascertain and declare whether 
 the foetus have attained a uterine age of from 180 to 210 days 
 respectively.* 
 
 § 5. Op Monsters. 
 
 In the statutory regulation already quoted, reference is made to 
 the case of monsters, and the question may therefore be asked, is a 
 given foetus a monster ? But the answer to this, as to all similar 
 questions in legal medicine, must be made not so much in accordance 
 with the views of pathological anatomists as with the requirements 
 of the statutes and the object of the judicial inquiry; and we, 
 therefore, declare a monster to be a foetus with its organs so anor- 
 rnally formed that it is thereby rendered incapable of maintaining a 
 separate existence. Though ever so perfect in " human form and 
 appearance," a foetus born with atresia of the rectum must there- 
 fore be declared a monster (Common Law, as already quoted) . On 
 the other hand, pathological anatomists are accustomed to include 
 a mere surplus of fingers or toes among monstrosities, yet no one 
 would venture to deny " family or civil rights " to such a child, if 
 otherwise well-formed ; it could not therefore be legally pronounced a 
 monster. Moreover, the medical jurist has nothing to do with the 
 denial or the confirmation of rights, and the questions of this sort 
 that so often occurred in the olden practice of judicial medicine, such 
 as, whether baptism should be refused to a monster or no ? &c, 
 belong to the antiquities of the science. The physician has only 
 to answer the question, Is this foetus a monster ? and he will scarcely 
 find a more fitting definition than that given above, particularly if 
 he wishes to avoid losing himself amid the various theories of the 
 Pathologico- Anatomical Schools. "Whether the law and the judge 
 will desire to find a further distinction for their decision in the 
 answer to the question, has the fetus lived or not ? may be left to 
 themselves. 
 
 As now, according to this idea, a monster and a non- viable child are 
 almost synonymous terms, so we also find this view carried out in other 
 respects by the legislature in that of Baden and of Hesse, and even that 
 
 * On Viability, see Special Division, § 78 ; and on the Determination of 
 the Age of the Foetus, § 79. 
 
12 § 5. OF MONSTERS. 
 
 of Prussia, with its negative regulations. For example, our penal code 
 no more recognises a monster than it does an uuviable child. A 
 dead monster can, therefore,' according to the legal interpretation of 
 the term (§ 2.), be no more recognised as a "dead body" than a 
 foetus unviable from any other cause. We cannot avoid seeing, 
 however, why a difference should be made between the two. 
 
 Both the following cases of monstrosity have given rise to legal 
 examination. The first occurred while the old penal code remained 
 in force. The second is doubly instructive; first, as an example 
 of an extremely rare form of congenital monstrosity, and second, 
 because it affords a striking example of a new-born child being, in 
 spite of the most normal "human form and appearance," yet a 
 monster in the sense already explained. 
 
 Case I. — A Brainless Monster. 
 
 This case was that of a female anencephalous foetus. Absence of 
 the occipital bone allowed the cerebellum to hang down in its 
 membranes at the back of the head as a bloody tumour, the size of 
 a turkey-egg, in which, however, brain-matter was discernible. A 
 portion of brain pap lay in an anonnal cavity found by expansion, 
 of the first two cervical vertebrae. The shapeless head was deeply 
 sunk between the shoulders, the dermoid tissues covering the chin 
 adhered to those of the chest, so that a proper neck was absent. 
 There was also a spina bifida of the whole canal down to the sacrum, 
 and serous effusion into the thoracic cavity. 
 
 Case II. — Congenital Diaphragmatic Hernia. 
 
 This case was that of a remarkably well-formed and perfectly 
 mature male child, which had notoriously lived four hours, and 
 was supposed to have died of hemorrhage from neglect of the 
 midwife. Indeed, the linen covering the child was much stained 
 with blood, the whole body was of a waxy- white, and the lips pale. 
 Immediately on opening the thorax, the unusually deep position 
 of the diaphragm— between the eighth and ninth ribs,— attracted 
 attention. The right half of the diaphragm was then seen to 
 be deficient. In its centre, a triangular opening, bordered by a 
 white, almost cartilaginous rim, in which a part of the right 
 lobe of the liver lying in the thorax had got strangulated. With 
 
§ 5. OF MONSTERS. 13 
 
 the right lobe of the liver there lay also in the right thorax several 
 coils of the colon, which completely filled it,* these were empty, 
 but the rest of the gut lying in the abdomen was distended with 
 meconium. Behind these abdominal organs in the thorax, lay the 
 right lung, firm in texture, of a clear brown colour, and not larger 
 than a bean, affording proof of at how early a period of uterine 
 life the hernia had occurred. The liver, spleen, and ascending vena 
 cava contained a fair amount of blood, proving that no very con- 
 siderable haemorrhage could have occurred. The heart was remark- 
 ably flat and broad, empty of blood, but normal internally. 
 
 The accused midwife declared that the child was quite livid when 
 born, and looked as if it had been " dipped in indigo/' Of 
 course we gave as our opinion that the child was not "viable, and 
 had died from congenital malformation and not from hsemorrhage. 
 
 The results of the docimasia pulmonaris in this remarkable case 
 were extremely interesting. I have already described the condition 
 of the right lnng. The left lung was of a brown colour, marbled 
 with bright red. Both lungs and heart weighed only 1 oz. and 
 13'7 grains imp. ; without the heart they weighed but 6 drachms, 
 23 - 93 grains imp.; with the heart both lungs floated; separated 
 from it, the left floated perfectly, while the right sank under water 
 all but two little pieces. As might have been expected, incision of 
 the left lung alone was followed by escape of bloody froth and audible 
 crepitation.f 
 
 * Not only are cases of congenital diaphragmatic hernia extremely rare, 
 hut its occurrence on the right side is a still more infrequent occurrence. 
 
 f A precisely similar case of congenital diaphragmatic hernia on the left 
 side is related by Mecklenburg, in my Vierteljahrschrift, vii. s. 160. 
 
14 § 6. SUPPOSED PERIOD OF DEATH.— SURVIVORSHIP. 
 
 CHAPTEE II. 
 SUPPOSED PERIOD OF DEATH.— SURVIVORSHIP. 
 
 Statutory Regulations. 
 
 General Common Law. Part I., Tit. 1, § 39. If two or 
 more men lose their lives in a common mischance, or else so nearly 
 at one time that it cannot he ascertained which died first, it shall 
 be assumed that no one of them survived the others. 
 
 Civil Code. Art. 720. Where several persons, some of whom 
 are reciprocally the heirs of each other, perish by the same mischance, 
 so that it cannot be ascertained which died first, the survivorship is to 
 be determined by the circumstances of the case, and in default of these, 
 according to the vigour of the different ages and sexes. 
 
 Abt. 721. When those, who have perished together, were under fif- 
 teen years of age, the presumption is that the oldest was the longest 
 liver. When they were all above sixty, the presumption is that the 
 youngest was the longest liver. When some were under fifteen, and 
 others above sixty, the presumption is that the first lived longest. 
 
 Art. 722. When those who have perished together were fully 
 fifteen years of age, but were under sixty, the presumption is that the 
 male has been the survivor, provided the age has been similar, or that 
 the difference has not exceeded one year. If they were all of the 
 same sex the presumption is that the survivorship has been that usual 
 in the course of nature, viz., that the younger persons have survived 
 the older. 
 
 § 6. General Statement. 
 
 In discoursing on the object of the inspection, the question of 
 the probable time at which the death occurred has not usually been 
 touched on by most authors. Others refer to it only in relation to 
 the question of survivorship. This, however, is a great defect, as 
 every experienced medical jurist must often have felt. For it fre- 
 
§ 6. SUPPOSED PERIOD OF DEATH. 15 
 
 quently happens, that the presiding judge, at the termination of an 
 inspection, desires to know the probable time of the death? the 
 answer to this query being often, in the case of men long missing, 
 and then found dead, and in that of new-born children, of the 
 utmost importance. In a case of robbery attended by murder, an 
 old woman was the victim, and at the inquest, the traces of the 
 guilty perpetrator were, as often happens, quite obscure. She had 
 certainly been seen alive and in health on Saturday evening, and had 
 been found murdered early on Monday. Suspicion attached to 
 several men, some of whom were- in the habit of trafficking with 
 this lone-living woman in the evening,, and others early in the 
 morning, and it was important to ascertain, whether she had 
 been murdered late on Saturday night, on Sunday morning, or 
 on Sunday evening, in other words, at what time did her death 
 probably occur? In another case of robbery and murder, which 
 shall also be subsequently detailed, it was likewise important to 
 ascertain whether the deed had been done on Saturday, on Sunday, 
 or early on Monday morning, on which day the body was found. 
 For the chief suspicion rested on the house-servant of the deceased, 
 who had disappeared on Sunday, and who could not reasonably be 
 supposed to be the murderer, if the crime had been committed only 
 on Monday. Our decision as to the probable period of the death, 
 was shortly after confirmed by the confession of the murderer, the 
 house-servant referred to. Again, in two other similar cases, I had 
 not only to determine the day, but the very hour of the murder ! 
 To give yet one more instance, a young man suddenly disappeared 
 one night under most remarkable circumstances. After the most 
 wonderful reports of the nature of his death had been spread abroad, 
 a body, which to all appearance was his, was dragged from the water 
 three months subsequent to his disappearance. How long has this 
 body been in the water ? became then a most important question, 
 the answer to which was most essential for the settling of its still 
 doubtful identity, as in truth is often the case in respect of the 
 drowned. In like manner in the case of new-born children, especi- 
 ally when the examination has ascertained the fact of a violent death, 
 the determination by the medical jurist of the probable period of 
 death — which is likewise that of birth, may probably lead to traces of 
 the guilty mother. Though similar problems are of constant occur- 
 rence, and I myself could multiply manifold the number of instances, 
 yet the question of survivorship in respect to several persons found 
 
16 § 6. SURVIVORSHIP. 
 
 dead together is really one of uncommon rarity. I myself have only 
 once (cases 168-171) had to answer such a query, and the entire litera- 
 ture of the subject affords only a few isolated cases. Here there is a 
 free opening for the most arbitrary opinions, for seldom indeed can safe 
 grounds be found for any other. It is usually held (according to 
 the precedent of the Eoman Law, which has been followed by the 
 (Ehenish) Civil Code in its regulations, as well as by all the Italian 
 statute books, which are similar to the latter), that the age, sex, and 
 constitution, the various kinds of death, the positions in which the 
 dead are found, and the different stages of putrefaction in which the 
 bodies are discovered, afford sufficient grounds for correct judgment 
 on this head. But all these conditions are variable, and permit of no 
 certain conclusions being drawn from them; and if any general 
 dogma could be maintained on such a question, it would be this, 
 that there is in such cases no universally valid guide for the judg- 
 ment, but that each case must be decided according to its own 
 peculiar circumstances. If we suppose three men to be slain in the 
 same tumult, A. by a sabre-cut on the head, B. by a bayonet- thrust 
 in the heart, and C. by a gunshot-wound through the jugular vein, 
 no one would hesitate to declare, that in such a case, B. must have 
 died first, that C. must have borne his haemorrhage a little longer 
 ere he died, and that A. must have succumbed to his wound last of 
 all. But who shall decide, which of two or three men thrown into 
 the water at the same time, shall last have died ? A whole family 
 were consumed in a house burned to the ground, the father (a tailor), 
 his wife, and their three children. The whole five were partly 
 roasted, and partly charred. We were not asked to decide the 
 question of survivorship in respect to these five persons, but we were, 
 nevertheless, bound to be prepared to answer such a question. It 
 shows the wisdom of the statute books, therefore, from the Eoman 
 one down to the most recent, that for all such cases, in which it is 
 impossible to give a scientific opinion, they have given positive in- 
 junctions for the regulation of the judicial procedure. That, however, 
 the investigation of the medical jurist is not excluded by either of the 
 two statute books in force in Prussia, and, therefore, that the judge 
 must always in the first place have recourse to medical skill, is 
 shown by the following words in the passages quoted above from the 
 statutes : "that it cannot be ascertained," &c, so that in every case 
 an attempt at least to "ascertain," must be made. A comparison 
 of the relative advance of putrefaction in the different bodies is 
 
§ 7. SIGNS OF .DEATH. 17 
 
 indubitably the most trustworthy of all those criteria mentioned, and 
 as this forms also a most important element in determining the 
 answer to the general question, "When did this man die?" it is of 
 consequence to enter more at large upon it. 
 
 § 7. Signs of Death. 
 
 At the instant of death the organism commences to return to an 
 equilibrium vrith the outer world. It is dead. It speedily succumbs 
 to external influences. It putrefies. In a traditional anxiety to pre- 
 vent the confounding of apparent with real death, men have endea- 
 voured to discover ever newer and more " certain " signs of death. 
 Amongst the most recent of these, I need only mention Prank's state- 
 ment regarding the easy separability of the conjunctiva from the 
 cornea, Nasse's thanatometer, &c. But these are but scientific 
 curiosities. The usual well-known signs of death are amply sufficient 
 for all the purposes of diagnosis, and legal medicine might well be 
 proud had it as convincing an answer for every question. In order 
 to determine the actual period of death, it is necessary to con- 
 sider the sequence of the phenomena occurring between the extinc- 
 tion of life and the commencement of putrefaction ; these occur in 
 the following order : — 
 
 1. Respiration and circulation have completely ceased, and not 
 even the faintest murmur is heard on auscultation. 
 
 2. Immediately after death the eye loses its lustre. Who has 
 ever lifted the eyelid of any one just expired and not remarked 
 this peCuliar dull listless stare ? Of course, light has no longer any 
 action on the pupil, as, indeed, 
 
 3. No stimulus has now any power of producing a reaction. For 
 the present, I omit as irrelevant all reference to electrical experi- 
 ments j by-and-by, I shall have to relate my own remarkable ex- 
 perience of their action on dead bodies. 
 
 4. The whole body grows ashy-white. Persons with a particu- 
 larly florid complexion retain this often for days after death. The 
 red or livid edges of ulcers do not assume this deadly paleness ; 
 neither do red, black, or blue tattoo marks disappear, if not effaced 
 during life. Further, an icteric hue existing at death never becomes 
 white, and ecchymoses retain in every case the hue they had at time 
 of death — livid, or greenish-yellow, &c, as the case may be. 
 
 5. The animal heat possessed at the moment of death is retained 
 
18 § 7. SIGNS OF DEATH. 
 
 for some time, as the dermoid tissues are bad conductors. Fat 
 seems to be a peculiarly bad conductor, and very fat bodies retain 
 their heat, catena paribus, much longer than very lean ones. In 
 general, other circumstances also exert an influence on this gradual 
 cooling, particularly the temperature of the medium in which the 
 body lies, and the nature of the death it died. With regard to the 
 first of these, it is well known how rapidly bodies cool in water, 
 which in the hottest summer is always colder than the air. In cesspools, 
 dungheaps, and the like, bodies retain their heat proportionately 
 longer, from manifold causes, and the same is also the case with 
 bodies remaining covered in bed. With respect to the second — the 
 kind of death — it is said that those killed by lightning remain much 
 longer warm than others ; this I am uncertain about, as I have not 
 had the experience of one single case ; it is, however, quite certain, 
 that in like circumstances persons who have died from any kind of 
 suffocation, take a considerably longer time to cool than others. 
 In the case of an old and very fat woman who had been strangled, 
 we found, for example, some thirty hours after death, the body cold 
 indeed externally, but internally, in both thorax and abdomen, retain- 
 ing a degree of heat quite perceptible to all the by-standers. As a 
 general rule, consonant with experience, most bodies are quite cold 
 in from eight to twelve hours. 
 
 6. Immediately after death a general relaxation of the muscular 
 system occurs, the first token of the loss of the turgor vitalis, soon 
 to be followed by others. A body which only presents the 
 
 ABOVE SIGNS (1-6) MAY BE REGARDED AS THAT OF A MAN DEAD 
 EROM TEN TO TWELVE HOT7BS AT THE LONGEST. 
 
 7. A valuable evidence of the loss of the vital turgidity is 
 afforded by the soft or inelastic condition of the eyeball ; this is very 
 evident in every body after from twelve to eighteen hours, and may 
 sometimes be sooner felt. The living eyeball, from the tension of its 
 fluids, under all possible circumstances, even when dying, ill of 
 cholera, or the like, gives an elastic resistance to the pressure of the 
 finger, but by the time mentioned this has ceased, the eyeball feels 
 flaccid, and the longer after death the more buttery it becomes, till 
 in an early stage of putrescence it bursts and runs out. 
 
 8. The same cause— loss of vital turgidity— occasions the well- 
 known flattening of the muscles on those parts of the body on 
 which it lies, not only on the buttocks and calves, but also on 
 the flat side of the superior and inferior extremities, on the hips, 
 
§ 8. SIGNS OF DEATH.— EXTERNAL HYPOSTASES. 19 
 
 or fronts of the thighs, according to the position assumed in dying, 
 and maintained after death. 
 
 9. Hypostases result from the gravitation of the blood in the 
 capillaries in obedience to the laws of inert matter. We therefore 
 find them chiefly on the depending parts of the body, most 
 usually on the entire under surface of the body, the back, nates, 
 and calves; but also very frequently, and the longer the period 
 since death, so much the more probably, on the face, ears, sides of 
 the chest and extremities, for, as Engel has rightly pointed out, 
 there is also an upper and an under surface to all these parts. These 
 hypostases begin to form in from eight to twelve hours, and they 
 increase in extent and size till the commencement of putrefaction. 
 They are of themselves a sufficient evidence of the reality of death. 
 They are divided into external and internal hypostases. 
 
 § 8. Continuation of the Subject. — External Hypostases. 
 
 a. External hypostases, — subcutaneous hypostases, — post-mortem 
 stains, — are a most important post-mortem appearance, because 
 the inexperienced are liable to confound them with ecchymoses,* 
 and, consequently, with traces of violence committed previous 
 to death ; and, indeed, often enough do so confound them. 
 These are, however, very easily distinguished from one another 
 by comparing the results of incision in the parts discoloured ; 
 no incision into a post-mortem stain, be it ever so deep or bold, 
 will ever give vent to effused fluid or coagulated blood; at the 
 most, there will be but a few bloody points, the result of cutting 
 across some small veins in the skin, whilst in the smallest ecchy- 
 mosis the effused blood will at once be brought to light by the 
 incision. {Fid. Plate II., Pig. 2, for a representation of an incised 
 post-mortem stain.). As this simple proceeding affords an infallible 
 means, and there is no other, of distinguishing between post-mortem 
 stains and ecchymoses, so the medical jurist ought never to omit 
 solving his doubts by making an incision, and individual medical 
 referees or courts of reference are perfectly right, when this has 
 been omitted, to impugn the statements of those who examined the 
 
 * I may mention here that ecchymosis from violence is constantly termed 
 by Casper " sugillation ;" but as this term is often used to express what he 
 has more correctly called " hypostasis," I have avoided its use altogether, 
 as only liable to mislead. — Tkansl. 
 
20 § 8. SIGNS OF DEATH.— EXTERNAL HYPOSTASES. 
 
 body, with all their consequences. As proof of the great import- 
 ance this question may sometimes assume, I cannot refer to a 
 more instructive instance than that contained in the celebrated trial 
 of the murderer Schall.* Those medical men who had examined 
 the body had affirmed that "ecchymoses" existed on its superior 
 and inferior extremities, "as if the murdered person had been firmly 
 grasped by some one" by these parts. The defender of the accused, 
 who maintained his plea of not guilty in a most skilful manner, had 
 built his whole defence upon this statement, endeavouring to make 
 it appear that several persons must have assisted at the murder, and 
 that it could not have been committed by the prisoner alone. The 
 medical men who made the original examination of the body, had, 
 however, neglected to examine these so-called ecchymoses by inci- 
 sion, and I, therefore, as medical expert to whom the case 
 was referred by the jury court, was obliged to deny the correct- 
 ness of their conclusions, and to leave it still open to doubt 
 whether these so-called ecchymoses were not merely post-mortem 
 stains. This opinion was afterwards confirmed by the con- 
 fession of the murderer himself made at the time of execution ; for, 
 according to this, there had been no struggle which could eventually 
 have produced ecchymotic marks, neither had any second person 
 been present at the murder, but Schall himself had killed his enemy 
 by suddenly shooting him through the head. 
 
 The colour of these post-mortem stains varies from alivid or coppery- 
 red to a reddish-blue. They are never, as may be readily understood, 
 in the least degree elevated above the skin, but ecchymoses often 
 are so. Their form is extremely irregular, sometimes striped, round, 
 roundish, or angular, &c. At first, they appear in somewhat isolated 
 patches, the size of a walnut, an apple, a hand, or a dinner-plate ; 
 by-and-by they run together, and then cover whole regions of the 
 body, half of the back, or the whole back, and the like. Age, sex, 
 and constitution have no influence in their formation. They are 
 formed after every kind of death, even after death from hemorrhage. 
 Although Devergief thinks the reverse, and quotes one case in 
 favour of his views, yet, supported by my very extensive experience, I 
 must maintain my own opinion, which will certainly be found correct 
 in every case.f Devergie's single case is, moreover, so far irrelevant, 
 
 * Casper's Vierteljahrschrift, &c, i. s. 292 ; and Edinburgh Monthly 
 Journal, Sept. 1852, p. 311. 
 
 f Medec. Legale. Paris, 1835, i. p. 81 . 
 
 % Vide, among other cases subsequently related, Cases LXXV. and 
 
§ 9. SIGNS OF DEATH.— INTERNAL HYPOSTASES. 21 
 
 that no mention is made at what period after death (which resulted 
 from cutting the throat with a razor) the dissection was made, and 
 whether this did not take place during the time betwixt the death and 
 the period at which these hypostases are usually formed. It would 
 be also, a priori, difficult to perceive why these stains should not 
 form after death from haemorrhage, since that is far from draining 
 the body of all its blood, and, as we shall afterwards see, even in such 
 cases, internal hypostases indubitably do form. Engel thought 
 that these post-mortem stains could be made to disappear by incising 
 the depending portions of the body ; and although such an attempt 
 is not to be expected in any medico-legal case, yet I have several 
 times experimented on dead bodies with this view, and have found 
 that the stains became indeed smaller and paler, yet could never be 
 entirely made to disappear. 
 
 § 9. Continuation. — Internal Hypostases. 
 
 b. Internal hypostases occur, especially in the following organs : — 
 1, In the brain this condition is manifested in cases of congestion 
 of the cranial cavity by a still more marked congestion of the 
 veins of the pia mater of the posterior hemisphere, when the head 
 rests, as it usually does, on the occiput, and even in cases of anaemia 
 of this cavity this partial congestion is still perfectly visible. And 
 this hypostasis of the vein is never absent in cases of death from 
 haemorrhage, as many cases yet to be related will confirm ; and it 
 is important to remember this, lest a doubt should be raised as to 
 the occurrence of any death from haemorrhage from the quantity 
 of blood existing in these veins or in the posterior sinus. Whether, 
 when this hypostasis does not form soon after death, it can be made 
 to form by altering the position of the body, seems doubtful. At 
 least one experiment which I made on the body of a female poisoned 
 with sulphuric acid, by placing it with its head hanging down for four- 
 and-twenty hours, six days after death, was quite without result. 
 It is very important not to confound this daily-occurring pheno- 
 menon of cerebral hypostasis with cerebral hyperaemia (apoplexy), 
 
 CXXXVTI. In another case of suspected murder not related, and which 
 was found, on examination, to be a case of death from haemorrhage from 
 the vessels of the stomach, the body was so drained of blood, that even the 
 pulmonary artery and the vena cava were found perfectly empty ; and, never- 
 theless we found, on the second day after death, the whole of the back covered 
 with one unbroken stain, of an unusually deep coppery-red. 
 
22 § 10. SIGNS OF DEATH.— INTERNAL HYPOSTASES. 
 
 a most likely mistake, and one which inexperienced persons are 
 apt to commit, erroneously diagnosing death from an " apoplexy 
 which has no existence. {Fide Special Part, § 53.) The extremely 
 correct representation of such a hypostasis (Plate I., Pig. 1), will 
 help to make this description plain. 
 
 2. The most constant of all the internal hypostases is that of the 
 lungs. Orfila dates its orgin from twenty-four to twenty-six hours 
 after death ; but it arises at a much earlier period, viz., at that when 
 the blood begins to sink downwards in obedience to the laws of gravity. 
 The whole posterior surface of both lungs, about a fourth of the entire 
 parenchyma, is in all bodies (lying on their back) much darker 
 coloured than the rest, and betrays by incision, even in anaemic lungs, 
 a perceptible congestion. This is so striking as readily to deceive the 
 inexperienced, and lead them to an incorrect diagnosis of the cause 
 of death, as apoplexy of the lungs, pneumonia, &c, and this is 
 especially the case where the blood is generally dark-coloured, and 
 more or less pulmonary oedema is present, in which conditions one is 
 more apt to assume the results of the disease to be present, while, 
 after all, a post-mortem or cadaveric phenomenon is the whole that 
 exists. 
 
 § 10. Continuation. — Intebnal Hypostases. 
 
 3. Among the abdominal organs, hypostases chiefly occur in the 
 intestines, and, 
 
 4. In the kidneys. Those portions of the intestines lying in 
 the pelvis are most especially apt to be affected in this manner. 
 The livid-red coloration of the inferior surface of the intes- 
 tinal convolutions may also in this case mislead, and this post- 
 mortem appearance may be taken for the result of disease. But the 
 diagnosis is easy ; the convolutions only require to be pulled forward, 
 where the breaks which here and there interrupt the continuity of 
 the coloration, at once distinguish it from the redness of inflamma- 
 tion, which always stretches uninterruptedly over the part affected. 
 The hypostasis of the kidneys is specially confined (in bodies lying 
 on their back) to their posterior half, and can therefore be readily 
 distinguished from a general congestion of those organs. 
 
 5. The hypostasis of the spinal cord has been hitherto almost 
 entirely disregarded, and yet it is weU worthy of notice, from the 
 misconceptions to which it may lead. Its appearance when deve- 
 loped m the veins of the pia mater is all the more apt to be taken for 
 
§ 11. COAGULATION OF THE BLOOD AFTER DEATH. 23 
 
 the evidence of pre-existing meningitis, that, from the facts of the 
 difficulty of opening the spinal canal, and the rarity of its being 
 required in medico-legal dissections, the medical inspectors are 
 generally pardonably ignorant of what is to be seen, and are all the 
 more readily led to imagine the existence of an inflammation when 
 the case seems to point in that direction, when, for instance, 
 evidence of violent blows having been given on the back has been 
 made out. The best way to ascertain the correctness of these re- 
 marks is to take the first most suitable body, that has lain a few days 
 on its back, and examine it specially for these hypostases. A most 
 correct representation of the appearance described, will be found in 
 Kg. 1 of Plate X. of the Atlas. 
 
 § 11. Continuation. — Coagulation of the Blood after Death. 
 
 6. The heart is not subject to the occurrence of hypostasis in it ; 
 on the contrary, it is distinguished above every other organ or blood- 
 vessel by the occurrence in it of the so-called cardiac polypi, which 
 are known to every medical man, though he may have only dissected 
 a few bodies in his own private practice. This phenomenon is of 
 important significance in the forensic diagnosis of the dead, and we 
 shall most conveniently discuss it here. It is well-known that the 
 "cardiac polypi" are nothing else than the coagulated fibrine of the 
 blood, either pure and colourless, or more or less stained with its 
 colouring-matter, are consequently only coagulated blood. This 
 coagulation is not to be supposed to take place before death. In the 
 case of a prolonged agony, such may be the case ; and these polypi may 
 sometimes form in jhe interval between life and death; but certainly 
 in most cases they are formed after death, during the gradual cooling 
 of the body. When we thus see that the blood may coagulate after 
 death, in other words, that dead blood may coagulate, it is not easy 
 to understand how the existence of coagulated blood in and upon a 
 wound in a dead body can lead with any certainty to the conclusion, 
 that such an injury must have been inflicted during life, " because 
 blood cannot coagulate after death!" This is but one of the many 
 erroneous opinions which have obtained currency in forensic medi- 
 cine by its being left in the hands of pure theorists ; so, for example, 
 Henke* quotes this "coagulation of the effused blood in ecchy- 
 mosis," as a sign that the violence which produced it must have been 
 * Handbuch, s. 570. 
 
24 § 11. COAGULATION OF THE BLOOD AFTER DEATH. 
 
 inflicted during "life/' and when we consider the great estimation in 
 which Henke was so long held as an authority in this department^ 
 we cannot wonder that even medical boards of inquiry, as I weE 
 know, should still maintain the opinion, that coagulations of blood 
 found in the body must have been formed during life ! But older 
 anatomists and forensic practitioners have already rightly maintained 
 an opposite opinion, and whoever has himself examined many bodies 
 cannot for one instant doubt the truth of it. Engel* most correctly 
 says, " I do not believe that there is any disease or kind of death, in 
 which the blood does not coagulate in the dead body ; it may happen 
 in any one case that the blood is not coagulated, but there are 
 always other cases of the same disease or kind of death in which the 
 blood is coagulated." Bock t indeed fixes a time (about four hours) 
 after death, where he supposes the coagulation of the blood to 
 begin. We may add to these testimonies, the actual and frequent 
 occurrence of coagulation of the blood in the bodies of still-born 
 children. I do not mean only the daily phenomenon of effused and 
 coagulated blood in the meshes of the cellular tissue beneath the 
 scalp, but the most incontrovertible coagulation in internal organs. 
 
 A seven-months' foetus was medico-legally dissected, because of 
 supposed cranial injuries, which were not, however, confirmed. The 
 application of the hydrostatic test conclusively proved that the 
 child had been dead-born. Nevertheless, we found that most rare 
 phenomenon in new-born children, coagulated blood in the sinuses of 
 the much-congested cranial cavity. Moreover, the lungs were in the 
 most unique manner besprinkled with ' subpleural capillary ecchy- 
 moses (Fid. Spec. Div., §§ 40-83), which alsoHpeckled the heart 
 like a tiger-skin. One would think, that facts qf daily occurrence, 
 such as the coagulation of dead blood after venesection, the coagula. 
 tion of the drops of blood escaping from the dead body, and the like, 
 should long ere this have sufficed to quash this serious error ! 
 Experiment, however, also supports observation. Briicke has proved 
 that the access of air to the blood, which cannot indeed take 
 place in the body, does not contribute materially to the coagulation 
 of the blood ; and also, that the most careful exclusion of the air can- 
 not maintain the blood fluid. But the blood after death must, 
 nevertheless, coagulate according to laws we know nothing about. 
 It is, for instance certain, as many of the following cases show, that 
 
 * Darstellung der Leiohenerscheimmgen. Wien, 1854, s. 156. 
 ( t Geriohtl. Seotionen, u.s.w. 4 Auflag. Leipzig, 1852, s. 19. 
 
§ 11, COAGULATION OF THE BLOOD AFTER DEATH. 25 
 
 after some kinds of death, in which permanent fluidity of the blood 
 is supposed to be characteristic, such as the various kinds of suffoca- 
 tion, cases not unfrequently occur in which the blood is found more 
 or less coagulated, and also, what appears wholly inexplicable, that 
 in certain organs and vessels this coagulation seems preferably to 
 occur, not only in the heart, particularly in the right ventricle, but 
 also, for instance, in the inferior vena cava, the liver, &c. (Fid. Case 
 CCCIX). The thesis,^ then, that coagulated blood in the 
 
 NEIGHBOURHOOD OR INTERIOR OF A WOUND IS A PROOF OF LIVING 
 ACTION, BECAUSE AFTER DEATH THE BLOOD NO LONGER COAGULATES, 
 IS INCORRECT, AND EVERY DEDUCTION FROM IT ERRONEOUS. And 
 
 the following interesting cases are given as proof of the opposite view. 
 
 Cash III. — Rupture of the Heart. — Effusion of Blood. 
 
 A woman, aged 59, was instantly killed by being run over by a 
 carriage. The body was of a waxy-white, and so far seemed to jus- 
 tify the supposition of internal haemorrhage, although externally no 
 trace of violence was visible. On examining, by incision, the post- 
 mortem, stains on the back, a considerable quantity of extravasated 
 blood was discovered extending over half of the back to beyond the 
 nates, and this blood was partly fluid and partly coagulated. There 
 were no fractures of the spinal column nor of the pelvis, but the 
 cause of death was found to be a rupture of the heart. The right 
 auricle was separated from the ventricle by a jagged tear, only re- 
 maining attached to it by a small strip of muscle. The substance of 
 the heart was neither softened nor atrophied, but perfectly healthy. 
 The pericardium was distended with blood, partly fluid and partly 
 coagulated, i.e., there were coagula floating in the fluid blood. The 
 brain was quite bloodless, all but the hypostatic congestion of the 
 posterior veins. The lungs were moderately, and the liver somewhat 
 strongly, congested with blood. 
 
 Case IV. — Gunshot-Wound of the Left Ventricle of the 
 Heart. — Coagulation of the Blood. 
 
 A workman, aged 30, shot himself in the breast ; the ball pene- 
 trated close above the fifth rib, and tore away the entire apex of the 
 left ventricle. The whole of the left pleural cavity was distended 
 with blood, and we scooped the coagula in whole potfuls from among 
 
26 § 11. COAGULATION OF THE BLOOD AFTER DEATH. 
 
 the fluid blood. I think no one will doubt, that in this case, in 
 which death must have been instantaneous, the blood could only 
 coagulate after death, and the following direct experiment is just as 
 convincing. 
 
 Case V. — Injury to the Head Inflicted after Death, with 
 
 SUBSEQUENT COAGULATION OF THE BLOOD EFFUSED. 
 
 We have already made, and still follow out, various experi- 
 ments on the dead body in relation to wounds on the head (Fid. 
 Special Division, § 6), employing for that purpose the common solid 
 ■wooden block, used to support the head and backbone. On one 
 occasion, we inflicted several powerful blows with this instrument 
 on the perfectly uninjured head of a drowned person, three days 
 after death, and the next day (thirty hours subsequently) the body 
 was examined. The most interesting part of the record on examina- 
 tion for our present inquiry runs, word for word, as follows : — 
 
 "7. On the upper edge of the right ear there is a lacerated 
 wound, a quarter of an inch long, with jagged bloodless edges. 
 
 " 8. About the centre of the right parietal bone there is a contused 
 wound, one inch in length, with obtusely lacerated edges, at the 
 bottom of which there is some fluid blood. A precisely similar 
 wound is situate over the occipital bone, and the greater part of the 
 bottom of this wound over the pericranium is covered with a 
 coagulum one line in thickness/' Consequently, the blood in this 
 case must indubitably have coagulated three days after death. The 
 rest of the blood of this drowned person was remarkably fluid. 
 
 Case VI. — Coagulation of the Blood Four Days after 
 
 Death. 
 
 An even more remarkable occurrence took place in the case of a 
 person poisoned by carbonic acid gas, whom we examined on a 
 very cold day in January, four days after death. The body had 
 lain in a cold place appointed for exhibiting the dead (Morgue) 
 till the examination took place. In opening the thorax and re- 
 moving the larynx and trachea, some blood accidentally escaped 
 over the neck and left shoulder, and coagulated on the body, 
 which was extremely cold, and that so quickly, that before the 
 
§ 11. COAGULATION OF THE BLOOD AFTER DEATH. 27 
 
 end of the dissection it could be lifted up on the handle of the 
 scalpel as a true coagulum. 
 
 The following cases also belong to this category : — 
 
 Case VII. — Coagulated Blood in a Still-born Child. 
 
 This male foundling was already, when discovered, blackish-grey 
 on the head and green on the rest of the body, from putrefaction. 
 The lungs were, however, very well preserved. They were of a clear 
 brown colour, and did not quite fill the cavity of the chest. The 
 hydrostatic test correctly employed showed that the child had 
 been still-born, and yet the umbilical cord was distended with 
 coagulated blood, — another proof how little value is to be placed 
 on the criterion of ecchymosis as proof of the child having 
 breathed. 
 
 Case VIII. — A Similar Case. 
 
 The external appearance of this newly-born foetus indicated that 
 it had not attained to the thirtieth week of uterine life, for the nails 
 and cartilage of the ears were still soft, the length was only sixteen 
 inches, and the weight only three pounds and a-half, &c. The appli- 
 cation of the hydrostatic test would not have been necessary had not 
 the law expressly ordered it ; it however proved with certainty that 
 the child had never breathed either before or after birth, as there 
 was not the slightest indication that could lead to a suspicion 
 of respiration having occurred. Nevertheless, on the occiput, 
 there was an extravasation of coagulated blood, the size of a 
 dollar. The mass of the brain was much congested with blood, 
 but the individual portions of it could not be more narrowly in- 
 spected on account of putrefactive softening. 
 
 Case IX. — A Similar Case. 
 
 An eight-months' female child, still attached to the placenta, was 
 found dead in a churchyard. On testing the lungs hydrostatically, 
 every portion of them sank completely under water, and on being 
 cut into no crepitation took place, and no bloody froth escaped, 
 affording thus indubitable evidence that no life (respiration) had in 
 this case existed, either before or after the completion of the birth. 
 And yet there was in the middle of the forehead a circular, reddish- 
 
28 
 
 § 12. SIGNS OF DEATH.— CADAVERIC RIGIDITY. 
 
 brown spot, the size of a shilling, soft when cut, and beneath it in the 
 subcutaneous cellular tissue a true ecchymosis of coagulated blood* 
 
 § 12. Continuation. — Cadaveric Eigidity. 
 
 10. Cadaveric rigidity is the concluding indication of the earliest 
 stage of death, and one which in every case precedes the commence- 
 ment of putrefaction. This rigidity consists, as is well known, in a 
 shortening and thickening of certain muscles, particularly the flexors 
 and adductors of the extremities, inclusive of the fingers, and of the 
 elevators of the lower jaw, whereby they become firm and hard to 
 the feel, and impart to the corpse a somewhat athletic appearance, 
 as Devergie has correctly remarked. It passes from above down- 
 wards, begins on the back of the neck and lower jaw, passes then 
 into the facial muscles, the front of the neck, the chest, the 
 upper extremities, and, last of all, the lower extremities. Usually, 
 it passes off in the same order, and once gone it never returns, und 
 the body becomes as flexible as it formerly was. Cadaveric rigidity 
 may come on at any period after death during a tolerably wide inter- 
 val of time, in general, however, between eight, ten, and twenty 
 hours, and it may continue much longer than is usually supposed, 
 viz., from one to nine days. In spite of my numerous observations 
 on bodies drowned, I cannot confirm Sommer'st opinion that in 
 bodies lying in fresh water it may last fourteen or more days. The 
 most recent and excellent investigations of Briicke, Ed. "Weber, 
 Stannius, Kolliker, Brown-Sequard, Maschka, Kussmaul, Pelikan, 
 &c, do not agree in regard to their views of the ultimate nature of 
 this process". Even a repetition of the same experiments does not 
 always lead to the same result. "We know not whether the old idea, 
 revived by Brucke, of the coagulation of the fibrinous nutritive 
 material within the muscle, or the death of the nerves in the muscle 
 (Stannius), or that of a peculiar molecular change of the muscles 
 (Kolliker), &c, is the correct one. There is, therefore, nothing for 
 it in the meantime,— and this is, moreover, sufficient for the practical 
 purposes of legal medicine,— but to continue to make observations 
 
 * Among the cases in §§ 33 and 41 of the General Division, and §§ 8 and 
 15 of the Special Division, will also be found abundant other evidence to 
 prove the post-mortem coagulation of the blood. 
 
 t DLs. de signis mortem hominis, &c, indicantibus. Havniee, 1833, quoted 
 by Kussmaul; iiber die Todtenstarre in d. Prager Vierteljahrschr 1856 
 50 Bd. s. 67, &c. 
 
§ 12. SIGNS OF DEATH.— CADAVERIC RIGIDITY. 29 
 
 on the occurrence of this rigor in the body under the most various 
 circumstances in which it takes place, either more readily or with 
 greater difficulty. It seems quite established that this rigidity 
 either does not occur after narcotic poisoning, or is then of so 
 short a duration that at the usual time when such bodies are received 
 by the medical jurist for examination, no trace of it is to be found. 
 "Whether this rigor mortis occurs after death from lightning, as has 
 been both maintained and contested, my own experience does not 
 permit me to decide. I have never observed cadaveric stiffening in 
 the immature foetus. Since, however, this phenomenon has been 
 observed by others, particularly in Maternity Hospitals, even in such 
 foetuses, — though, as they themselves confess, it is always in such 
 cases only feeble and transitory,* — so, though we cannot positively 
 deny its occurrence in such foetuses, yet it is non-existent so far as 
 the medico-legal dissecting-table is concerned, since these bodies 
 never come so early to it. Even in the case of mature new-born 
 infants and little children, the cadaveric rigidity is feeble and transi- 
 tory. That this is also the case in old people as some have supposed 
 (Sommer), I not only cannot confirm but can prove the contrary. 
 That the rigor mortis does not take place at all, or only late, or 
 in a transitory manner in cases of death from any kind of suffoca- 
 tion, is an erroneous though oft-quoted opinion ; for, as the collec- 
 tion of cases in the special division following will show, we have 
 never observed any difference in this respect between such bodies and 
 those who had died from other causes. Whether in cases of death 
 from cramp or acute diseases, the rigor mortis comes on suddenly 
 and goes off as quickly, and whether after sudden death in healthy 
 persons, and after death from exposure to cold, it comes on more 
 slowly, and lasts longer, &c, are all theoretical opinions, and require 
 confirmation all the more that there is the widest difference respect- 
 ing them in different authors. A low temperature and the existence 
 of alcoholization indubitably favour the long duration of the cada- 
 veric stiffening. In one case in which death occurred suddenly 
 from cerebral haemorrhage during intoxication, I have observed the 
 rigor mortis persisting on the fourth day ; in a second case, in which 
 the man, while drunk, hanged himself, it was still present on the 
 seventh day ; in a third, a man shot, in winter, still on the sixth 
 day ; in a fourth case, that of a young waiter, who had gone to bed 
 in apparent health, and had died during the night from an apoplexy 
 * Schwarz, die vorzeitige Athembewegungen. Leipzig, 1858. 
 
30 § 13. SIGNS OF DEATH.— PROCESS OF PUTREFACTION. 
 
 of the heart, and was found dead in bed in the morning (in December), 
 the rigor mortis was quite discernible on the inferior extremities so 
 late as the eighth day after death ; and in the case of a man who 
 died suddenly while intoxicated, from congestion of the lungs (in 
 November), the rigor mortis was still perceptible on the ninth day 
 (Case CCXVIII). In cases where the cadaveric rigidity is unusually 
 persistent, it is not uncommon to find it co-existing with putrefactive 
 discoloration of the body ; advanced putrefaction does not therefore 
 necessarily abrogate this condition. It seems certain that this 
 rigor never fails to occur in every corpse, and the popular idea, 
 grounded on thousands of unprejudiced observations, that the body 
 must be washed and dressed as quickly as possible before it stiffen, 
 seems worthy of all consideration. The stiffness of a frozen body 
 can never be confounded with the rigor mortis, for a frozen body is 
 from head to foot stiff as a board, while in cadaveric rigidity the 
 extremities, particularly at the elbow and knee-joints, always preserve 
 a certain amount of mobility. A Body, therefore, that only 
 
 PRESENTS THE ABOVE-MENTIONED (1-10) SIGNS, MAY BE PRESUMED 
 TO BE THAT OP A PERSON WHO HAS DIED WITHIN FROM TWO TO THREE 
 
 DAYS AT THE LONGEST. 
 
 § 13. The Process op Putrefaction. 
 
 In order to determine the probable period of death, it is of course 
 necessary both to know and also to estimate correctly the various 
 stages of putrefaction. But difficulties now for the first time begin 
 to accumulate. For if on the one hand, we find it not easy ade- 
 quately to describe, in words intelligible to the inexperienced, the 
 changes which the dead body gradually undergoes in respect to the 
 colour and consistence of its organs ; so on the other, we know that 
 the circumstances, which influence the putrefactive process, and 
 variously modify it as regards acceleration and protraction, are so 
 numerous as to demand the utmost caution in endeavouring to 
 establish any fixed rule in relation to it. And, therefore, Orfila 
 scarcely exaggerates when he asserts, that to ask a medical man to 
 determine the probable period of death of a putrefied corpse, is to 
 require what is wholly " beyond the power of man ;" but when we 
 learn, as Devergie did from his subalterns, the watchers of the dead 
 in the Morgue at Paris, and as I have frequent occasion to observe 
 in mine in the institution here, that wholly uneducated men acquire 
 
§ 14. CONDITIONS WHICH MODIFY PUTREFACTION. 31 
 
 by mere practice perfectly accurate general notions on this head, we 
 see it must be possible to attain this object yet more certainly by 
 scientific means. Only these must be as far as possible arranged 
 under definite heads, and the whole matter as much as may be 
 simplified, lest those generalities which constitute the rule be lost in 
 the chaos of a thousand multiplicities — for, strictly speaking, is not 
 one putrified corpse, seen under generally similar circumstances, just 
 like another ! 
 
 The few recent authors, Orfila, Lesueur, Guntz, and Devergie,* 
 who have related their own experience in this matter, are not free 
 from this objection. Whoever has been engaged in similar repulsive 
 and troublesome investigations will readily recognise the value and 
 truthfulness of the individual observations of these men, and will 
 prize them accordingly; but their communications are of no real 
 practical value to the medical jurist, partly from being overlaid by 
 too many and too minute details, and partly from the absence of a 
 correct generalization and classification of the phenomena observed. 
 I shall now endeavour to obviate the difficulties inherent in this sub- 
 ject, so far as its nature permits, restricting myself as far as possible 
 to my own personal experience, and regarding solely practical 
 utility. 
 
 § 14. Subjective ok Internal Conditions which Modify the 
 Putrefactive Process. 
 
 The conditions which modify the putrefactive process in so mani- 
 fold a manner, accelerating it in the one case, and retarding it in the 
 other, so that the corpse A, can acquire in 24-36 hours precisely the 
 same appearance as the corpse B in from three to four weeks, are 
 either inherent in the individual, or arise from external causes, not 
 forgetting, of course, that putrefaction itself can only originate in the 
 access of external influences, for recent flesh hermetically sealed 
 does not putrefy. 
 . The progress of putrefaction is specially modified by : — 
 
 1. The Age. — I admit the fact, asserted by all authors, that the 
 bodies of new-born children putrefy, ceteris paribus, more rapidly than 
 
 * Orfila and Lesueur, Handbuch zum Grebrauch bei Grerichtlichen Aus- 
 grabungen. Aus d. Franz, von GHintz, 2 Bde. Leipzig, 1832-35. Giintz, 
 Der Leichnam des Neugebornen, Leipzig, 1827 (rich in antiquarian lite- 
 rature). Devergie, Med. Leg. i. p. 88-253. 
 
32 § 14. CONDITIONS WHICH MODIFY PUTREFACTION. 
 
 others. But I must qualify this admission by the statement of another 
 fact which I have not hitherto seen prominently brought forward, 
 viz., that the bodies of such new-born children as become the objects 
 of medico-legal observation are, from the very nature of the matter, 
 almost without exception, those that have been subjected to one 
 influence additional to those usually incident to the corpses of those 
 of maturer age, for immediately "after birth they have been exposed, 
 flung into the water, a dungheap, or a privy, naked, or at the most 
 wrapped in a few rags, and are found in this state, whilst the bodies 
 of those of maturer age found naked belong almost exclusively to 
 drowned persons. Clothing, hdWever, exercises a most material 
 influence in retarding the putrefaction of a corpse (Fid. ~§ 15). The 
 bodies of very aged people certainly yield more slowly to the advances 
 of putrefaction, but this indubitably depends in some measure on 
 their natural condition (Fid. No. 3). 
 
 2. I cannot allow that sex of itself has any influence in this 
 matter. The "more lymphatic constitution" of the female is in 
 respect to this a purely theoretical assumption. I have, however, 
 always found that the bodies of women, dying immediately after, or 
 during childbirth, do putrefy, c. p., extremely rapidly, whatever the 
 cause of death may have been. 
 
 3. The condition of the body exercises a most unequivocal influ- 
 ence in this matter. Pat, flabby, and lymphatic corpses putrefy, c. p., 
 much more rapidly than lean and juiceless ones, for an abundance of 
 fluids is very favourable to the occurrence of decomposition. - As 
 the bodies of aged people usually present the latter condition, this 
 is probably the reason why they keep so much longer fresh. 
 
 4. The hind of death very materially modifies the course of the 
 putrefactive process. This commences, c. p., much later after sudden 
 death in healthy persons, than after death from exhausting diseases 
 combined with putridity of the fluids, as typhus, dropsy consecutive 
 to organic disease, tuberculosis, putrid fevers and the like.— Bodies; 
 which have been much injured or mutilated, as those of persons 
 killed by repeated acts of violence, by many incised wounds, by me- 
 chamcal injuries on railroads, &c, putrefy very rapidly ; those only 
 excepted who-have been overwhelmed by the fall of walls, &c, and who 
 lie dead, buried beneath a mass of joisting, rubbish, or sand, so that 
 the air has less direct access to their bodies. Persons suffocated in 
 smoke, carbonic oxide, and sulphuretted hydrogen gas, putrefy, c. p., 
 rapidly; whether this also occurs in the case of perons suffocated by 
 
§ 14. CONDITIONS WHICH MODIFY PUTREFACTION. 33 
 
 other irrespirable gases, I have had no personal opportunity of 
 ascertaining. It is, however, certain that after death from narcotic 
 poisoning, putrefaction is also relatively much accelerated. This, 
 however, is far from being the case after death from other poisons, 
 and in particular it is not found to occur in that form of poisoning, 
 which has quite recently been practically introduced to our notice, 
 poisoning by phosphorus. In alcoholic blood-poisoning, such as 
 exists where drunkards die apoplectic during a debauch, I have fre- 
 quently found the body to remain fresh a most disproportionate time ; 
 in the cavities of such corpses the smell of alcohol is usually distinctly 
 perceptible {Fid. Cases CCXVI.-CCXX.). In this case, the whole 
 body is as it were preserved in spirits. It is, finally, deserving of 
 notice, that in cases of poisoning by sulphuric acid (which so often 
 come before us in Prussia), the putrefactive process is decidedly re- 
 tarded, probably because the presence of the acid in the body hinders 
 the development of ammonia, or perhaps, because the ammonia 
 formed during decomposition is immediately neutralised by it. It is 
 by no means rare to find the bodies of persons poisoned by sul- 
 phuric acid perfectly fresh and devoid of smell, even after opening 
 their cavities, at a period after death when, under different circum- 
 stances, this would certainly not have been the case. After poisoning 
 by arsenic, putrefaction ensues according to the usual laws, but, as is 
 well known, a subsequent pause takes place, after which the process 
 of mummification commences — but we will return to this by-and-by 
 (Fid. Special Division, §42). Though all these causes have indeed 
 a general validity, it is, nevertheless, certain that subjective condi- 
 tions must exist, of which as yet we know nothing, which are capable 
 of accelerating or retarding putrefaction. The following observa- 
 tion is extremely instructive and demonstrative of the truth of this. 
 On the 20th of March, 181<8, I examined the bodies of fourteen 
 men, almost all of the same age, 24-30 years, previously occupying 
 precisely the same social position (workmen of the lowest class), all 
 tying together in the same part of our deadhouse, who had all met 
 the same death, having been shot on the barricades on the 18th of 
 March," and had all notoriously died at the same time. Here there 
 certainly existed those identical conditions so necessary for insti- 
 tuting a comparison, and yet I can testify that in no one case did the 
 signs of putrefaction resemble those of another. Another remark- 
 able instance was afforded by the bodies of an old couple of about 
 the same age, 50-60 years, suffocated during the night by carbonic 
 
 D 
 
34 § 15. CONDITIONS WHICH MODIFY PUTREFACTION. 
 
 oxide gas. Up to the time of our examination, these bodies had 
 been exposed to precisely similar influences, and yet (on the fourth 
 day after death, in November) the body of the man was quite green 
 both on the abdomen and the back, and the trachea was brownish- 
 red from putridity, &c, while his uncommonly fat wife was perfectly 
 fresh both outside and in. It is evident, that any little difference in 
 the times of their respective deaths could have had no proportionate 
 effect here, as it could not have amounted to more than a few hours 
 at the longest. 
 
 § 15. Objective or External Conditions which Modify the 
 Putrefactive Process. — a. Air. 
 
 The external conditions which accelerate or retard putrescence have 
 a more decided action than the internal ones, or at least their action 
 is better known. These active agents are — atmospheric air, moisture, 
 and warmth. If to these, light and electricity are sometimes added, 
 we must remember on the one hand, that both of these agents have 
 been already included as co-operating with the atmosphere, and 
 on the other,- that their action in this respect is still too hypo- 
 thetical. 
 
 1. Whatever favours or prevents the access of atmospheric air to 
 dead animal (or vegetable) substances promotes or impedes then- 
 putrescence. Therefore, bodies lying (or hanging) in the open air, 
 rot, c. p., much more rapidly than those buried in the earth, or even 
 than those lying in the water (drowned); corpses that are not at all, 
 or only lightly clothed, putrefy more rapidly than those that are 
 clothed, and particularly, than those that are clothed with tight- 
 fitting or almost impermeable stuffs. It is quite a usual thing, in 
 the case of men taken out of the water perfectly clad, to find the legs 
 covered by the boots quite fresh, while the cuticle on the rest of the 
 body is already raised in blisters or peeled off. The body of a very 
 crooked tailor, who had hanged himself, showed already evident traces 
 of putrefaction everywhere but on the thorax, which was in marked 
 contrast to the rest, just because the deceased had girt himself with a 
 tight-fitting spencer of stout ticking, well-stuffed on the side opposite 
 to his hump, and probably worn with the view of concealing it ! 
 The nature of the soil has also considerable influence in preventing 
 or promoting the access of the air, and according as that is loose and 
 porous, as sand, or firm and compact, as clay, so do the bodies buried 
 
§ 16. CONDITIONS WHICH MODIFY PUTREFACTION. 35 
 
 in it putrefy more or less easily; but here we encounter another 
 agent, viz., moisture, which may equalise the conditions, or even turn 
 the scale in the opposite direction, and whose share in the matter, 
 so far as it is affected by the nature of the soil, is truly important. 
 Sandy or chalky soils are, for instance, dryer, and turfy or clayey 
 soils moister. The same cause, the easy or more difficult access of 
 the air, occasions bodies buried near the surface, as those of new- 
 born children often are, to putrefy faster than those more deeply 
 interred. And finally, for this same reason, the coverings surrounding 
 the body in the earth are important objects of consideration, and of 
 this Orfila (op. cit.) gives numerous proofs. "We all know how rapidly 
 the common pinewood shells fall to pieces, and their inmates with 
 them, and for how uncommonly long a time the pristine great ones 
 of the earth remain comparatively unconsumed within their coffins of 
 hard wood, of zinc, or of stone, or indeed in an encasement of all 
 three. Inversely, bodies buried in the earth quite naked putrefy very 
 rapidly. 
 
 § 16. Continuation. — b. Moistuee. 
 
 2. Without water and watery vapour no decomposition can take 
 place. But the body has sufficient water in itself to supply ample 
 material for this. It gradually vaporizes and bursts in time the 
 external coverings, particularly those of the abdomen, but also those 
 covering the thorax, and at last, even the skullbones, and the body 
 macerates in its own fluids. Long before this, maggots and larvae 
 are found on its surface, at first only in the folds of the skin, about 
 the eyelids, the ears, the pudendal region, and the groins, till they 
 increase to myriads, and of themselves complete the entire destruc- 
 tion of the soft parts. But the greater the quantity of moisture in 
 addition to its own, which can and does reach the body from without, 
 so much the more rapidly does it putrefy, and vice versa. And 
 this is indubitably the reason why bodies found in the water pu- 
 - trefy so much faster than those in the earth. The same cause also, 
 with the co-operation of the third agent, warmth, favours the un- 
 commonly rapid putrescence of bodies found in dungheaps and 
 cesspools (Fid. Case XV,). When, on the other hand, putrefaction 
 takes place under circumstances of great drought, the body dries up 
 and becomes mummified. 
 
 d2 
 
36 § 17. CONDITIONS WHICH MODIFY PUTREFACTION. 
 
 § 17. Continuation. — c. Waemth. 
 
 , 3. An. increased temperature of itself, by evaporating the natural 
 moisture of the body, acts much more energetically than the mere 
 absence of external humidity in producing the direct opposite of 
 -putrescence, the desiccation of the corpse, or even its roasting or 
 charring, as we see in the cases of death from burning. But increased 
 temperature, when its action is combined with that of the other two 
 agents already mentioned, air and moisture, favours putrescence in 
 «xaet proportion to its degree. Every one knows how much more 
 rapidly bodies putrefy in summer than in winter. At a temperature 
 of +16° to 20 Q E. (68 l? — 77°P.)» T iave frequently seen bodies, in 
 a perfect state of preservation one day, become by the next almost, and 
 in twenty-four hours more, perfectly unfit for dissection; whilst under 
 precisely similar circumstances, e.g., kept in the same deadhouse at a 
 temperature of— 5 Q to 6° or 8° K. (20°-75, 18°-5, or 14° P.) in win- 
 ter — this is by no means the case, even after a lapse of ten or twelve 
 days. Should the body belying in water, the influence of a difference 
 of temperature is even more remarkable. A corpse frozen in water 
 or moist earth, may remain perfectly fresh for so long a time that 
 thousands of years is no exaggerated term to apply to it, — a fact well 
 evinced by the preservation of the soft parts (partly, indeed, con- 
 verted into adipocire) of a mammoth, dug up in Siberia, which 
 I myself have seen in the University Museum at Moscow. A corpse 
 which has been ten or twelve days in water during winter, at a tem- 
 perature of +2° to 6° R. (36 p -5, 45°-5 I 1 .), may be so well preserved 
 as still to present all the signs of death from suffocation, which are often 
 no longer evident after it has remained only from five to seven days in 
 water in summer, at a temperature of +18° to20°R. (72°-5,77° F.). 
 In regard to this, however, there is still another item to consider. We 
 know that the temperature beneath the surface of the water is always 
 lower than at or near its surface, upon which alone the heating 
 power of the sun's rays is expended, hence it happens that putres- 
 cence proceeds with more or less rapidity according as the body has 
 lain near the surface of the water or been sunk in its depths, by 
 heavy stones attached to it, or by being entangled among piles, &c. 
 All these circumstances require to be considered, — and the medical 
 jurist will be able easily to ascertain them, even though he should 
 not, as is seldom the case, have been present at the finding of the 
 
§ 18. RATIO OF PUTRESCENCE ACCORDING TO MEDIA. Zl 
 
 body,— if it be required to determine the probable period of the 
 death from the amount of putrefaction present. But in respect to 
 this, we must also remember that bodies taken out of the water and 
 exposed to the air putrefy with extraordinary rapidity, so much so, 
 that one day of such exposure works a greater change than three 
 or four days longer retention in the water would have produced. 
 Whether the mere change of medium be the cause of this, or 
 whether any other agents have a share in it, I do not pretend to 
 determine. Further, as in the water so also in the earth, and for the 
 same reasons, a higher or lower temperature affects the rapidity of 
 putrescence, and from this cause (as well as for the reason already 
 stated, § 15), bodies buried near the surface putrefy, c. p., more 
 rapidly than those more deeply interred. 
 
 § 18. Comparison op the Phenomena of Putrescence according 
 to the Media. 
 
 It is extremely perplexing to the practitioner to have the different 
 stages of putrefaction separately described, according to the different 
 media in which the body may happen to be, as has been done by the 
 chief authorities on this subject, Orfila, Devergie, and Guntz, this 
 being all the more superfluous that the phenomena and course of 
 putrescence is in every case the same, only modified as to its rate, and 
 that not only by the media, but also by all the three qualifying cir- 
 cumstances already (§ 15 — 17) detailed. It seems, therefore, more 
 expedient to establish a general ratio for all the three media, air, 
 water, and earth, along with which may be reckoned, in individual 
 cases, the influence of the above-mentioned co-operating agents, and 
 deductions in the one case, or additions in the other, made accord- 
 ingly. However difficult it may seem to fix such a general ratio as 
 may assist the judgment in this manner, yet my own experience 
 would lead me to conclude the following proportion to be not far 
 from the exact truth : — At a tolerably similar average temperature, 
 the degree of putrefaction present in a tody after lying in the open 
 air for one week {month) corresponds to that found in a body after 
 lying in the water for two weeks {months'), or after lying in the earth 
 in the usual manner for eight weeks {or months) . Three bodies will 
 therefore exhibit, cat. par., nearly the same degree of putrescence, of 
 which A, shall have been lying in the open field for one month ; B, 
 in the water for two months, and C, eight months buried in a 
 
38 § 19. CHRONOLOGY OF PUTRESCENCE.— EXTERNALLY. 
 
 coffin in the usual manner. Any very important error will be 
 avoided by attending to this ratio, with the requisite attention to 
 the modifying circumstances involved in each individual case. 
 
 §19. Chronological Succession of the Phenomena oe Pu- 
 trescence. — Externally. 
 
 The largest proportion of the bodies that find their way to the 
 medico-legal dissecting-table are such as have been lying in the open 
 air, and we take these, therefore, as the type from which to describe 
 the progress of putrescence. 
 
 1. The first sign — in point of time — is the well-known greenish 
 coloration of the abdominal coverings (the exception to this rule in 
 the case of drowned persons will be considered afterwards (Fid. 
 Special Division, § 48), and along with this the peculiar odour of 
 putrescence becomes developed. According to the degree of tempera- 
 ture, and the different subjective conditions (§ 14), this discoloration 
 may take place in from 24-72 hours after death. 
 
 2. Within the same period the eyeball becomes soft, yielding to 
 the pressure of the finger. 
 
 3. After 3-5 days, reckoning from the period of death, the green 
 coloration has become deeper, and spread over the entire abdomen, 
 inclusive of the external genitals, on which, however, the colour is of 
 a brownish-green or dirty appearance. In the case of many bodies, 
 particularly such as have been asphyxiated, a bloody frothy fluid 
 wells from the mouth and nose. At the same time, but with great 
 topical irregularity, large or small patches of green begin to make 
 their appearance on other parts, particularly on the back, the inferior 
 extremities, the neck, and the sides of the chest. 
 
 4. In about eight or ten days the discoloration, along with which 
 the peculiar odour is developed pari passu, has become darker and 
 more generally spread over the body by the confluence of the isolated 
 patches. On particular parts, such as the face, and down the neck 
 as far as the chest, the colour is now a reddish-green, from the shining 
 through of the decomposed blood, now effused into the cellular tissue. 
 The gaseous products of decomposition have now begun to be 
 developed and to distend the abdomen; they are usually, but not 
 always, combustible gases, such as sulphuretted and phosphuretted 
 hydrogen, and a tolerably long flame may be produced by making a 
 small puncture through the inflated abdominal coverings, and apply- 
 
§ 19. CHRONOLOGY OF PUTRESCENCE.— EXTERNALLY. 39 
 
 ing a light to the escaping gases. The cornea has fallen in and 
 become concave, the colour of the eyes is still recognisable, but the 
 open condition of the pupil in immature embryos cannot now be 
 determined in every case. The sphincter ani is relaxed. On certain 
 parts of the body, particularly on the extremities, neck and breast, 
 the cuticular veins wind like dirty-red cords amid patches of paler 
 skin. The nails are still firm. 
 
 5. Fourteen to twenty days after death, the hues of putrescence 
 have spread uniformly over the entire body, which is now bright (frog) 
 green and blood-red brown. The epidermis is raised here and there 
 in blisters the size of a walnut, and in other parts, patches of it, the 
 size of a dinner-plate or larger, are quite stripped off. Innumerable 
 maggots cover the body, affecting chiefly the folds of the skin and 
 the natural outlets. The development of gas has now increased to 
 such an extent, that not only does the abdomen seem like a huge 
 mound, and the thorax artificially inflated, but even the whole of 
 the cellular tissue is blown up, so that the body has a gigantic 
 appearance, the features are of course thereby completely masked, so 
 that the recognition of the body is almost impossible, even by those 
 who were well acquainted with its former appearance, as we may 
 well imagine, when we think what a change in the physiognomy is 
 produced by the eyelids, lips, nose and cheeks, being all greatly 
 swollen. The colour of the eyes is also no longer distinguishable, for 
 the eyeball, in which iris and pupil are no more visible, is in all 
 such bodies, without exception, of a uniform dirty-red colour over the 
 whole of the sclerotic. In men, tine penis is now quite shapeless and 
 swollen to a colossal size, the scrotum discoloured like the rest of the 
 body may attain the size of a child's-head. The nails and their 
 roots are detached and he loose and easily separable. The hair of 
 the head is loose, and easily pulled out. The occurrence of this 
 advanced stage of decomposition is very decidedly influenced by the 
 temperature of the air, so that if we compare the two extremes of 
 + 16° to 20° E. (68°— 77° P.) in summer, and to + 8° E. 
 (32° — 50° I\) in winter, we shall find that the former will produce 
 as much change in 8-10 days, as the latter case in from 20-30 days. 
 In this stage the whole body, as already mentioned, swarms with 
 maggots, and if it has lain in the open air or water, it is by no means 
 unusual to find that other animals have been devouring it. These 
 are (chiefly) land and water rats, and also dogs, cats, birds of prey, 
 foxes and wolves. Our river-fish do not attack dead bodies. Traces 
 
40 § 19. CHRONOLOGY OF PUTRESCENCE.— EXTERNALLY. 
 
 of this voracity are found on the thorax and abdomen that are often 
 enough eat into, or on the extremities, whole patches of which are 
 often eaten down to the very bone. Openings into the cavities, and 
 specially injuries to the soft parts that have thus arisen, can with a 
 little attention be readily distinguished from traumatic lesions. From 
 such a condition of the body as we have here described, it may with 
 some degree of certainty be concluded, that according to the varying 
 temperature and medium it must have been at least so long dead as we 
 have already indicated, but not that this has been the longest period 
 that could have elapsed subsequent to the death, for this stage of 
 putrescence is distinguished from the eariier ones, in that it may 
 continue for a long time, many weeks or even months, passing then 
 gradually into the next stage. Bodies green from putridity, blown 
 
 UP AND EXCORIATED, AT THE EXPIRY OF ONE MONTH, OR FROM THREE 
 TO FIVE MONTHS AFTER DEATH {GMT. PAR.), CANNOT WITH ANY CER- 
 TAINTY BE DISTINGUISHED FROM ONE ANOTHER. 
 
 6. The stage of colliquative putrefaction commences ordinarily in 
 from four to six months, or sooner in the case of bodies that have 
 lain in warm and moist media. The continuous development of gas 
 has burst the coverings and exposed the cavities of both thorax and 
 abdomen. Even the sutures of the skull have yielded to the pressure 
 and are burst, the brain run out; the orbital cavities are empty, 
 all the soft parts have commenced to break down into a soft 
 pulp, or are partly, and so much the more the later the period, 
 already broken down, absorbed and vanished, leaving entire bones 
 bare and exposed, particularly those of the skull and extremities. 
 The bones of the extremities are also now often separated at the 
 joints by the destruction of the fasciae and ligaments. No trace of 
 a physiognomy is any longer discernible. The existence of female 
 breasts can no longer be determined, and as the external parts of 
 generation have already disappeared, the doubtful sex of the deceased 
 can only be ascertained from the external habitus, where the pubic 
 hair or its mode of growth can be distinguished, which is not 
 seldom the case; a strict limitation of this to the mons veneris, 
 denoting, as is well known, the female sex, while its prolongation 
 upwards to the navel denotes the male sex. But, besides this, 
 the sex of any such unrecognisable corpse can also be deter- 
 mined by ascertaining whether a uterus be present or no (Fid 
 Cases XIY.—XYI.)* V ' 
 
 - With respect to the peculiarities attending the putrefaction of drowned 
 
§ 20. CHRONOLOGY OF PUTRESCENCE.— SAPONIFICATION. 41 
 
 § 20. Continuation. — Saponification. 
 
 When moisture acts continuously on a putrefying corpse, whether 
 it be lying in water, or only in very damp soil, then, and in such cir- 
 cumstances alone, the progress of colliquative putrefaction is checked, 
 and this check takes place the more readily the fatter the corpse is, 
 wherefore the bodies of children are more apt to become saponified 
 than those of grown-up persons. Under certain conditions, which, 
 with the exception of the two already mentioned, are wholly unknown, 
 many bodies, but by no means all, now undergo a process of saponi- 
 fication, the fatty acids combining with the ammonia and forming 
 the peculiar compound known by the name of adipocire* It is 
 difficult to determine even in a general manner, when this process of 
 saponification commences. There is no doubt that the grave-diggers 
 of the churchyard of the Innocents at Paris, where first observations 
 on the great scale were made on the formation of adipocire (Four- 
 croy), were greatly in error when they supposed a period of thirty 
 years to be necessary for it. It is formed within a much shorter 
 period, where it is formed at all. Devergief considers that one year 
 is required to saponify the entire body of a drowned person, and 
 about three years if the body be buried. Besides the following case 
 (XXX.) of partial saponification occurring within a few weeks, my 
 own experience can supply the case of a new-born child, rolled up 
 in coarse packsheet, and buried for thirteen months in a garden with 
 very damp soil, and which was already saponified to the extent of 
 one-third of its whole body ( Vid. Case XIV.) ; and also a more re- 
 cent one, in which the remains of a foetus were found imbedded in 
 adipocire, and which foetus was proved to have been buried in a garden 
 exactly six months and three-quarters. The formation of adipocire is 
 not, therefore, likely to occur to any considerable extent in less than 
 three to four months in water, or one half-year in moist earth, though 
 its commencement may be found at a much earlier period, and, once 
 formed, it is easily recognised even by the most inexperienced. Adipo- 
 cire is a fatty substance, pure white in colour, or of a feebly -yellowish 
 
 persons, vid. Special Division, Chap. vi. ; Death from Suffocation, § 58 ; and 
 on the Putrefaction of the Embryo in utero, § 104. 
 
 * For the theory of the formation of adipocire I refer to Orflla, op. cit. i. 
 p. 328; and for its chemical examination, vid. "Wetherell, Archiv. der 
 Pharmacie, 1857, Feb., s. 203. t Op. cit., i. 97. 
 
42 §§ 20, 21. SAPONIFICATION.— MUMMIFICATION. 
 
 tint, extensile between the fingers, cutting soft, and melting at a 
 flame, having a dull cheese-like, and by no means disagreable, odour. 
 The muscular tissue, with its tendons and their sheaths, is the first 
 to undergo this change, but there is no organ or tissue, internal or 
 external, which may not be so transformed. Every part so altered 
 becomes a shapeless mass, in which the original structure can be no 
 longer discerned. According to the experiments of Guntz,* the 
 completely formed adipocire of a corpse has a greater volume than 
 all the fat pre-existing in the body. This circumstance must be 
 carefully considered in determining the weight of a body of a new- 
 born child for the purpose of ascertaining its age, and this all the 
 more that such bodies, when disinterred, are, at any rate, always 
 heavier than they ought to be, from the adhering soil, which it is im- 
 possible to . remove. I have never seen a whole body completely 
 changed to adipocire, and can therefore but confirm Devergie's re- 
 marks on this head.f 
 
 § 21. Continuation. — Mummification. 
 
 In so far as the mere preservation of the body for an indefinite 
 time is concerned, it may not be inappropriate to assume, as some 
 do, J a fatty and a dry mummification. But inasmuch as the "fatty 
 mummification," or saponification, is not only a chemical process, 
 but also one sensibly peculiar, and quite different from the 
 true mummification, so these two transformations ought to be kept 
 perfectly separate, though both have been found co-existing in the 
 same body (Case XXVI.). The term mummification is familiarly 
 used to express that remarkable desiccation of the body, whereby all 
 the soft parts are retained, and therefore in general not only the 
 form but even the features, distorted indeed, are preserved, and 
 assume a rusty-brown colour. The skin of such a body is dry and 
 parchment-like, and cleaves closely to the bones. The odour 
 resembles that of old cheese more than that of a putrefied corpse. 
 The internal organs have partly disappeared, and are partly meta- 
 morphosed into a dark-brown dry substance, not recognisable by 
 the unaided eye as an organic substance, and particularly in the 
 
 * Op. tit. p. 38. 
 
 t Fcr examples of the formation of- adipocire, see Cases XIV., XV., 
 XXVI., XXIX., XXX., cccxx. 
 X Siebenhaar, Eneyo. Handbuch der ger. Arzneik. Leipzig. 1838, i. s. 474. 
 
§ 21. CHRONOLOGY OF PUTRESCENCE.— MUMMIFICATION. 43 
 
 abdomen the several parts are so blended together, as to be with 
 difficulty separately distinguished. Toussaint has partly executed 
 and partly collected various microscopic and chemical analyses.* 
 That such a change can be artificially produced in the dead body by 
 injections of arsenical solutions or various methods of embalming 
 was known to the Egyptians long ago. We know but little of the 
 process of natural mummification, and the necessary conditions for 
 its production. It may happen to bodies placed in vaults continually 
 exposed to a drying wind, as can be seen in a body that for about 
 sixty years has lain at Charlottenburg, near Berlin, in an open vault, 
 closed only by an iron lattice-work, which is completely mummified 
 and well preserved ; and also to others completely shut off from the 
 air and buried in leaden coffins, and the like.f It seems not to be 
 doubtful that bodies in hot dry sand readily become mummified, and 
 the tales of whole caravans overwhelmed in the sandy deserts of 
 Arabia and found -in later times as mummies are not unworthy of 
 credence, since very high temperature, especially when combined with 
 very great dryness, appear to favour the process of mummification, be- 
 cause these influences, as well as a constant atmospheric draught, cause 
 a rapid evaporation of the watery constituents of the body. The bodies 
 of children are said to mummify more rapidly than those of adults, the 
 bodies of females more rapidly than those of males, and lean bodies 
 more rapidly than fat ones. In respect of the influence of the mode 
 of life of the deceased, Eieke, J who maintains that natural mummies 
 occur even in the churchyards of Stuttgard, declares that he has 
 heard the grave-diggers there make the same humorous remark 
 which has been put into the mouth of one of their fraternity in the 
 well-known scene in Hamlet, Act V. Scene I., — "a tanner will 
 last you nine year ;" but to establish this we must wait for more 
 trustworthy evidence than can be obtained from grave-diggers. It 
 is certain, however, that, once completed, a mummy may last for 
 thousands of years. There could therefore be, in cases of exigency, 
 but little probability of determining the period elapsed since the 
 death of albody found mummified, since the general, though perfectly 
 inexpugnable declaration, that the death must at least have occurred 
 
 * Vid. Casper's Vierteljahrschr. fur ger. u. off. Med. 1857, xi. s. 203, &o. 
 
 t Prof. Demaria, the editor of the Italian translation of this Handbook, 
 asserts that the mummification of bodies is a common occurrence in various 
 parts of Piedmont, and he quotes several examples. 
 
 X Ueber den Einfluss der Verwesungsdiinste, u.s.w. Stuttg. 1840. 
 
44 § 22. CHRONOLOGY OF PUTRESCENCE.— INTERNALLY. 
 
 long ago, could only in the rarest cases be sufficient for the investi- 
 gator. For the medical jurist the only cases of practical importance 
 are those of mummification of the umbilical cord in new-born 
 children, and the mummification occurring in bodies after poisoning 
 by arsenic, and we will revert to both of these subjects further on. 
 (Fid. §§ 34 and 99, Special Division.) 
 
 § 22. Chronological Succession of the Phenomena of 
 Putrescence. — Internally. 
 
 The internal organs of the body never, under any circumstances, 
 yield with uniformity to the putrefactive process. Their extremely 
 different histological structure,- the different amount of blood and 
 other fluids contained in them, their superficial or more deep-seated 
 situation, the greater or less imbibition of fluids by them in accordance 
 with the laws of gravity, and finally, the possibility of the access of 
 atmospheric air to them, now easier, and now more difficult, are 
 rather the occasion of the most remarkable differences in this respect. 
 There are organs that require twenty to thirty times as long a period 
 as others to putrefy completely, and the chronology of the putrefac- 
 tion of the individual internal organs is therefore not only as certain, 
 but affords even a surer support to the judgment in determining the 
 probable period of death than the study of the stages of putrefaction 
 on the external surface of the body. My own long series of obser- 
 vations of bodies in every stage, quite independent of the opinions 
 of others who have also made a study of this subject (Bichat, Orfila, 
 Devergie, Giintz, Hebreard), enables me to lay down the following 
 dogmata as authentic : — 
 
 1. The internal organ that first becomes changed by putrefaction 
 is the trachea, inclusive of the larynx. In perfectly recent bodies, or 
 such as only begin to show isolated green stains upon the abdomen, 
 the mucous membrane of the trachea in its whole course down to the 
 bronchi, still remains of a deadly paleness, presupposing that the death 
 has not occurred from suffocation or laryngitis. So soon, however, 
 as putrefaction has progressed beyond this, — and mostly in such 
 bodies as, though otherwise externally well-preserved, yet present 
 over the abdomen one continuous green hue, consequently, in summer, 
 after three to five, and in winter after six to eight days, while, as 
 yet, no other internal organ presents any visible sign of putridity or 
 alteration from its natural state,— we find the mucous membrane of 
 
§ 22. CHRONOLOGY OF PUTRESCENCE—INTERNALLY. 45 
 
 the trachea already discoloured, of a uniform dirty-cherry or brown- 
 red, without any vascular injection, for it does not exist, being re- 
 cognisable even by a magnifying-glass in this discoloration. Whether 
 imbibition, or the immediate access of the external air is the cause of 
 this coloration, must be held as yet undetermined. The inexperienced 
 must be careful to avoid mistaking this simple and early occurring 
 post-mortem phenomenon for capillary injection and the result of 
 suffocation, or death by drowning. A comparison of the illustrations 
 (Plate IX., Kg. 19, and Plate VIII., Pig. 23), whereof the former 
 represents the putrefying trachea after a natural death, and the latter, 
 the trachea of a person who has been hanged, may render the 
 diagnosis easier. Difference in age, constitution, and kind of death, 
 occasion in this respect no difference whatever. In the further pro- 
 gress of putrescence, the tracheal mucous membrane becomes ohve- 
 green, the cartilages separate from one another, but months pass 
 away ere they disappear in a process of general dissolution.* 
 
 2. The brain of new-born children, and of children up to the end 
 of the first year, follows next in the order of early putrescence. Pro- 
 
 * I have carefully examined, too, many hundred bodies, with special 
 reference to this condition, without finding one exception, not to be able to 
 .assert, that in fit cases other conclusions may be drawn from this early 
 putrefaction of the trachea than the mere determining the period of death. 
 An instance of this is afforded by the following case, referred for ultimate 
 decision to the Scientific Commission for Medical Affairs : — The dissector of 
 this case of doubtful suffooation had neglected to examine the condition of 
 the internal surface of the trachea, and its possible contents. The Commis- 
 sion could not, therefore, declare the supposition of death from suffocation 
 on the part of the medical jurist, to be justified, and made good their 
 reasons in the judgment given. In consequence of this, the public prosecu- 
 tor was necessitated to require a supplementary explanation from the medical 
 inspector respecting this point. A long time having elapsed since the 
 dissection, the inspector now added from memory to the protocol that the 
 trachea and larynx were empty, and their mucous membrane pale. The 
 protocol made at the time of the inspection stated, however, that the body 
 when dissected was in an advanced stage of putrefaction ; and in the sup- 
 plementary opinion required from us, we were compelled distinctly to de- 
 clare that the memory of the inspector must in this case be at fault, as our 
 experience, which we have here related, led us to the conclusion, that in a 
 body already in an advanced stage of putrefaction, the trachea was never 
 found unaffected by the putrefactive process, but rather that this organ was 
 that in which evidence of putrescence would be earliest found. This case, 
 therefore, remained undecided, and shows that this is no idle question, but 
 one of distinct practical importance. 
 
46 § 22. CHRONOLOGY OF PUTRESCENCE.— INTERNALLY. 
 
 bably the natural soft condition of this organ in early childhood 
 favours its early destruction, aided indubitably by the easy access 
 which the atmospheric air obtains to it through the fontanelles, as yet 
 only closed by a tendinous-like expansion. And this explains why 
 such juvenile brains putrefy so much sooner than those of adults, 
 which are not only of much firmer consistence, but are protected 
 from atmospheric influences by a continuous covering of bone. It 
 is certain, that while all the other organs are yet entire, and the 
 hues of decomposition are only visible externally, the brain of such 
 young children is already destroyed : it no longer fills the cranial 
 cavity, and is transformed into a more or less fluid, rose-coloured 
 pulp, which at once flows out on removing the cranial bones, and no 
 longer permits any examination of its different parts, — a circumstance 
 which may prove very prejudicial in attempting to determine the 
 actual cause of death in dubious cases of new-born children. 
 
 3. There is no organ of the body that after death is found in such 
 various conditions as the stomach. In form it is sometimes small, 
 and sometimes large, now distended with gas, now collapsed, at one 
 time half or wholly filled with the remains of food of every kind, at 
 another empty ; no one stomach ever resembles another. Moreover, 
 the coats of the stomach are very readily stained with colouring- 
 matter, so that its mucous membrane displays every possible variety' 
 of hue, yellow from bile, bloody, blackish from medicines or dark 
 juices of fruit, &c, ruddy from red wine, &c, leaving entirely out of 
 view the various pathological alterations, produced by catarrh, in- 
 flammation, corrosive poisons, and also the post-mortem process of 
 gelatinous softening. The stomach putrefies at a very early period. 
 The first traces of putrefaction appear in from four to six days after 
 death, in the form of isolated patches in the fundus of a dirty-washed 
 red hue, not circumscribed, quite irregular, and either small, or of a 
 size that may amount to that of the palm of the hand, through the 
 red basis of which a few livid venous cords are usually seen to 
 wind. All these appearances are first seen on the posterior wall, 
 where hypostasis assists their formation; but speedily, thereafter, they 
 appear on the anterior wall (Fid. the illustrations, Plate IV., Kgs. 
 9 and 10, which represent such a stomach true to nature, and give 
 an idea of the general appearance of this discoloration). Similar livid 
 venous cords are also found simultaneously upon its lesser curvature. 
 In doubtful cases of poisoning, it is most important to recognise and 
 duly to consider this alteration, in order to prevent being hurried 
 
§ 22. CHRONOLOGY OF PUTRESCENCE.— INTERNALLY. 47 
 
 iato any premature conclusion. These stains, described by not a few- 
 authors as blood-stains, or as "traces of inflammation" (!), which 
 have been assumed to be signs of death from suffocation in persons 
 hanged or drowned, are in truth nothing else than what we have 
 described as the earliest signs of the commencement of putrefac- 
 tion. The more this progresses, the more the stomach becomes 
 discoloured from a dirty-red to a blackish-grey, and in like propor- 
 tion its coats become softened, but uniformly through them all. In 
 not one case have I ever seen a separation (excoriation) of the 
 mucous from the muscular coat, as it occurs from the action of cor- 
 rosive poisons, and which is not to be confounded with the simple 
 emphysematous separation of the mucous coat, purely the result of 
 putrefaction* 
 
 4. The intestines follow the stomach next in the chronological 
 succession of putrefaction, and all that has been said respecting the 
 stomach has equal reference to them.f The well-known bilious 
 staining of the parts of the intestine contiguous to the gall-bladder 
 caused by exosmosis, can never mislead any one who has made even 
 only a few post-mortem examinations. But the hypostatic coloration 
 of the intestinal convolutions, which occurs early, and is specially 
 remarkable when those convolutions lying in the pelvis are drawn 
 forwards, is much more apt to mislead the inexperienced (Fid. § 11). 
 In the progress of putrefaction, the intestines become dark-brown in 
 
 * I refer to this expressly, because, in an important case brought for 
 ultimate decision before the Scientific Commission, the doubtful question of 
 arsenical poisoning was unjustly disputed, and the separation of the mucous 
 membrane of the stomach in the dead body attributed to the effect of putre- 
 faction. 
 
 t I remember no case in which (uninjured) intestines have been found 
 earlier putrefied than the stomach; and the following important case is 
 sufficient proof how indispensable and practically important a thorough 
 knowledge of the chronological succession of the phenomena of putrescence 
 is for the medical jurist : — In a case of suspected poisoning with vinum 
 colchici, which occurred in the western portion of the (Prussian) monarchy, 
 the medical man who examined the body had assumed the existence of 
 "inflammation and gangrene of the stomach,'' and, expressly, did not refer 
 "the dusky-red coloration and lacerability of the coats of the stomach" to 
 the otherwise indubitably proved putrescent condition of the body, " because 
 the rest of the intestines had not yet commenced to putrefy." This supposed 
 "gangrene" occasioned the protraction of this case through all the three 
 technical courts, and the erroneous opinion of the medical inspector was 
 finally rectified by the decision of the Scientific Commission. 
 
48 § 22. CHRONOLOGY OF PUTRESCENCE.— INTERNALLY. 
 
 colour, they burst and discharge their contents, become greasy, and 
 finally, transformed to a dark pultaceous mass. Orfda thinks he has 
 found in disinterred bodies some portions of the intestinal tube still 
 existing, even where no trace of the thoracic organs was any longer 
 discoverable. I suspect there must have been some mistake in this, 
 such as may very readily occur in examining the organs of bodies 
 exhumed at an advanced period. 
 
 5. In most cases, the spleen is preserved to a later period than 
 the stomach and intestines, though in some cases it putrefies sooner 
 than they do, — a circumstance which doubtless depends on its more 
 or less healthy condition. It certainly belongs to the category of 
 organs which are easily affected. It becomes soft, and the longer, 
 the more pulpy, is easily crushed, and when further advanced in 
 putrefaction, becomes of a greenish-steel colour, and so soft that it 
 can be scraped down with the knife-handle. 
 
 6. The omentum and mesentery withstand putrefaction much 
 longer than the organs already mentioned. They may, indeed, if 
 free from fat, be found well preserved even several weeks after death, 
 but, if they be loaded with fat, they putrefy at an early period. They 
 become then greyish-green and dry. These organs cannot easily be 
 the source of errors or mistakes. 
 
 7. The liver is usually compact and firm, even some weeks after 
 death. In new-born children it begins to putrefy at an earlier 
 period than in adults. Putrefaction commences on its convex sur- 
 face, which appears as if shot with green, and this colour at a later 
 period occupies the whole organ, which becomes at length coal- 
 black. In like measure its sanguineous contents diminish, as of 
 course is the case in all the organs, by evaporation, and the paren- 
 chyma becomes more and more pultaceous. The denser tissues of 
 the gall-bladder are, on the contrary, long recognisable, only the 
 bladder collapses, when it contains no gall-stones, partly from the 
 exosmosis and partly from the evaporation of the bile. 
 
 8. The brain of the adult follows next in the succession of putre- 
 fying organs. Immediately after death the brain collapses, and this 
 collapse increases the more the putrefaction advances. Singularly 
 enough, the first traces of this are found not on the surface, but on 
 the basis of the cerebrum as a bright-green coloration, which pro- 
 gresses from below upwards, and spreads gradually through the 
 whole brain. Its progress being distinctly traceable from the grey 
 into the white matter. In from two to three weeks (of medium 
 
§ 22. CHRONOLOGY OF PUTRESCENCE INTERNALLY. 49 
 
 temperature) the brain becomes soft, but months pass away before the 
 adult brain is transformed into that reddish pap into which the brain 
 of new-born children is so early changed (page 45). A wounded 
 brain, however, like all other wounded organs, putrefies much more 
 rapidly from the easier access of the atmosphere, a circumstance that 
 may interfere with the accuracy of the investigation in cases of 
 penetrating wounds of the head. Those organs hitherto enumerated 
 belong to the first series — viz., those that putrefy early. To the 
 second series, those that putrefy late, belong first of all, 
 
 9. The heart. — When stomach, intestines, liver, &c, have been 
 for weeks visibly far gone in putrefaction, this dense and firm hollow 
 muscle is still fresh and all its parts recognisable, though somewhat 
 flat and shrivelled, mostly empty of blood, or containing only some 
 greasy dregs thereof. It at last, however, gradually softens, first 
 the trabecules, and then the walls, becomes soft and greenish, 
 passing into greyish-green, and finally black. The small quantity of 
 pericardial fluid is evaporated by the time the heart's putrefaction 
 has progressed . to any extent, leaving the pericardium quite dry. 
 Several months, however, elapse before the heart displays this 
 condition of advanced putridity. 
 
 10. In the lungs, the work of decomposition begins about the 
 same time as in the heart, sometimes earlier. In bodies that dis- 
 play externally a high degree of putrescence, looking as if soaked in 
 green, with peeling of the cuticle, &c, the lungs are often found so 
 well preserved, that their structure is perfectly discernible, though 
 the amount of blood they contained may be no longer ascertainable. 
 This incontestible fact affords a most important rejoinder to the 
 objections of theorists (Henke and his followers), to the sufficiency of 
 the hydrostatic test of respiration. For when the lungs of a new- 
 born child, whose body is yet fresh, or shows at most but the 
 earliest trace of putrefaction, as a green abdomen, swim on the sur- 
 face of the water, Theory at the desk may say, that they swim 
 because the gaseous products of decomposition are developed within 
 them, and render them specifically lighter than water ; but Practice at 
 the dissecting-table says, that the lungs never putrefy at so early a 
 period; and that the cases where — relatively to other and earlier 
 putrefying organs — they begin to putrefy at an early period after 
 death, belong to the rarest exceptions. Moreover, putrescence in 
 the lungs is practically unmistakable. Its first traces are the apr 
 pearance of gaseous bullae, from the size of a millet-seed to that of 
 
 E 
 
50 § 22. EARLY PUTRESCENCE OF THE LUNGS. 
 
 a bean under the pleura, which are so readily recognised as to afford 
 the most simple diagnostic evidence of putridity, and so to make 
 the floating of the lungs from this cause a matter of easy discrimina- 
 tion. These bullse are at first isolated, and are situated on various 
 parts of the lungs. Afterwards they increase in numbers, till 
 whole lobes, particularly on the inferior surface of both lungs, 
 are thickly strewn with them. The colour of the lungs, in spite 
 of the development of these bullse, is at first quite unchanged. 
 In the further course of the putrescence it becomes darker, bottle- 
 green, and completely black, and the destruction of the parenchyma 
 proceeds pari passu with the deepening of the colour. The lungs 
 become soft, collapse from evaporation of their fluid contents, and 
 finally become completely destroyed. 
 
 The following exceptional cases of early putrescence of the lungs 
 are the only ones I have seen in an extremely numerous series of 
 observations of the dead bodies of children. 
 
 Cases X., XI., XII., and XIII. — Early occtjeeence of 
 Puteescence in the Ltjngs. 
 
 (X.) The body of a mature female new-b^rn child, that was 
 born alive, as was afterwards indubitably ascertained, was found dead 
 in the water. The cause of death was hyperemia of the cranial . 
 cavities. The body had, it is true, green patches on its abdomen, 
 but was otherwise apparently w,ell preserved, and had no smell of 
 decomposition. Nevertheless, small gaseous bullae were found on 
 the upper surface of both lungs. But in spite of this, the evidence 
 afforded by the docimasia pulmonaris was in every particular so 
 distinct, so harmonious and demonstrative, that we could not 
 hesitate to assume as certain, that the child had lived after its 
 birth, an opinion which, as we have said, was afterwards fully 
 confirmed. 
 
 (XI.) In a second case, that of a child born at maturity and dead 
 from apoplexy — most probably caused by strangulation by the umbili- 
 cal cord — though the body was quite fresh, there were, particularly 
 on the surface of the left lung, numerous gaseous bullse, of which 
 one was the size of a small white bean.* 
 
 (XII.) In a third case, it was truly astonishing to find in the body 
 of a perfectly mature child — which was so fresh, as to present (in 
 * Vid. On the Decomposition of the Lungs. Spec. Div., § 94. 
 
§ 22. EARLY PUTRESCENCE OF THE LUNGS, etc. 51 
 
 April, at a temperature of + 9° to 10° E.=52°-25 to 54°-5 P.) 
 only post-mortem stains on the back, and not the smallest trace of 
 colour on the abdomen — the gaseous bullae of decomposition already 
 developed on the lungs, winch were otherwise perfectly fresh. One 
 vesicle at the base of the left lung was the size of a pea, and 6-9 at 
 the base of the right lung were of the size of millet-seeds. There was 
 no doubt that the child had lived, and had died of apoplexy soon 
 after its birth. 
 
 (XIII.) The fourth case occurred in the body of a new-born mature 
 male child, found in the streets on the 27th of April (at a tempera- 
 ture of + 8° to 10° B.=50° to 54°-5 F.). Its abdomen was in 
 truth green, but the lungs were still perfectly fresh, as was to be 
 expected at such an early stage of putrefaction. They were of a 
 fine rosy-red marbled with blue, completely filling the thoracic cavity, 
 crepitated strongly, and on incision gave vent to a bloody froth. 
 The bases, and part of the inferior lobes, were, however, strewn 
 with numerous vesicles the size of a millet-seed, which were the un- 
 questionable product of decomposition, and which, as is always the 
 case, formed little pearl-like elevations beneath the pleura. 
 
 11. The hard and firm kidneys succumb to the putrefactive process 
 later than the lungs and the heart, and are never — or at least as 
 rarely as any of the organs here enumerated as those putrefying late — ■ 
 found affected by putrescence in a fresh or only half putrefied body. 
 At a later period they become first of a chocolate-brown, then they 
 soften, though their granular texture remains perfectly distinguishable, 
 and finally, long after death, they are found of a greasy consistence, 
 easily lacerable, and blackish-green in colour. Still longer than the 
 kidneys, 
 
 12. The urinary bladder is preserved, whether it be empty or 
 more or less full ; it does not yield to putrefaction till all the organs 
 already mentioned are far advanced in decomposition. 
 
 13. The gullet by no means putrefies pari passu with the rest of the 
 intestinal canal, but possesses a much greater power of resistance, 
 and after many months it is found tolerably firm, and only coloured 
 of a greyish green long after stomach and intestines have ceased to 
 exist as objects of accurate observation. 
 
 14. As for the pancreas, we must have before us a completely 
 
 putrefied body to find it affected by putrescence. This process colours 
 
 it of a dirty-red, and so it long remains, till at last it yields to the 
 
 general destruction. 
 
 e2 
 
52 § 22. CHRONOLOGY OF PUTRESCENCE.— INTERNALLY. 
 
 15. The diaphragm also belongs to that series of organs which 
 are late of putrefying. True, it acquires green patches within the 
 first few weeks after death, but its muscular and aponeurotic tissues 
 can be distinctly distinguished one from the other even after the 
 lapse of from four to six months. 
 
 16. Small blood-vessels coursing through putrefying organs, do 
 not come under observation. The larger vessels, however, particu- 
 larly arterial trunks, succumb to the process of destruction at a 
 much later period than all the contiguous soft parts. In one case 
 related by Devergie* the aorta was still perfectly recognisable in a 
 body exhumed after fourteen months. 
 
 17. Finally, I must (in opposition to Orfila) assert the claim 
 of the uterus, over all the other soft parts, to the possession of 
 the greatest power of resistance to the putrefactive process. It is 
 found still occupying its own position, tolerably fresh and firm, 
 of a dirty-red colour, and so well preserved that it can be cut open 
 and its interior examined, when not one of all the other organs 
 is any longer a fit object for examination. The great importance 
 which this fact may assume, in determining the existence or non- 
 existence of suspected pregnancy long after the period of death, is 
 well displayed in the remarkable case given below. (XV.) This fact 
 also holds good with respect to new-born female foetuses ; age, there- 
 fore, has over it no influence. Such bodies come frequently before 
 us in the most advanced stages of putrefaction, as might be natu- 
 rally expected, as in a large town still-born, or speedily dying 
 new-born bastards, are constantly — partly to conceal the birth, and 
 partly to save the costs of burial — secretly made away with, thrown 
 into privies, sewers, or drains, or buried in cellars or gardens, &c, 
 and found there often after the lapse of a considerable time. But 
 in such cases we always find the uterus visibly preserved, even where 
 the decomposition is most general and complete, so that in such cases 
 it is possible to determine the sex long after the complete destruction 
 of the external genitals. Most decisive evidence of this protracted 
 preservation of the uterus is afforded by the following cases : — 
 
 Case XIV. — Formation of Adipocire. — Recognisable 
 
 Uterus. 
 
 A human foetus was dug out of moist garden soil in March. It 
 • Op. tit. I. s. 133. 
 
§ 22. PROTRACTED PRESERVATION OF THE UTERUS. 53 
 
 was quite black, and the whole surface matted with straw and the 
 remains of plants. The head had dropped off, and at the time of 
 examination only a few skull bones lay near the trunk. That the 
 sex was no longer externally recognisable needs scarcely to be men- 
 tioned. The trunk was eighteen inches long, and weighed four 
 pounds and a-half. The muscles of the trunk and the extremities 
 were already converted into adipocire. The thoracic and abdominal 
 organs were coal-black and no longer distinguishable, except the 
 empty bladder, which was still distinctly visible. But the dirty-red 
 uterus, perfectly preserved, still maintained its proper position. "We 
 could, therefore, affirm that the fcetus was of the female sex, that it 
 most probably was mature when born, and that it had apparently lain 
 in the earth about a year, which further judicial investigation fully 
 confirmed. 
 
 Case XV. — Deowning in a Peivy. — Peoteacted Peeseevation 
 
 OP THE UtEETJS. POEMATION OF AdIPOCIEE. 
 
 A young servant-maid, said to have been very pretty — and this 
 very possibly gave rise to the report about to be mentioned — was 
 seized with an inflammation in her chest, in March, 18 — , and was 
 about to be sent to the Hospital. But she strove resolutely against 
 this, asserting that she would rather be struck dead with a hammer. 
 On the evening of the same day, the 21st of March, she suddenly 
 disappeared. All inquiries after her were in vain, and, of course, it 
 was impossible to determine the truth of a report which then arose, 
 that she was with child by her master, a married man, and her own 
 relative, and had been made away with by him. In December of 
 the same year, consequently about nine months subsequently, the 
 cesspool of the house was emptied, and in doing this, the workmen 
 unexpectedly discovered amongst the filth the completely putrefied 
 remains of a human body. It was a most probable supposition that 
 this was the body of the girl who had disappeared from the same 
 house in spring, and the court was, therefore, necessitated to order a 
 medico-legal examination of this body. I shall not likely ever again 
 have occasion to ohserve a greater degree of decomposition, the very 
 attendants on the deadhouse, well inured to such cases, were dis- 
 gusted, probably for the first time, quite as much by the indescrib- 
 able stench, as by the horrid appearance of the body. The skull, 
 the lower jaw, and the greater part of the lower extremities, were by 
 
54 § 22. PROTRACTED PRESERVATION OF THE UTERUS. 
 
 maceration bared of their soft parts, the connecting ligaments of the 
 joints were partly separated, and what of the soft parts still existed were 
 but stinking unrecognisable black shreds. A regular autopsy was of 
 course out of the question. As, however, my previous experience led 
 me to hope to be able to reply affirmatively to the question raised by 
 the Judge, viz. : whether it were possible yet to determine whether 
 the deceased were pregnant at the time of her death or no ? The 
 abdominal cavity was opened for this purpose. The abdominal 
 muscles were changed to adipocire. The whole of the intestines 
 were transformed into a black greasy mass, in which the separate 
 portions were no longer to be recognised. The liver, spleen, and 
 kidneys were also changed into a similar mass. But the uterus was 
 found of a bright-red colour/hard and firm to feel and to cut, its 
 form perfectly recognisable and normal, its size that of a virgin 
 uterus, its cavity unimpregnated and empty. Although, therefore, we 
 could not give even the most problematical opinion respecting the 
 life or death of this person, yet we could with certainty declare, that 
 the deceased could not have been pregnant at the time of her death ; 
 consequently the former report, which on the finding of the body, 
 had again been most diligently circulated, fell to nothing, and 
 the slur of debauchery and probable murder cast upon the reputation 
 of a hitherto irreproachable man was removed. (This certainly re- 
 markable case affords fresh proof how in forensic medicine apparent 
 trifles may prove to be of the most essential importance — without 
 the knowledge of the fact of the uterus putrefying so late, and so 
 long after all the other organs, any medical jurist might well have 
 been excused had he in answer to any similar judicial inquiry de- 
 clared his incompetence to reply, and declined even the experiment 
 of opening the abdomen of such a residuum of a body.) 
 
 Case XVI. — Bemains of the Body of a new-born Child. — 
 Uterus still Preserved. ». 
 
 This case was most interesting in several respects. On the 7th of 
 July, 18 — , we had to examine, at Charlottenburg, the body of a 
 new-born female child taken out of the Spree, and which must have 
 been long in the water. The parietal bones lying on the table near 
 the trunk were all that remained of the head. The spinal column, 
 the left leg below the knee, all the ribs on the right side and both 
 hands were skeletonized by aquatic animals (rats), which had also 
 
§ 22. PROTRACTED PRESERVATION OF THE UTERUS. 55 
 
 entirely devoured the right lung. The length of the trunk was fifteen 
 inches, its weight only 1 lb. 13 oz. The coverings of the abdomen were 
 black from decomposition, the remains of the umbilical cord, but one 
 inch and a-half long, was mummified ; a proof that an umbilical cord 
 once shrivelled to parchment, never becomes perfectly soft, even by 
 lying long in water. All the abdominal organs were changed to an 
 undistinguishable grey pultaceous mass, except the bright-red uterus, 
 which was the only organ whose texture was still perfectly recog- 
 nisable. 
 
56 § 23. DETERMINATION OF THE CAUSE OF DEATH. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 DETERMINATION OF THE CAUSE OF DEATH. 
 
 § 23. Genebal. 
 
 Cases very frequently occur, in which the most careful examination 
 of the body can discover no material alteration that has any re- 
 ference to the cause of the individual's death. Examples of this 
 occur, for instance, where violence has been inflicted, giving rise to 
 general disease, proving fatal after an illness of weeks or months, 
 long after every trace of violence has vanished from the surface of 
 the body. They also occur to the medical jurist in those other cases, 
 in which a report has arisen, that an individual has died a violent 
 death, because he has been known to become ill, and die under un- 
 usual circumstances, and in whom, nevertheless, the autopsy does not 
 reveal any facts that can be taken as proof of an unnatural death. 
 Cases of this kind can, as I have often seen, terribly perplex the in- 
 experienced. Nothing anormal in the surface of the body, nothing 
 in the cranial cavity, nothing in the thorax, nothing in the abdomen ! 
 Of what did the deceased die ? How shall the certificate be worded ? 
 " That the cause of N. N.'s death cannot with certainty be deter- 
 mined ? " This decision is in itself, no doubt, perfectly indisputable ; 
 but it is plain, that it can by no means satisfy the Judge who, him- 
 self inexperienced in these matters, has summoned the medical expert 
 to enlighten him. Who shall explain how the death occurred, when 
 the expert declares himself incompetent ? But the opinion given, 
 displays a complete misunderstanding of the judicial object of every 
 medico-legal autopsy. The Judge (public prosecutor) who follows 
 the traces of every suspected or actual crime, anxious only to dis- 
 cover the truth concerning it, cares not to learn the sequence of the 
 physiological and pathological phenomena and causes of the death, 
 or to know, for instance, whether a nervous fever, or marasmus, or 
 such like have produced it, which certainly is not often to be 
 discovered from the inspection of the body alone, but he only 
 
§ 23 DETERMINATION OF THE CAUSE OF DEATH. 57 
 
 requires to know, whether the death have occurred naturally 
 from disease (it matters not what!), or violently in an unnatural 
 (and punishable) manner from the fault of a third party. In the 
 former case, of course, he leaves the matter alone, and repones the 
 reports; in the latter he follows out the matter; therefore, it is 
 evident that a proper understanding of the object desired in the case 
 mentioned, would have led the medical jurist to give a differently 
 worded opinion from the foregoing — viz., the following : "That the 
 deceased died naturally from disease, and the autopsy revealed no 
 reason for suspecting the death to have occurred from violence." In 
 most cases the court will be perfectly satisfied with such a certificate, 
 always supposing it to be founded on fact. In other cases, however, 
 the Judge, to whom all the previous circumstances are known, re- 
 quires further particulars respecting the " internal disease/' assumed 
 as the cause of death, and particularly desires to know, whether this 
 " internal, mortal disease " may not stand in direct relation to the 
 previous violence, &c? When the medical jurists on their part 
 have learned what has occurred, and has been ascertained beyond the 
 ken of their autopsy, it cannot be difficult for them to make out that 
 connection with the "internal disease." We shall have to relate 
 several cases of this nature subsequently. 
 
 An exception to the rule, according to which we assume the 
 designation " internal disease" to be sufficient, is formed by those, 
 happily rare, cases in which a want of medical skill is alleged 
 to have occasioned or hastened the death. In such cases, of 
 course, it is requisite most accurately to determine the diagnosis, 
 and the stage of development of the fatal disease, by the results 
 of dissection, as the necessary points cannot be otherwise ascer- 
 tained. In these cases alone is it requisite to give a comprehensive 
 description in the protocol of the autopsy of the pathological 
 condition found, e. g., the nature and condition of tubercles and 
 cavities, of degenerations of the liver and kidneys, of any tumour 
 discovered, of the degree of inflammation, of the gangrene, &c; in 
 all other medico-legal cases this is superfluous for the above-men- 
 tioned reasons. Por the correct description of any purely patho- 
 logical conditions, which have no relation to the question of death 
 by violence, e. g., the minute description of an ovarian dropsy in a 
 woman strangled, of a Bright' s disease in one shot through the head, 
 &c, only protracts to no purpose the detention of the judicial 
 functionaries, makes the protocol of the autopsy unnecessarily dif- 
 
58 § 24. OF THE KINDS OF VIOLENT DEATH. 
 
 fuse, and is totally irrelevant to the subject in hand, since the 
 dissection is, and ought to be, a legal and not a clinical one. This 
 view is constantly maintained by the scientific commission for medi- 
 cal affairs in all its revisions of the medico-legal reports occurring 
 within the monarchy, -and it quite as often finds fault with the 
 physician for losing himself without sufficient cause in a maze of 
 diagnostic pathologico-anatomical description, as it defends him in 
 the opposite case, where, perhaps, he may have been blamed by the 
 medical boards.* 
 
 § 24. Op the Kinds of Violent Death. 
 
 The cases described in the foregoing paragraphs constitute, never- 
 theless, on the whole, but the smallest part of those coming before 
 the medical jurist, whilst the larger proportion is made up of those 
 which have suffered a violent death. Death from violence may, how- 
 ever, occur in six different ways, and this division of the subject 
 seems most advisable for the attainment of the practical end in view. 
 
 1. Mechanical death. — This occurs rapidly, generally instantane- 
 ously, when the organic " machine" is completely, or almost wholly, 
 or only in its most important parts destroyed by mechanical violence, 
 as happens, for example, by the sudden fall of buildings, walls, beams, . 
 masts of ships, by the crushing by sails of windmills, the wheels of 
 machines, and the like ; further, by the roasting or broiling of the 
 body, by its being run over by carriages or railway trains, by explo- 
 sions of gunpowder,t and by the squeezing of new-born children 
 into boxes, &c. ; to this category also belong most gunshot- wounds, 
 such, for instance, as destroy the brain, heart, lungs, or spinal marrow. 
 This mechanical death stands in opposition to all other kinds of 
 
 » The recent Prussian " Regulation," of 15th Nov., 1858 {vid. Part Third, 
 p. 93) has, very properly, taken notice of this in its official directions. 
 
 f By the explosion of a manufactory of fireworks in this city (Berlin), 
 four persons were killed. The proprietor, D — , had the whole left half of 
 his head blown off; the rest of his body was uninjured. One workman had 
 his skull-bones completely smashed, the entire scalp remaining perfectly 
 uninjured, just as I had twice before seen it in the case of suicides where 
 the shot had not passed through the head. D — 's wife had probably been 
 killed by a blow from a beam; and a workman, who was ill in bed in 
 a shed near the workshop, was blown to a distanoe of a hundred feet, bed and 
 altogether. The body of this man was quite unrecognisable, the back of 
 the head torn off, and every limb smashed in pieces. The shed and the 
 workshop (a small house in a garden) had entirely vanished. 
 
§ 24. OF THE KINDS OF VIOLENT DEATH. 59 
 
 death, which may in this respect be classed under one head as 
 dynamical. But these dynamical deaths may be judiciously, and 
 agreeably to nature, still further subdivided into the following 
 varieties : — 
 
 2. Neuroparalytic death. — This is the direct opposite of the me- 
 chanical death, and evinces itself as such by its effects on the body. 
 In neuroparalytic death (Apoplexia nervosa), not only is the mecha- 
 nism of the body in no way altered, but there is also no perceptible 
 change in its fluids or solids. The results of the dissection are 
 purely negative; and this kind of death is arrived at, as it were, per 
 viam exchsionis, without being able positively to demonstrate it. It 
 is of frequent occurrence in cases of drowning and hanging. 
 
 3. Inflammatory death. — In this case the inflammation of any 
 important organ, with its results, suppuration, exudation, or gan- 
 grene, puts an end to life. Death occurs thus after most injuries 
 of the brain, lungs, liver, intestines, diaphragm, &c, after the 
 exhibition of corrosive poisons, and not rarely after extensive 
 burns. 
 
 4. Sypermmic death. — Death from excessive congestion of the 
 important central organs, either (a) of the cranial cavity {Apoplexia 
 sanguined), in which the fatal compression of the brain may be 
 brought about, either by simple engorgement of the vessels, or by 
 actual haemorrhage from them (Hamorrhagia cerebri) ; or (b) by 
 sanguineous congestion in the thorax, in the lungs, large blood- 
 vessels and heart ; death consequently from thoracic apoplexy, effu- 
 sion into the bronchi, or asphyxia. The first species, occurs after many 
 injuries of the head, frequently after hanging (strangulation or suffo- 
 cation), after poisoning with narcotic poisons, after excessive general 
 violence; after exposure to excessive cold, and occasionally after 
 drowning. Death from asphyxia is, on the contrary, the most usual 
 form after drowning, and after occlusion of the air-passages with foreign 
 bodies; occurs also often after hanging and suffocation; kills the most 
 of those who are smothered by any means whatever ; also those who 
 die from fire (and smoke), and finally, those that find their death in 
 irrespirable gases. Both kinds of hypersemia are often found in the 
 same body, a circumstance easily explicable on well-known anatomical 
 grounds. 
 
 5. Ancemie death. — Death from so important a diminution of the 
 sanguineous contents of the body, that the whole oeconomy succumbs 
 beneath it. To this category belong all deaths from haemorrhage, 
 
60 § 24. OF THE KINDS OF VIOLENT DEATH. 
 
 external as well as internal, whatever may have been their source, 
 also death from exhaustion and starvation. 
 
 6. Dysmmic death. — It is perfectly incontrovertible, that death 
 from vitiation of the blood (blood-poisoning) does exist. The mi- 
 croscope and test-tube make this patent to all, though truly the 
 actual autopsy of the body on the dissecting-table, only occasionally 
 permits it to be suspected from some peculiar anormal quality of the 
 blood, which, moreover, may easily prove deceptive. A host of 
 poisons kill only by poisoning the blood, particularly the chronic 
 ingestion of arsenic, prussic acid, alcohol, probably most of the 
 alkaloids, certainly phosphorus, according to my observations, subse- 
 quently to be detailed (§ 34, Special Division), and possibly many more 
 poisons than it can as yet be positively affirmed of. To this class of 
 death from dyssemia belong also those cases in which severe injuries, 
 followed by illness and operative interference, destroy life by pysemia. 
 
 It need scarcely be said, that this classification of the various 
 species of deaths has no pretensions to be a strictly logical one. 
 Such it is impossible to construct, because very frequently the results 
 of several kinds of death are found united in one individual object of 
 examination, e. g., mechanical laceration and haemorrhage following 
 gunshot-wounds, mechanical destruction and suffocation in the case 
 of those buried alive, the results of inflammation and dyssemia sub- 
 sequent to injuries, &c. But the necessity for a determinate classifi- 
 cation of the results of the autopsy according to general categories, 
 makes itself daily more felt by the medical jurist, and those now 
 propounded have at least the merit of practical utility. 
 
OF THE EXAMINATION OF THE BODY. 61 
 
 PART SECOND. 
 
 PERIOD OF THE EXAMINATION OF THE BODY. 
 
 Statutory Regulations. 
 
 Begulations for the procedure in the Medico-legal Ex- 
 amination of Human Bodies, of Date 15th November, 1858. 
 § 3. No medico-legal autopsy shall be proceeded with previous to the 
 lapse of 24 hours from the death, provided that the time when, that 
 occurred is known. The body may, however, be inspected at an earlier 
 period. 
 
 § 4. Medical men are not usually to decline, or omit to perform 
 an autopsy on account of the existence of decomposition. For even 
 at a very advanced stage of putrescence, anormalities, and injuries of 
 the bones may yet be ascertained, foreign bodies discovered, pregnancy, 
 fyc, detected, and many kinds of poisoning may yet be proved. 
 Where, therefore, it may be necessary to disinter a body for the pur- 
 pose of determining any such questions, medical men are to decide 
 upon its propriety without any reference to the period elapsed since 
 the death. 
 
 § 25. Suitable and unsuitable Time. 
 
 In every autopsy, but specially in every autopsy undertaken for 
 forensic purposes, it is greatly to be desired, that the forensic phy- 
 sician should be enabled by the legal authorities to undertake the 
 examination as soon after death as possible, before any of those 
 various post-mortem phenomena already described can occur to 
 obscure facts, or to render their establishment impossible, as may 
 only too readily be the case where putrescence has already set 
 in. The statutory regulations already quoted, have very properly 
 fixed twenty-four hours after the death as the earliest period for the 
 performance of the autopsy, because within this time the body is 
 found to present trustworthy signs of death ( Vid. § 7, &c), and 
 there is, therefore, no longer any risk of finding on the dissecting- 
 
62 § 25. SUITABLE AND UNSUITABLE TIME. 
 
 table one not really dead. Most medico-legal dissections are, never- 
 theless, made at a much later period, as may be easily understood 
 from the nature of the circumstances. Sometimes the corpse is first 
 discovered at a late period, at others, the official procedure before 
 the law authorities has delayed the appointment of the period for the 
 autopsy, sometimes considerable time is required to transport the 
 body to the locality where it is to be examined, at others, the wit- 
 nesses necessary to identify it cannot be brought forward so early, &e. 
 Nevertheless, it is certain, that from twenty-four to thirty-six hours 
 after the death is the fittest time for the examination of the body. But 
 the medical jurist must also be prepared to examine the body even at 
 an unfit time, because the laws direct him to do so, and because in 
 the cases referred to by them, some practical result may be probably 
 expected ; he will not, therefore, shun this often most unpleasant busi- 
 ness, nor seek by false pretexts to induce the Judge to desist from 
 requiring it, if the consciousness of the importance of his vocation 
 fills his breast, and the scientific interest of the profession to which 
 he belongs, burns within him. Medico-legal autopsies take place at 
 unsuitable times when they are performed under the following cir- 
 cumstances : 1. in' advanced putrescency ; 2. after a preceding private 
 autopsy; 3. in the case of bodies or fragments of bodies disinterred. 
 Under these circumstances the autopsy may be termed late, and this 
 topic we shall now consider. 
 
 § 26. Late Autopsy. — a. In a Putrid State of the Body. 
 
 The regulations in § 4 of the New Code, comprise almost all the 
 cases in which successful results are attainable in the examination of 
 perfectly putrefied bodies. It is true, that ' ' anormalties \e. g., excess 
 or defect) of the bones, injuries of them " (e. g., fractures, gunshot- 
 wounds, &c), or " foreign bodies," as balls, points of knives, &c, 
 may be discovered ; " pregnancy " may be detected, where it was pre- 
 sent at the time of death, or where it was only suspected it may be 
 proved not to have existed, of which the case (XV.) already given 
 affords evidence, and many kinds of poisoning, that is not only 
 " arsenical," but most probably also, every other kind of metallic 
 poisoning * may be proved. But, also, the important question of 
 live-birth may possibly be settled even by the data afforded by the 
 
 * Vid. Case XXV., in which we discovered meroury in a body that had 
 lain buried for six months and a-half. 
 
I 26. LATE AUTOPSY. 63 
 
 putrid body of the child. For the consideration of this, Vid. § 106, 
 further on. Indicative facts may be furnished, and even at a late 
 period the condition of the bones may furnish presumptive proof 
 of the maturity or immaturity, of a new-born child, as for example, 
 is shown by the case (XXIX.), afterwards to be given. Finally, 
 parts which resist putrefaction, as the hair and teeth, must be sub- 
 mitted to inspection, for the purpose of establishing the identity of 
 the body in important criminal cases, and of the importance of this 
 the case (XXXI.) given below, affords the most remarkable proof. 
 
 Case XYII. — Determination of the Nature op the Death in 
 a perfectly Putrefied Body. 
 
 The following very peculiar case is exceedingly instructive, in 
 regard to the necessity of never refraining from examining a body on 
 account of its advanced state of decomposition. During the un- 
 usual heat in August, of 25° E. (88° F.) in the year 185 — , a well- 
 clad man was found lying dead just outside the town. He had silk 
 glpves on his hands, and in the right one held a pocket-handkerchief, 
 upon which there were said to be stains of blood. Near the body 
 there lay a small, old, blunt, and worthless single-bladed knife, not 
 likely to have belonged to such a well-clad man, and upon which 
 also stains of blood were said to have been found, and these circum- 
 stances occasioned the necessity for a medico-legal examination of 
 the body. The corpse was already blackish-green, the cuticle peeled 
 off, and myriads of maggots covered the body ; the brain ran out, 
 &c. But in spite of the general anaemia from putrescence, it could 
 still be distinctly made out that the deceased had died from apoplexy 
 of the heart, since the right side of the heart and the pulmonary 
 artery were still distended with a putrefying pultaceous mass of half 
 fluid, half coagulated blood. Moreover, the entire absence of any 
 wound in the body, perfectly justified the opinion, that the knife 
 had not been the cause of death, while the autopsy also did not dis- 
 cover any other external cause as the active agent in producing the 
 death ; and upon these explanations the further prosecution of the 
 case was dropped. 
 
 § 27. Continuation. — b. After the Completion of an Autopsy 
 
 ELSEWHERE. * 
 
 Cases occasionally occur in which the body, being brought to the 
 
64 § 27. LATE AUTOPSY. 
 
 medico-legal dissecting-table has not only had all its cavities, but even 
 all its organs laid open, partly from precipitation, and partly because 
 the wounded person had died in an Hospital, where it was not known 
 at the time of death that the case would come under the cognizance 
 of the law, &c. In such cases it may happen, that the medical 
 jurist can no longer determine the nature of the death, but this pos- 
 sibility can never be accepted as a sufficient reason for at once 
 declining the task. For there are injuries, which leave indelible 
 traces of their fatal effects, so that even a second dissection may 
 afford certain proof of the cause of the death, and in other cases, 
 where this certainty may be unattainable, yet a more or less probable 
 opinion may be given to the Judge, to serve as a basis for the further 
 conduct of the case, of which he would be entirely destitute should 
 the medical jurist have declined the task on the score of incompe- 
 tence. That the latter must be specially careful in forming his 
 judgment in such cases, is self-evident ; general rules cannot, how- 
 ever, be given, each case must stand upon its own footing. 
 
 Case XVIII. — Injury of the Head in a Body already 
 
 DISSECTED. 
 
 A builder, by the breaking of a rope, met with a severe injury 
 to his head from an iron bolt. He was sent to an Hospital, there 
 treated, and after his death dissected, before the law could step in. 
 We found the cranial cavity empty, and the brain cut up and stuffed 
 into the abdomen. But at the basis cranii several parts of the sphe- 
 noid, ethnoid, and of the orbital portion of the frontal bone were 
 found broken off, and, accordingly, presupposing that these fractures 
 had been caused by the injury in question, we could upon this basis 
 build a most probable opinion. Had the case gone further, which it 
 did not, and had a report of the autopsy been required, along with 
 which the history of the case from the Hospital records would have 
 been laid before us, in spite of the previous dissection, the case, as no 
 one can doubt, might have been decided with the utmost certainty. 
 
 Case XIX. — Rupture of the Liver and Fracture of the Eibs 
 in a Body already dissected. 
 
 A workman had been driven over and killed. His body had been 
 dissected by a private physician, and it was brought before us in the 
 
§ 27. LATE AUTOPSY. 65 
 
 following condition : — The head remained unopened ; the thorax and 
 abdomen had been stitched up in' the usual manner after the section. 
 Near the body lay a liver, which was divided into two parts by a 
 longitudinal tear down the middle. The stomach and intestines had 
 been ligatured and removed (for what purpose, it was impossible to 
 say), and lay now free in the abdominal cavity. In the thorax the 
 lungs and heart were both drained of blood, and much cut up. The 
 brain was normal. Any effusion of blood into the abdominal cavity 
 could no longer be recognised. Besides the rupture of the liver, 
 which, as is so often (Fid. § 33, Gen. Div.) the case, was betrayed by 
 no external mark of violence, there also existed a fracture of four 
 ribs. We gave it as our opinion, that if the liver shown to us was 
 that of the deceased (which the Judge could easily ascertain by in- 
 terrogating the witnesses, and did so ascertain), and if the rupture 
 took place during life, — both of which seemed from the circumstances 
 highly probable, — then no doubt could be entertained as to the 
 necessarily fatal character of the injury. 
 
 Case XX. — Gunshot-Wotjnd of the Axillary Artery in a 
 Body already dissected. 
 
 On the 10th of February, 1851, the boy K., aged three, was play- 
 ing with a short musket, which, as was afterwards ascertained, had 
 been loaded since the year 1848. The gun went off, the shot taking 
 effect in the right axilla. The boy was immediately taken to the 
 Hospital, and died there on the 19th of the month. On the 22nd 
 the body, which had been already opened at the Hospital, was brought 
 before us for official examination. Three and a-half inches of the 
 right axillary artery were wanting. The clinical assistant being 
 present, displayed this portion of the artery, which had been cut out 
 by himself after the boy's death ; in the middl e of it there was a ligature 
 of red thread, and about a quarter of an inch from it, an opening the 
 size of a pinhead in the artery. In the axillary region there were, 
 close to one another, three circular openings, two to four lines in di- 
 ameter, with sharp, smooth, and dry edges, which penetrated the 
 dermoid tissues. One inch beneath these there was a wound an 
 inch long, with sharp edges (wound of operation), which penetrated 
 into the muscles. The lungs and the heart were much cut up, but 
 exhibited an unwonted paleness. On the fourth rib of the right side 
 the bone felt rough externally, and internally, the vessels were dis- 
 
66 § 27. LATE AUTOPSY. 
 
 tinctly injected. The liver, spleen, and kidneys were cut up, and 
 also exceedingly pale. The vena cava was almost empty. The 
 cranial cavity alone had not been opened. The meningeal vessels 
 were pale and almost empty of blood. The sinuses were completely 
 empty of blood, the brain itself only very pale. Under these peculiar 
 circumstances, we could have no hesitation in stating : — 1, that the 
 deceased died from internal haemorrhage ; 2, that this arose from 
 the injury to the right axillary artery ; and 3, whereby it came under 
 the cognizance of the then penal code : that this injury had been 
 the necessary cause of death. In this case, consequently, the pre- 
 vious private autopsy had no influence whatever over the opinion 
 formed by the medical jurists. 
 
 Case XXI. — Injury of the Head in a Body already dissected. 
 
 A five-years old boy was struck on the head by a washing-basin ; 
 he was carried to an Hospital for treatment, and there died, and was 
 dissected. On the right side of the forehead there was a horizontal 
 wound about an inch and a-half long, already half healed, its edges 
 kept together by stitches. At this point, a triangular portion of the 
 frontal bone had been sawn out. The brain was cut to pieces, but 
 it had evidently been covered with purulent matter. The inferior 
 portion of the skull was uninjured. All the thoracic and abdominal 
 organs were completely cut up. We could, therefore, state sum- 
 marily as our opinion : 1, that the boy had died from suppuration 
 of the brain, and 2, that it might be assumed as in the highest 
 degree probable, that this had been the result of the injury re- 
 ceived.* 
 
 § 28. Continuation. — c. On Disinterred Bodies and Frag- 
 ments or Bodies. 
 
 Statutory Regulations. 
 
 Penal Code, § 46. — Offences punishable with death, fall under 
 the statute of limitation after thirty years; offences punishable with 
 deprivation of liberty for more than ten years, come under the same 
 statute after twenty years; offences punishable with deprivation of 
 
 * Vid. also Cases XXIII. and XXXI., as examples of the examination 
 of bodies already dissected and buried. 
 
§ 28. LATE AUTOPSY. 67 
 
 liberty for a shorter period, are equally excluded from punishment 
 after the lapse of ten years. 
 
 Offences punishable with imprisonment for a longer period than 
 three months fall under prescription in five years ; other crimes in 
 three years. 
 
 The time necessary to complete the prescription is reckoned from 
 the day on which the crime or offence was committed. 
 
 The cases in which the exhumation of a body may be hoped to 
 be practically useful in furthering the ends of justice, have already 
 been detailed in § 26. The rule in such cases, according to my ex- 
 perience, is for the law authorities, induced by the circumstances of 
 the case, of themselves to give orders for this proceeding. Of course 
 this order is never given after the lapse of the time necessary to 
 allow the supposed crime to fall under prescription, that is, according 
 to the regulations of the penal code quoted above after twenty, or at 
 the most, after thirty years. But almost all those objects already 
 enumerated as subjects for such an investigation, such as peculiarities 
 of the bones, and therefore pregnancy, and the determination of the 
 probable degree of maturity of a fetus, peculiarities of the hair, 
 foreign bodies, and many kinds of poisoning, can possibly after 
 twenty, and even after thirty years, be so ascertained by examination 
 of the disinterred remains, as that some opinion regarding them may 
 be formed j such at least may be expected to be the case. If, there- 
 fore, a medical jurist should be consulted as to the expediency of 
 any exhumation, he must reply affirmatively, if the case involve any 
 of those contingencies we have just enumerated. In such cases, the 
 presence and personal assistance of the medical jurist at the disinter- 
 ment will be of the greatest utility, because after the lapse of some 
 time the coffin is generally decayed, and the position of the body in 
 it may by carriage be so altered as to interfere unfavourably with 
 the subsequent critical examination. Further, in cases of suspected 
 poisoning by arsenic, earth from the neighbourhood of the coffin, or 
 fluids escaped from the body and found in the coffin, &c, must be 
 collected, and this of course can only be properly done by the medi- 
 cal jurist himself, or under his personal superintendence. On the 
 other hand, it must be remembered, that an exhumation absorbs a 
 great deal of time, and of money too, either from the party concerned 
 or the exchequer, and therefore it is to be advised against in every 
 case where it is unlikely to be productive of any useful result (Case 
 CLXrV.). This is particularly the case where doubts respecting any 
 
 f 2 
 
68 § 28. LATE AUTOPSY. 
 
 fatal internal ailment are proposed to be settled by the exhumation 
 of a body already buried for weeks or months, or where any doubt 
 is proposed to be solved by reference to some peculiarity in the soft 
 parts of such a body. As to the bones, — again to return to them, — it 
 is well-known for how long a period after death they remain recog- 
 nisable. The bones of King Dagobert were well preserved when 
 dug up in the Church of St. Denis, where they had been buried for 
 twelve hundred years (Orfila). Haller supposed he had procured 
 gelatine from the bones of a mummy two thousand years old, and 
 Orfila confirmed this in so far as that he procured 27 per cent, of 
 gelatine by boiling bones six hundred years old. I myself possess 
 the ulna of an adult, which I saw dug up at Pompeii in August, 
 1844, and which must, therefore, have been buried in its ashes 
 somewhat less than eighteen hundred years ; and it is so completely 
 preserved that an anatomical demonstration might be given on it. 
 All such curiosities are in so far of practical value, that they teach 
 us that bones exhumed within the longest prescriptive period {thirty 
 years) are yet capable of affording conclusive information. This is 
 particularly the case with the skull bones, all the long bones, and 
 the almost indestructible teeth, while the more spongy bones, as the 
 vertebrae, are decomposed earlier. My own experience is not sufficient 
 to enable me to say more respecting the gradual alterations which the 
 bones undergo during the first thirty years after death — the only 
 period of practical importance — and I must, therefore, refer to the 
 various authors upon this subject, whose observations, nevertheless 
 (resting on personal observation ? ?) contain the greatest contradic- 
 tions, and must be received with caution.* 
 
 In proof of what I have said, I append the following cases of the 
 exhumation of bodies, or parts of bodies. 
 
 Case XXII. — Exhumation of the Body after three weeks to 
 
 ASCERTAIN THE EXISTENCE OF MEMBRANOUS CROUP. 
 
 A three-years old boy was lost by his parents in the open country, 
 and three days afterwards found dead, and buried. Three weeks 
 later, on the 21st of July (why ? is to me unknown), the body was 
 exhumed for the purpose of ascertaining if he had died of croup ( !). 
 
 * Fid. Kanzler's exquisite treatise on Medico-legal Skeleto-neoropsie, in 
 Casper's Vierteljschft, Bd. v. s. 206 ; and particularly in Bd. vi. s. 121 and 
 b. 202, and Bd. viii. s. 44. 
 
§ 28. LATE AUTOPSY. G9 
 
 The entire countenance, scalp, dermoid coverings of the neck, and 
 its muscles were destroyed by thousands of maggots. The whole 
 body was covered with mould (fungi). No external injuries were 
 discoverable. The brain had disappeared, and the dura mater lay 
 bke an empty bag in the cranial cavity. The soft parts of the fauces 
 were quite destroyed, and the cavity filled with putrid fluid, and 
 thousands of maggots. Larynx and trachea were already devoured, 
 and their mucous membrane dissolved in a bloody icbor. There was 
 no trace of membranous exudation. The lungs were quite putrid, 
 the heart flabby and shrivelled, the stomach, spleen, kidneys, and 
 liver already in a more or less advanced stage of putrefaction. The 
 decision naturally arrived at was, that whether the child had died 
 of croup or no, could neither be decided with certainty nor pro- 
 bability. 
 
 Case XXIII. — Exhumation after twenty-three Days, for the 
 
 PURPOSE OF DETERMINING DEATH BY ARSENICAL POISONING. 
 
 The wife of a physician had raised an action of divorce against 
 her husband, who was ordered to repay her dowry of 12,000 dollars 
 (£1,800). On the evening of the 8th of May, while the case was 
 yet under appeal, the family ate a herring salad. The wife who ate 
 alone in a back chamber, had her portion sent her by her husband. 
 All the family remained unaffected ; the wife, however, was seized 
 with vomiting during the night, which lasted four days, and cut her 
 off on the 12th of May. Her husband allowed, her to be opened by 
 a surgeon, a friend of his own, who was struck by the quantity of 
 eau de Cologne the husband poured into her abdomen at the time 
 of the autopsy. The body was buried, but after the suspicion of 
 poisoning had arisen it was disinterred, and brought to us for medico- 
 legal examination, on the 4th of June, three-and-twenty days after 
 the death. The body presented (after three weeks) on most parts 
 the usual post-mortem discoloration ; on the trunk and superior ex- 
 tremities alone numerous green and excoriated patches were visible. 
 The posterior wall of the stomach was uniformly stained of a dusky- 
 red, manifestly from hypostasis ; interiorly the mucous membrane was 
 elevated by numerous bulla?, caused by decomposition, but neither 
 granular nor crystalline particles, nor inflammation, nor effusions of 
 blood, nor grangrene, nor perforation, were discoverable. In the 
 rest of the body nothing anormal could be detected. The oesophagus, 
 
70 § 28. LATE AUTOPSY. 
 
 the stomach, the duodenum, and also the Mood and urine from the 
 corpse were subjected to careful chemical examination, directed of 
 course to the detection of metallic poisons, particularly of arsenic, in- 
 asmuch, as there was no reason for suspecting the existence of any 
 organic poison. None of these viscera, however, nor the blood, nor 
 the urine, gave any traces of any metallic poison, particularly of 
 arsenious acid, and as the results of autopsy were also perfectly 
 negative, we were constrained to declare, that the suspicion of 
 poisoning had not been confirmed by any material proof. The 
 circumstances under which the death occurred were, nevertheless, 
 very striking. 
 
 Case XXIV. — Exhumation after Twenty Days. Fbacttjbe op 
 
 ElBS, ETC. PLEUEITIS. 
 
 This case could be perfectly explained three weeks after death. It 
 was that of a woman, aged 80 years, who was driven over, and died 
 in the Hospital after six days. The body was still (in February) 
 tolerably fresh, only the abdomen was already dark-green, the cuticle 
 abraded, and the colour of the eyes no longer recognisable. In the 
 absence of any other important cranial injuries, the scalp wounds, 
 which could be seen to have been artificially enlarged, could not be 
 regarded as the cause of death, any more than a transverse fracture 
 of the cheek-bone could be. But we found five ribs on the left side 
 (the third to the seventh inclusive) transversely and doubly frac- 
 tured, with tolerably smooth edges, and we found "the distinct 
 traces of an ecchymosis of the soft parts covering these ribs," and 
 also that the pleura of the left side was " distinctly much redder " 
 than that of the right side. In the. left pleural cavity there were 
 eight ounces of bloody fluid, and none in the right one, this circum- 
 stance being opposed to the idea of the effusion being merely a 
 cadaveric phenomenon. Both lungs were connected to the ribs by 
 soft and purulent adhesions, which could be easily torn, and were, 
 therefore, of recent formation — on the superior lobe of the right 
 lung there was a small blood coagulum the size of a two-shilling 
 piece. It was, therefore, easy to decide that the woman had had 
 her ribs fractured by the accident, and this had given rise to fatal 
 pleuritis. 
 
§ 28. LATE AUTOPSY. 71 
 
 Case XXV. — Exhumation after Five Months and a-half, foe 
 the purpose of determining the existence of poisoning by 
 Arsenic. 
 
 On the 24th of January, 18 — , the widow F. died at a country- 
 house belonging to B., where she was on a visit. The latter had 
 given the deceased — already 55 years old — a promise of marriage, on 
 the strength of which he had received possession of her somewhat con- 
 siderable property, but he had speedily drawn back, and the repeated 
 requests of F., either to consummate the marriage or return her 
 goods, were of no avail. At this time F. died, as we shall see, 
 under very suspicious circumstances. Soon after her death B. sold 
 the property, and removed to a distant province. Reasons for 
 suspecting him and his housekeeper, TJ., who was pregnant by him, 
 of being accessory to the death of F. gradually accumulated, and it 
 was thought necessary to exhume her body, which exhumation we 
 were required to attend. We assisted at the whole of the tedious 
 and difficult proceeding, which was undertaken on the 10th of July, 
 consequently just five months and a-lialf after the death- of F. We 
 have extracted the following more important passages from the 
 protocol, and subsequent report of the autopsy : — The body was 
 completely clothed ; on attempting to unclothe it, this was found 
 impossible with respect to the upper extremities, the hands* covered 
 with gloves, and the legs and feet clad in shoes and stockings. The 
 clothing was covered with mould and innumerable maggots. The 
 body emitted (as usual) not so much a smell of putrefaction as one 
 of old cheese. The head, whose features were still so distinct as to 
 be recognised by old acquaintances, was covered by a hood, which 
 also could not be removed. The countenance of the woman, said 
 to be fifty-five years old, was of a dark-grey colour, dry and leathery, 
 mummified. The eyeballs were wanting, and also the nasal carti- 
 lages; the tongue lay behind her imperfect teeth. The ears were 
 well preserved, and in both were golden earrings. The plumpness 
 of the body and roundness of the limbs were completely preserved. 
 All the anterior part of the body was of a red brownish-yellow, and 
 had the exact appearance of burnt portions of skin after death. The 
 skin cut leathery. The posterior surface of the body was of a some- 
 what brighter-red, but even here the skin was leathery. The natural 
 cavities were free of foreign bodies. The neck was in the same 
 
72 § 28. LATE AUTOPSY. 
 
 condition as the face, and no mark of injury or of strangulation was 
 perceptible. In the abdomen the intestines preserved their natural 
 situation. The external fat, which was plentiful, was hard, but well 
 preserved. The peritoneum everywhere displayed its usual pale 
 colour. The omenta were loaded with fat. The liver was very small 
 and of a steel-grey colour, the gall-bladder quite full. The stomach 
 was of the usual size, quite empty and collapsed, felt soft and greasy, 
 and had a greenish-brown appearance. After being properly liga- 
 tured it was removed and opened ; its mucous membrane was of a 
 darkish-grey, and completely free from ulcerations or other anor- 
 malities. The stomach and a piece of the liver were set aside for 
 chemical examination. The intestines were of a pale-greyish colour, 
 and perfectly empty. The kidneys and spleen were softened by de- 
 composition, the urinary bladder was empty, the uterus, firm and 
 bright-red, was quite empty, as were also all the large venous trunks. 
 The lungs lay free in the thorax, were of the usual colour, and empty 
 of blood. The heart was flabby, collapsed, and perfectly empty. 
 Trachea and larynx were empty, their mucous membrane of a 
 brownish-red colour. The oesophagus was empty, and displayed 
 nothing anormal. It was also removed for chemical examination. 
 After the removal of the skull-bones, the brain was found so much 
 decomposed as to be almost all run out. 
 
 The chemical analysis, which was prosecuted with the utmost care, 
 proved indubitably the entire absence of every arsenical compound 
 in all the parts of the body examined, and also the absence of every 
 other injurious metal, with the exception of a very small portion of a 
 mercurial compound. 
 
 In our report of the inspection we have said, "Nothing certain is 
 to be ascertained from the official documents respecting the circum- 
 stances preceding the death. The entire history of the disease is 
 wanting, an omission which is not compensated for by the minutes 
 of the examination of the physician in attendance — the village 
 surgeon (!) S. The circumstances brought to light are certainly 
 fitted to give rise to the suspicion of poisoning. At the commence- 
 ment of her illness, acquaintances of F. who came to B. to visit her, 
 were attempted to be put off by the housekeeper with the informa- 
 tion, that neither ~E. nor B. were at home, and not succeeding with 
 this, she declared the doctor had forbid any one to see the sick 
 person, which he denied. Admitted at last, her friends found her 
 lying in a dark room, which the housekeeper was with difficulty 
 
§ 28. LATE AUTOPSY. 73 
 
 prevailed on somewhat to enlighten. F. was disgusted with wine, 
 and shuddered when her friends tried to persuade her to take some 
 of that standing by her. Formerly always known as f fresh and 
 healthy/ she now complained of pains in the neck, violent heats, 
 soreness of the mouth, frightful pain in the stomach, and constant 
 vomiting. B. had ordered her excrements to be so disposed of, that 
 no animal should get at them to eat them ! The cook deponed, that 
 towards the end of the illness, the housekeeper had with her own 
 hands made ready all the food for the sick person, and poured the 
 physic into the soup after she had positively refused to take any 
 more. The cook also depones to have heard such expressions as — 
 ' As soon as the devil shall have carried off the old one.' Whilst 
 both the accused complain of the deceased's intemperance in eating, 
 and particularly in drinking, and ascribe to this her fatal illness, all 
 her former acquaintances declare, that F. was always exceedingly 
 temperate. The unusual haste with which B. conducted the funeral 
 was also remarkable, and still more remarkable that he, when appre- 
 hended at the commencement of the preliminary proceeding, should 
 have hanged himself in prison ! " After explaining at some length, 
 that all these circumstances afford of themselves no ground for a 
 medico-legal opinion, the report goes on to say : — " At the com- 
 mencement of the Christmas holidays there was a dinner at B.'s, at 
 which, according to both the accused, the deceased F. ate most 
 voraciously, and also drank largely both of white and Hungarian 
 wines. Soon after the conclusion of the meal she commenced to 
 vomit, continued to complain for a few days, but was soon restored 
 to health. In the middle of January, however, she sickened again. 
 She complained of rigors, pains in the neck, and constipation, she 
 coughed and was feverish; two days after this, the use of diaphoretics 
 and purgatives had quite restored her, so that the surgeon in atten- 
 dance says, he ordered her nothing more, — a statement at variance 
 with the dates of his prescriptions. On the day of F.'s death, he 
 says he saw her again. 'I found/ he says, 'the state of her 
 health still in a gastric condition, or rather, I found it once more 
 gastric' This is all this ' physician ' (!) has to say of this dying 
 person — for F. shortly after died. In striking contrast with this is 
 the deposition of the cook — f On the morning of her death, she 
 complained of frightful pain in her belly, a constant burning, which 
 made her drink cold water. She died suddenly in full consciousness. 
 Her last "evacuations were greenish and watery.' This witness also 
 
74 | 28. LATE AUTOPSY. 
 
 depones to having seen ■ ulcers and sore places ' in the mouth of P. 
 during her illness. Any opinion as to the disease of which F. died, 
 founded on these few and superficial data, must of necessity amount 
 only to a probability or suspicion. There is no doubt, but that 
 symptoms are specified which do occur after poisoning with corrosive 
 poisons, such as arsenic and sublimate, particularly the frequent 
 vomiting, the feeling of weight in the stomach, the 'fearful pain/ 
 the ' continual burning in the belly, and the sores alluded to, as 
 having been seen in the mouth ; ' on the contrary, the circumstance 
 that the vomiting was observed in the first illness, and the pain in the 
 belly in the second ; further, and quite particularly, the fact, that the 
 death was sudden and attended by perfect consciousness Up to the 
 last moment, all militate against the supposition of poisoning; and 
 this all the more, that all the symptoms stated as occurring in this 
 case, are also peculiar to other diseases. It follows from this, that 
 the phenomena observed during the illness of P., do not by any 
 means permit the assumption of the administration of poison being 
 made out with that certainty which the law requires.* And just as 
 little is this to be made out from the results of the autopsy. It is 
 of course a source of regret, that this has only been performed after 
 the lapse of half a year from the time of death, when the putrefactive 
 process has already had time to destroy, more or less, all the organs 
 of the body. Still, even after a much longer time, in cases of true 
 arsenical poisoning, exhumations, and dissections, have been attended 
 with probative results," &c. (Here follows details respecting the 
 mummification of such bodies). "Now it is true, that a certain 
 amount of mummification was observed in the body of F., as we 
 have already described ; but it would be rash indeed to conclude from 
 this appearance, that arsenical poisoning had indeed taken place. 
 For mummification has been often enough observed in bodies, where 
 arsenical poisoning could not for one instant be supposed to exist, 
 where the soil or the vault in which the body was buried or placed, 
 possessed certain peculiar, not yet sufficiently known conditions, 
 which favour the occurrence of this process. "Whether this is the 
 case with the soil of the churchyard at B. is, of course, not known to 
 us, and it is doubtful, whether cat. par. other bodies buried there 
 would not exhibit similar phenomena on being exhumed ? No other 
 
 * The old penal code (A. L. R., Thl. ii. Tit. 20, s. 858), which required 
 certainty of proof as to the administration of the poison, but only probability 
 as to the fatal issue. 
 
§ 28. LATE AUTOPSY. 75 
 
 symptoms indicative of poisoning by arsenic, or any other corrosive 
 poison were observed. Accordingly the results of the dissection 
 give no certain reasons for entertaining the supposition of arsenical 
 or any other corrosive poisoning. And just as little proof of this is 
 afforded by the results of the chemical analysis. Our report of July 
 30th, under the head c, affords convincing proof of the non-exist- 
 ence of any arsenical compound, which can be at once recognised in 
 the most minute quantities, but it points to the existence in the body 
 of a very small quantity of a mercurial compound. So minute a 
 quantity cannot, however, be looked upon as 'poison/ especially 
 as deadly poison, considering that mercurials are daily given as 
 medicines in much larger quantities than we here discovered. This 
 discovery is, however, so far remarkable, that the surgeon, S., denied 
 having ever given the deceased any mercurial, and none such were 
 found in his prescriptions. But consider how often patients take 
 physic unknown to their doctors, and had F. only taken a few ordi- 
 nary laxative pills containing mercury, a most natural explanation 
 would be afforded of the results of the chemical analysis of the body. 
 We may, therefore, leave undetermined the question, whether the 
 woman had formerly been syphilitic, which the official documents 
 give some reason to suppose, and whether she might not have been 
 treated for this with mercury, seeing that it has been sufficiently 
 proved, that the small quantity of mercury found could not be re- 
 garded as deadly poison." Accordingly, we gave it as our opinion, 
 " that from a medico-legal point of view it could not be ascertained 
 that poison had been administered to F., and, therefore, the further 
 question — whether it could with probability be ascertained that her 
 death had been the result of poison ? — fell to the ground."* 
 
 Case XXVI. — Exhumation after Nine Months. — Fracture of 
 the Cranial Bones. — Formation of Adipocirb. — Mummifi- 
 cation. 
 
 A boy, aged four years, was said to have been killed by the leaf 
 of a door falling upon him, and was buried. At the disinterment, 
 * I have quoted this case, as all others, exactly as it occurred at the time 
 (and that a long time ago) ; but I must remark that, since then, I have been 
 taught by a numerous series of observations on poisonings, cadaveric pro- 
 cesses, and the volatilization of arsenious acid, and should such a case now 
 come before me, I would no longer stand by the above, which are yet the 
 common opinions, but am prepared to go a great way in advance, as I shall 
 more distinctly explain in the chapter on poisonings (§ 28, Special Div.). 
 
76 § 28. LATE AUTOPSY. 
 
 the features of the corpse were found to be perfectly unrecognisable, 
 the whole body of dirty, blackish-brown colour, covered with mould, 
 emitting a fusty odour, and tolerably stiff and immoveable, in many 
 parts, particularly over the whole superior extremities, and on the 
 face the surface was distinctly mummified, that is, it cut like wood, 
 and was of a deep, dirty-brown colour. The internal surface of the 
 scalp was already partially converted into adipocire ; the lambdoidal 
 suture on the right side was separated to the extent of two lines, 
 the occipital bone fractured to the extent of two inches, the entire 
 brain collapsed, lying loose within its membranes, and changed to a 
 grey pultaceous mass ; the basis cranii was completely split across by 
 a fracture which extended from the right petrous portion of the tem- 
 poral bone to the left one, right through the sella turcica. The lungs 
 lay shrunk up in the posterior part of the pleural cavities ; they were 
 greyish-black, and perfectly anaemic, as was also the whitish-grey 
 heart, the texture of which was still perfectly recognisable. The 
 trachea and oesophagus were converted into adipocire. Some dried- 
 up remants of food lay in the still distinguishable stomach. The 
 omenta and mesenteries were converted into adipocire; the liver and 
 the spleen were whitish-grey, empty of blood, and floated in water ; 
 the kidneys were transformed into an adipocire-like substance, as 
 were also the intestines, which were all lumped together ; the urinary 
 bladder and the vena cava were quite empty. 
 
 The cranial injuries, which, from their nature and extent, could not 
 have been produced after death ( Fid. § 6, Spec. Div.), led to the 
 conclusion that the head of the child had been struck with great 
 violence, and that the very considerable injuries to the skull which 
 had thence resulted had caused its death. 
 
 Cask XXVII. — Exhumation of the Bemains of a Child 
 after Two Years, in order to determine the fact of 
 Poisoning by Arsenic. 
 
 In this case, I was consulted by the public prosecutor of a foreign 
 state, whether I would consider that the exhumation of three children, 
 supposed to have been poisoned by their mother twelve, eight, and 
 two years previously, could be of any practical utility, for if I 
 thought so the exhumation would be carried out. I proposed to 
 proceed with the disinterment of the body of the child that died last 
 (two years previously), and to wait the result of its examination before 
 
§ 28. LATE AUTOPSY. 77 
 
 proceeding to disinter the other two. Three months afterwards,, the 
 remains of this body were sent to us, along with earth from the 
 grave, &c. The body, according to the protocol sent with it, had 
 been taken out of the coffin, which was still extant in the grave, by 
 the hands of the official physician in that district, and placed by him 
 in a jar. The shavings had also been removed from the coffin and 
 packed in a box, in which a portion of the wood of the coffin and 
 some of the earth next it had also been placed. The district physi- 
 cian explained in his protocol that " the body was that of a child 
 only a few weeks old. It was so far recognisable that the cranial 
 vault still preserved its form ; it was, however, so thin and brittle 
 that it fell to pieces on being touched. The bones at the base of 
 the skull, the vertebree, and the rest of the bones, seemed to preserve 
 tolerably accurately their proper position, but all the ligaments and 
 other soft parts were already completely decayed away. The feet and 
 hands could be no longer recognised, nor any article of clothing dis- 
 tinguished." In conjunction with our sworn expert, apothecary 
 Schacht, I next proceeded to open the jar, and in it we found a mass 
 of brown shavings, the remains of a few bones and of a skull, and 
 a human-like brownish-black mass, which we took to be the remains 
 of the putrefied soft parts and softer bones. These matters were 
 submitted, singly, to the most careful analysis, with the view of dis- 
 covering the possible presence of lead, copper, mercury, bismuth, 
 antimony, or arsenic, and the result obtained was that the remains 
 of the body and the shavings in the pot contained not the smallest 
 trace of arsenic, but that in both there was a mere trace of oxide of 
 copper. "This fact," we stated in our report, " cannot be regarded 
 as proof of the child having been poisoned with any preparation of 
 copper (as verdigris, &c). For, besides the fact that a portion of 
 the shavings surrounding the remains must have been included in 
 making the analysis ; that further, it was probably buried clad in 
 woollen or linen cloths, and that it has been proved by the investi- 
 gations of Sarzeau, John, Meissner, &c, that copper exists normally 
 in vegetable matters ; the recent researches of Wackenroeder (Axchiv. 
 der Pharmacie, October, 1853) have proved beyond a doubt that 
 traces of copper are often to be found in human blood." Under these 
 circumstances, we did not proceed to examine the contents of the 
 box till further inquiries should be made; this examination was 
 never required, and the other two bodies were never exhumed. 
 
78 § 28. LATE AUTOPSY. 
 
 Case XXVIII. — The Disinterment of a few Bones. 
 
 In March, 18 — , several human bones were given to me by the 
 public prosecutor with a request to state, after inspecting them — how 
 long they had been buried, and whether traces of the perpetration of 
 any crime could be found on them ? In my short report I replied, 
 that I had examined the bones in question : " they consisted of the 
 skull and bones of the upper and lower extremities of a human 
 being. The individual to whom they belonged must have been be- 
 tween twenty and thirty years of age when he died. No traces of 
 the perpetration of any crime were to be found on the bones, which 
 were all, particularly the skull, quite uninjured. The yellow colour 
 and weather-beaten condition of the bones led to the conclusion that 
 they have been for many years lying in the earth, though it is not 
 possible to state exactly how many. Yet I think I do not err in 
 stating that they must have been buried for a period longer than 
 sufficient to permit even the most serious crime to fall under pre- 
 scription." This opinion satisfied the public prosecutor, and the case 
 was allowed to drop. 
 
 Case XXIX. — Exhumation of a New-born Child. — Formation 
 of Adipocire. 
 
 The bones of a child were dug up in a garden at Charlottenburg, 
 and brought to me for examination, and the answer to the following 
 questions, " whether the bones and other matters found belonged to 
 the body of a new-born child that had been born alive, or how old 
 the child might have been, and about how long a time had elapsed 
 since the death of the child ? " The matters in question consisted 
 of a coarse linen rag, much corroded by the lime found about it, in 
 a quantity of yellowish-white, greasy adipocire, which melted at the 
 flame of a candle, and in which several bones, particularly the thigh 
 bones, the frontal bone, the ileum, and lower jaw were more or less 
 enveloped, and of several other bones, which had to be carefully 
 picked out of a mass of sand, lime, rags, and adipocire. These 
 bones were — 1. A parietal bone, split into three, its greatest mea- 
 surements being three inches and a-half long, by two inches and 
 three-quarters broad; 2. The greater part of an occipital bone, 
 with a well-marked external tuberosity, measuring from base to ver- 
 
§ 28. LATE AUTOPSY. 79 
 
 tex two inches and three-eighths, and two inches and a-half in breadth; 
 3. a halfmoon-shaped fragment of a, parietal bone, two inches long by 
 two inches and a-half broad, to which a few light-coloured hairs ad- 
 hered; 4. a frontal bone with a well-developed frontal eminence, from 
 the orbital process to the upper edge it was two inches high, the breadth 
 was the same ; 5. two bones of the lower jaw, each half was two inches 
 long, their breadth in the middle three-eighths of an inch ; 6. a shape- 
 less thin, flat little piece of bone, probably belonging to the ethmoid ; 7. 
 two upper jawbones, thirteen lines broad and eleven lines high ; 8. a 
 tattered shred, the thickness of post paper, about two inches 
 and a-half long by one to one inch and a-half broad, manifestly 
 belonging to the aponeurosis of the scalp, and distinctly covered 
 with fair hair about three-quarters of an inch long ; 9. five 
 fragments of vertebrae, three of which possessed distinct spinous 
 processes ; the bodies of these could be cut with a sharp knife, dis- 
 playing the spongy texture quite distinct ; 10. a considerable mass of 
 adipocire, out of which both the ilea were unrolled; these were both 
 well preserved, fifteen lines high and seventeen lines broad; 11. a 
 brownish-yellow greasy mass spread upon a thin membrane, enveloped 
 in a lump of adipocire and lying near the ilea, the peculiar smell of 
 which at once distinguished it as meconium; 12. a humerus, 
 two inches and a-half long, five-eighths of an inch broad at 
 its inferior extremity, and half an inch broad at its superior 
 one ; a brownish-red substance, apparently muscular tissue, could 
 be- scraped off it; 13. the left clavicle, twenty-five lines long and 
 firm in texture ; 14. the left shoulder-blade, sixteen lines long, its 
 greatest breadth one inch ; the acromion process projected two lines ; 
 15. a fragment of the right shoulder-blade with a distinct spinous 
 process ; 16. twelve ribs, the smallest of which was two inches, and the 
 largest two inches and a-half long, hard in texture, and strongly arched ; 
 17. both thigh-bones, each being three inches long, half an inch thick 
 at the acetabular extremity, one quarter of an inch in diameter in the 
 middle, and three quarters of an inch in breadth at the knee 
 end, hard in texture;* 18. two tibiae and two fibulas; each tibia 
 was two inches and a-half long, half an inch broad at the superior 
 extremity, and five-eighths at the inferior extremity, three lines broad 
 at the centre of the body ; both fibulae were each exactly two inches 
 
 * The discovery of the centre of ossification in the epiphysis of the femur 
 had not then heen made {vid. § 97, Special Division). Its discovery in this 
 case would have been of the utmost importanoe. 
 
80 § 28. LATE AUTOPSY. 
 
 and one-eighth long, at the superior extremity two lines and a-half 
 broad, and three lines broad at the inferior extremity. In accordance 
 with these results I gave it as my opinion — " 1. That the bones 
 examined were those of a child ; 2. That their configuration, condi- 
 tion and dimensions, proved that the child had been at all events 
 viable, and that it most probably had been. perfectly mature ; 3. That 
 nothing can be said with even probability as to its having been alive 
 during or after the birth; and 4. That the child had probably been 
 buried from one year to one year and a-half." (Fid. above § 20.) 
 
 Case XXX. — Determination of the age of a Fcettjs in which 
 
 A CHANGE OF ADIPOCIRE HAD ALREADY COMMENCED. 
 
 This case may serve as a remarkable example of at how early a 
 period the formation of adipocire may, exceptionally, take place. 
 
 L., an unmarried woman, had secretly given birth to a child and 
 made away with it. She confessed that she had given birth to a 
 child once previously, and again just lately, that is, about three 
 weeks ago. I had to determine the truth of this statement by 
 examining her. Her breasts still contained a few drops of rich 
 milk. The well-known corrugated appearance of. the abdominal 
 parietes was of course of no avail in the present instance. There 
 was still a trace of the lochise remaining, and the os -uteri, which 
 was notched, was still open and of the size of a silver three- 
 penny piece. In accordance with these appearances, I gave it as 
 my opinion, that L. had indubitably given birth to a child within the 
 last few weeks, and that from the fatty condition of the milk, and 
 the still incomplete closure of the os uteri, it was in the highest 
 degree probable, that the child born was more mature than a foetus 
 of four months. A short time afterwards the chdd was found 
 wrapped in a cotton apron, and superficially interred in the earthen 
 floor of the damp cellar, and brought to us for medico-legal examina- 
 tion. It was already very much decomposed, and on the extremities, 
 and particularly on the right fore-arm and thigh, the formation of 
 adipocire had commenced. All the cavities were open, the skull- 
 bones had fallen asunder and lay near the body, the brain had run 
 out. However, from the appearance of the well-preserved upper and 
 lower extremity, the latter being eight inches long, and still very fat 
 and round, from the weight of the foetus, which, in spite of its putre- 
 fied state, and somewhat helped instead by the adhering earth, 
 
§ 28. LATE AUTOPSY. 81 
 
 amounted to seven pounds, from its length, finally, which, in so 
 far as it could be ascertained, was nearly nineteen inches, I was 
 obliged to decide that the foetus had certainly more than four 
 months of uterine age, that it was in fact most probably mature, 
 or at least nearly so. Thus the autopsy of the child completely 
 confirmed the opinion we had given from the examination of the 
 mother. 
 
 Case XXXI. — A Threefold Exhumation op a Body for 
 
 DIFFERENT PURPOSES. 
 
 One of the most remarkable criminal cases of recent times, and 
 one wholly unparalleled in its medico-legal interest, and which 
 gave rise to a perfectly novel medico-legal question, which we were 
 called upon to answer (Fid. On Tattooing, § 32, General Divi- 
 sion), is to be found in the examination of the postilion Schall, 
 suspected of having murdered his associate, a cattle-dealer, named 
 Ebermann.* Amongst the other peculiarities of this case, that hap- 
 pened, which probably never happened before, viz., that the body 
 of the murdered man was three times exhumed, on account of the 
 great difficulty of getting it identified. The first disinterment took 
 place nine days after the autopsy, because a strange woman asserted 
 that her husband was missing, and she thought she might discover 
 him in the person of the murdered man. Indeed she did assert, 
 that she recognised the body ; but the whole matter was afterwards 
 discovered to be either a fraud or a delusion. The body was ex- 
 humed for the second time five months after death, to ascertain 
 whether certain tattoo marks, which Ebermann had on his arm 
 were then present on it, the utmost importance being attached to this 
 query, at this stage of the proceedings. The putrefaction was, how- 
 ever, of course too far advanced at this time to permit the ascer- 
 taining of the presence of any tattoo marks. The third exhumation, 
 of the head only (which had been cut off at the time of the murder), 
 took place two years and a-quarter after the interment, because the 
 mistress of the person supposed to be murdered, — his identity being 
 still doubtful, — declared that her paramour had such peculiar teeth, 
 that she could at once recognise them. We subsequently had to 
 
 * Vid. Casper's VierteljscMt. I. s. 274, &c, and Monthly Journal of 
 Medicine for September, 1852, p. 304. 
 
 G 
 
82 § 28. LATE AUTOPSY. 
 
 examine these skull-bones, for the purpose of ascertaining if the 
 fatal shot had entered behind the left ear ? but this could not be 
 made out with any degree of probability, inasmuch as the charge 
 from a double-barrelled gun had blown the head to pieces, and in its 
 present condition no trace of any shot-hole could be found, but the 
 skull lay before us as a heap of broken pieces of bone. On the 
 other hand, the under-jaw was quite fresh, that is, it was completely 
 skeletonized, but firm and yellow (not whitish-yellow and soft as the 
 bones by-and-by become), and contained a complete and beautiful 
 set of teeth. Eemarkably enough, there was yet upon the chin a 
 piece of red beard, attached by means of a bit of dried-up skin to the 
 otherwise bare bone. These teeth were referred to me with the 
 singular request, that I should state whether they had any resem- 
 blance to those of the brother of the supposed murdered cattle- 
 dealer ? ! I reported, that there was certainly a resemblance between 
 the two sets of teeth, but that no inference could be drawn from this 
 observation. The case afforded many remarkable illustrations of the 
 singular questions which may be referred to a medical jurist for 
 
 * Vid. also Case XIV., of the exhumation of a foetus; and also Case 
 CLXXX., that of a child exhumed after twelve days. 
 
PART THIRD. 
 
 NATURE OF THE EXAMINATION OF THE BODY. 
 
 Statutory Regulations. 
 
 § 156 of the Criminal Code directs that the dissection of the 
 bodies of suicides be carried out according to the regulations, i.e., 
 that a complete medico-legal autopsy of the body be made. But on 
 the 4<lh of December, 18SJ4, this construction of the statute was in 
 so far altered by the promulgation of the following Cabinet order : — 
 " That the complete medico-legal autopsy of the bodies of suicides is no 
 longer to be required when the suicide is proved, or is clearly evidenced 
 by the circumstances" 
 
 'Criminal Code, § 156. — Should, however, the death be credibly 
 shown to have been caused not by suicide, but by accident, or from 
 any misadventure not involving the guilt of a third party, the body 
 is merely to be externally inspected. 
 
 § 157. — Should the dead body be that of a new-born child (in 
 the sense of the Criminal Code — a bastard child which has either 
 been dead-born or has died within twenty-four hours after its birth, 
 no midwife or other decent woman having been present at the birth), 
 or should, on the inspection of the body, the slightest suspicion arise 
 that the death may have been caused by poison, or that the violent 
 death may probably involve the guilt of a third party, then the 
 autopsy must be at once carried out by the experts in the presence of 
 the law authorities, and the report transmitted to the superior court 
 — (in this case to the court requiring the autopsy). 
 
 § 159. — When the presiding legal official shall differ with the 
 
 physician or his proxy as to the necessity of an autopsy, this 
 
 must be carried out should only one of them consider it necessary. 
 
 § 160. — The place of the ordinary physician may be filled, 
 
 when necessary, by a regimental or battalion surgeon, or by a medical 
 
 g2 
 
84 NATURE OF THE EXAMINATION OF THE BODY. 
 
 man, to be sworn for the purpose. The place of the surgeon may be 
 filled by a second physician. 
 
 § 161. — Previous to the examination, the presiding official 
 must first take care to have the body exposed for the purpose of 
 identification to the view of those acquainted with the deceased, 
 and if possible, also, to the suspected or avowed perpetrator of 
 the deed. Should this not be possible, the presiding official must 
 take every means to assure himself that there has been no error nor 
 mistake in respect to the body. 
 
 § 162. — He must then request the experts to commence their 
 inspection of the body, to ascertain its conformation, and also to 
 note the position, size, Mid depth of any external injuries which may 
 be on it. The opinion of the experts as to the nature of the 
 weapons employed in the production of these injuries must be heard 
 in every case ; any weapons found must be laid before them, and their 
 ovinion taken as to whether the injuries could have been produced 
 by said weapons, and also whether, from the position and size of the 
 wounds, any conclusions can be drawn as to the mode" in which the 
 perpetrator had acted, as to his object and personal strength ? 
 
 § 163. — In the case of bodies taken out of the water, found sus- 
 pended, lying out during severe cold, or enveloped in the fumes of 
 charcoal, the examination of the experts must be carefully so directed 
 as to ascertain whether the apparent has been the actual cause of 
 death, or whether the body has been placed in the situation in which 
 it has been found subsequent to the occurrence of death from any other 
 cause. 
 
 § 164. — A complete medico-legal examination of the body (obduc- 
 tion) includes the opening of the cranium, thorax and abdomen, and 
 the inspection of the principal viscera and other parts of the body, 
 whose injury may be productive of important results. 
 
 § 165. — Although the experts may recognise with certainty the 
 evident tokens of a violent death in any part of the body, they 
 must still complete the opening of its three cavities. 
 
 § 166. — In the case of new-born children the hydrostatic test 
 must be applied, and special attention paid to all those signs which 
 can determine the opinion of the physician as to whether the child 
 has been born dead or alive, mature or immature. 
 
 § 167. — Where it is suspected that the deceased has been poisoned, 
 the physicians must submit to chemical analysis any remains of the 
 supposed poison, and also any suspicious matters which may be found 
 
NATURE OF THE EXAMINATION OF THE BODY. 85 
 
 in the stomach and alimentary canal. And here the presiding official 
 must exercise the utmost circumspection in making sure that the solid 
 and fluid matters to be analysed are not changed, but that their iden- ■ 
 tity is placed beyond a doubt. For this purpose, when the analysis 
 does not take place in presence of the presiding official, these matters 
 must be sealed by both the experts, delivered up along with an official 
 report, and in like manner received back again. 
 
 § 168. — The presiding official takes down a complete minute {pro- 
 tocol) of the entire procedure at the examination of the body, in which 
 must be circumstantially detailed all that has been done according to 
 the foregoing directions. The presiding official must in this protocol 
 {or minute) declare every important proceeding of the experts, exhi- 
 biting in it all that the external senses have taken cognizance of, and 
 inserting besides these matters of fact, also the result of the examination 
 and the opinion of the experts in general, the reasons for this opinion 
 being reserved for a future report {obductions-bericht), and this protocol 
 must then be signed by the experts. 
 
 § 169. — The experts must prepare a complete report {Bericht) of 
 the examination, in which must be described the external and internal 
 injuries, the condition of the vital organs and of the body generally ; 
 and it must contain in the case of new-born children, the conclusion 
 arrived at as to their maturity and as to their having been alive during- 
 or subsequent to their birth ; they must also subjoin their opinion as 
 to the lethal character of the injuries and the cause of death, and 
 they must specially answer the three following questions, or specify 
 the reasons why this cannot be done : — 1. Whether the injttry be such 
 that, unconditionally, and under all circumstances, it must have of 
 itself proved fatal to any person of tlie same age as the person injured? 
 2. Whether the injury must of itself have proved fatal to a person of 
 the same age and habit of body as the person injured? 3. Whether 
 the injury, having regard to the time of life of the injured person, has 
 proved fatal from the failure of some remedy essential to its cure, or 
 from the supervention of some external detriment* 
 
 Should any one of these questions be not perfectly distinctly answered, 
 or the reason specified why this cannot be done, the presiding official 
 must insist on a supplementary explanation on this point from the 
 medical inspectors. 
 
 * The answering of these three questions is no longer necessary since the 
 publication of the new Penal Code in 1851, and of the " Regulations" in 
 1858, which will be quoted immediately. 
 
86 NATURE OP THE EXAMINATION OF THE BODY. 
 
 § 170. — This report must be signed by tie medical inspectors, and 
 if an (official district) physician have been present at the autopsy, 
 the report must be sealed with his official seal. 
 
 § 171. — The omission of the direction contained in § 170, when 
 there is no other reason to doubt that the report has proceeded from 
 those qualified experts who performed the autopsy, has no influence in 
 the decision of the matter, but will only draw down censure upon those 
 who have thus laid themselves open to it. 
 
 § 172. — When the contents of this report vary materially from those of 
 
 the original protocol, the presiding official must require the experts to 
 
 ■ explain, either viva voce or in writing, their reasons for this difference. 
 
 Circular Rescript of the Minister of State for the Interior, of date 
 28th January, 1817. Every forensic or district surgeon* is officially 
 required to possess, in good and faultless condition, the following in- 
 struments necessary for the dissection : — Four to six scalpels, two with 
 straight, the others with round edges ; one razor, two strong cartilage 
 knives, one of them double-edged; two pairs of forceps, one pair of 
 hooked forceps, two single hooks, one double hook, two pairs of scissors, 
 one straight with blunt points, either probe or merely rounded, the 
 other curved (Richter's) ; one blow-pipe, two probes, one saw, one chisel 
 and a mallet; six crooked needles of various sizes ; one pair of callipers, 
 and one foot-rule. The physician must possess one foot-rule, one 
 graduated measuring glass, one pair of scales, with weights up to 
 10 lbs. The Government must issue directions in accordance with this, 
 and see that they are properly carried out.f 
 
 All the existing statutory regulations have been collected by the 
 Royal Scientific Commission for Medical Affairs, in their Report 
 dated 15th November, 1858, and recognised as universally obliga- 
 tory, and published in the Ministerial Eescript, dated 1st December, 
 1858. 
 
 Regulations for the Performance of the Medico-legal 
 Examination of Human Bobies. 
 
 I. General Directions. 
 
 § 1. — Legal inspections and autopsies may only be made by the 
 
 * The forensic Wundarzt and distriot chirurgus are lower and higher 
 grades in forensic surgery. They alone are the active agents in making 
 the autopsy. — Tbansl. 
 
 f Vid. the correlative Statutory Regulations, § 52. 
 
NATURE OF THE EXAMINATION OF THE BODY. 87 
 
 medical experts, upon the requisition of the law authorities, and the 
 latter only in the presence of the proper criminal officers. 
 
 § 2. The forensic physicians are bound to conduct personally every 
 legal inspection of a body required of them, and, in conjunction with 
 the forensic surgeons, to perform every legal autopsy, and can only be 
 permitted to act by proxy under those circumstances recognised by law 
 as entitling to exemption. 
 
 § 3. Autopsies must not be undertaken till after the lapse' of twenty - 
 four hours after death, provided the time of death shall be known. The 
 mere inspection of a body, however, may be undertaken at an earlier 
 period. 
 
 § 4. — The medical men are not usually to decline or omit to per- 
 form an autopsy on account of the existence of decomposition ; for even 
 at a very advanced stage of putrescence anormalities and injuries of the 
 bones may be ascertained, many circumstances of importance in esta- 
 blishing a disputed identity, such as the colour and condition of the 
 hair, want of limbs, fyc, may be determined, penetrating foreign bodies 
 discovered, pregnancy detected, and proofs of many kinds of poisoning 
 may still be established. Therefore, should the exhumation of a corpse 
 be required for the purpose of deciding any of these questions, medical 
 men are to determine upon its propriety without any reference to the 
 period elapsed since the death. 
 
 § 5. — The medical jurists have to take care that the necessary in- 
 struments are at hand, and in good order at every autopsy. The 
 forensic surgeons are moreover charged, at the close of the examination, 
 and after removing its traces as far as possible, with the duty of pro- 
 perly sewing up the openings made in the body. 
 
 § 6. There must be procured for the examination, as far as possible, 
 a roomy, well-lighted place, with proper accommodation for the body, 
 and in a quiet situation. Autopsies by artificial light are not permis- 
 sible, except in those rare cases in which delay is inadmissible. In 
 such a case the fact must be specially noted in the protocol (§ 19), 
 along with the reason which rendered it imperative. 
 
 IT. PROCEEDINGS AT PoST-MOKTEM EXAMINATIONS. 
 
 § 7.— It may sometimes be necessary for the medical inspectors to 
 examine in the first place, and from a medical point of view, the exact 
 spot and the locality in which the body has been found, to ascertain the 
 position in which it was discovered, and to inspect the clothing. In gene- 
 
88 NATURE OF THE EXAMINATION OF THE BODY. 
 
 ral, before doing this, the medical inspectors will wait until they are re- 
 quired by the legal authorities, but in certain circumstances it may be 
 also proper for them to point out the necessity of such a preliminary in- 
 vestigation. The medical inspectors are also entitled to demand from the 
 legal commission present at the autopsy, any other information respect- 
 ing the circumstances attending the death of the deceased, in so far as 
 these shall have been at that time ascertained. 
 
 § 8. — Should there be injuries upon the body, which appear to have 
 been the cause of death, and should weapons have been discovered with 
 which these injuries 'might have been inflicted, then the medical in- 
 spectors must institute a comparison between them, and, on demand of 
 the presiding Judge, must state whether the one could have been caused 
 by the other, and further, whether any conclusions can be drawn from 
 the position and size of the wounds as to the mode in which the perpe- 
 trator had acted, and as to his object and bodily strength. 
 
 § 9. — The post-mortem examination consists of two leading parts :■ 
 A. the external examination or inspection. 
 
 B. the internal examination or autopsy. 
 
 § 10. — At the external examination there is to be observed the ex- 
 ternal conformation of the body in general, and of each of its individual 
 parts in succession. In respect to the body generally, the points to be 
 noticed are: age, sex, size, corporeal build, state of general nutrition, 
 special marks or deformities, such as scars, tattoo-marks, excess or 
 defect of limbs, marks of disease, as ulcers, fyc, all of which circum- 
 stances are to be registered ■(§ 21) , particularly in the case of bodies 
 as yet unclaimed. Further, in the case of every body the signs of 
 death and of the commencement of putrefaction, if it have begun, are_ 
 to be carefully ascertained. For this purpose, after carefully washing 
 off the body all blood, ordure or dirt, fyc, the existence or non-existence 
 of cadaveric rigidity must be ascertained, as well as the general colour 
 of the skin of the corpse, and the degree and nature of the discolorations, 
 if there be any, of its individual parts from putrescence, also the 
 nature and condition of the post-mortem stains, which are to be proved 
 to be such by incisions, so as to avoid any possibility of confounding 
 them with ecchymoses. 
 
 In inspecting the various parts the following points must be attended 
 to ; — in the case of unknown bodies the colour of the hair and the eyes 
 must be described; this is not usually required in the case of known 
 bodies; the possible presence of foreign bodies in any of the natural 
 
MODE OF MAKING THE AUTOPSY. 89 
 
 openings of the body must be ascertained; also the state of the teeth 
 and the condition and position of the tongue. 
 
 Then are to be examined — -first the neck, then the breast, the abdo- 
 men, the back, the anus, the genitals, and, lastly, the extremities. If 
 a wound be found on any part, its position and direction must first 
 be given with reference to the neighbouring fixed points of the body ; 
 and then its length and breadth in Rhenish inches ; the probing of solu- 
 tions of continuity during the external inspection is in general super- 
 fluous, since their depth is readily discovered at the internal examina- 
 tion of the body and of the wound itself. Should, however, the 
 medical inspectors consider it requisite carefully to probe the wound, 
 they must state their reasons for this proceeding in the protocol (§ 
 19). Further, the condition of the edges and circumference of exist- 
 ing wounds must be considered, and after this examination and 
 description, the original wound must be enlarged in order to permit the 
 examination of the internal condition of the edges and of the subcu- 
 taneous cellular tissue. 
 
 In the case of wounds and injuries evidently unconnected with the 
 cause of death, such as the marks of attempts at rescue, of the 
 gnawing of animals, Sfc, it is sufficient to give a summary description 
 of the appearances. It is also permitted to compare the general form 
 and appearance of ecchymoses, and of cuticular excoriations, fyc, 
 evidently unconnected with the cause of death, to a piece of money, a 
 fruit, Sfc. 
 
 § 11. — At the internal examination, the three great cavities of the 
 body, the head, thorax, and abdomen, are to be opened. In every case 
 in which it may seem important to open the spinal column, it must not 
 be omitted. The first thing to be observed on opening each of these 
 three cavities is the position of the organs they contain ; next, wliether 
 there be any fluid effusions present, the quantity of which must be 
 ascertained by weight, and lastly, the external and internal appearance 
 of each separate organ. If there be any reason to believe that the 
 cause of death is to be found in any particular cavity, it should be 
 opened first ; in otJier cases, commencement is to be made with the 
 head, the thorax and abdomen coming next in order. 
 
 In regard to new-bom children (vid. § 16). 
 
 § 12. — Unless injuries (which as far as possible must be avoided 
 by the knife) require some other mode of proceeding, the best way of 
 opening the head is by making an incision across the skull from one 
 
§0 MODE OF MAKING THE AUTOPSY. 
 
 ear to the other, and then tearing off the cranial coverings to the hack 
 and front. After the external surface of the calvarium has been ex- 
 amined, it is to be removed by a circular cut with a saw, and its inner 
 surface and the condition of the skull-bones examined. The state 
 of the dura mater, pia mater and arachnoid may then be investigated ; 
 the cerebral hemispheres are next to be sliced off so as to display the 
 consistence and degree of vascularity of the cerebrum, any effusion that 
 may exist, the presence of any foreign bodies that may have pene- 
 trated the brain, Sfc., the condition of the ventricles and their choroid 
 plexuses, as well as that of the tuber annulare and the medulla oblon- 
 gata ; the condition of the cerebellum is next to be examined by means 
 of several incisions, the basis of the cranium is afterwards to be ob- 
 served, and finally, the condition of the sinuses. 
 
 § 13. — To lay open the neck, thorax and abdomen, it is generally 
 sufficient to make one long incision from chin to pubis, through the 
 general integuments, passing to the left of the umbilicus. The neck 
 must be first examined, and special attention paid to the larynx, 
 trachea, fauces, oesophagus, the large blood-vessels and trunks of the 
 nerves and the vertebra of the neck. 
 
 In order to ascertain the nature of the contents, if any exist, of the 
 tracheal branches, after opening the trachea and the thorax, careful 
 pressure is to be made upon the lungs, and if any fluids are thereby 
 forced into the trachea their nature is to be observed. In cases in 
 which a more careful examination of the larynx seems important, it is 
 to be removed and opened from behind. 
 
 To open the cavity of the thorax, it is most convenient first to divide 
 the costal cartilages close to the ribs, avoiding puncturing the lungs. 
 The diaphragm is next to be separated from the lowest rib and from 
 the ensiform cartilage, the sternum is then to be turned upwards, and 
 its manubrium separated from its connection with the collar-bones and 
 the cartilages of the first rib — carefully avoiding the blood-vessels 
 lying beneath. The thymus gland — if it still exist — is now to be 
 examined, then the bronchi, the costal pleura, the pericardium and the 
 heart, which is to be left as far as possible in its normal position, and 
 lastly, the large blood-vessels. 
 
 § 14. — The abdominal cavity is laid open by continuing the longi- 
 tudinal incision already mentioned (§ 13) through the peritoneum. The 
 abdominal coverings are now to be laid back to either side, so that the 
 smooth edge of the lower rib on both sides may be seen. In accordance 
 with the general directions (§ 11) respecting every cavity, the objects in 
 
MODE OF MAKING THE AUTOPSY. 91 
 
 the abdomen that are to be examined, are the Ever, the stomach and 
 intestines, the omenta and mesenteries, the spleen, kidneys, and urinary 
 bladder ; in females, the uterus and its appendages, the great blood- 
 vessels, and, should the nature of the case require it, the peritoneum. 
 In order to insure a correct estimation of the quantity of blood in the 
 vena cava inferior, it is proper somewhat to elevate the upper part of 
 the body till after the examination of the abdomen is finished. In 
 order to discover the source of haemorrhage from any wounded vessel, 
 the trunk of it may be opened and air blown in through a tube. 
 
 § 15. — Should there be any suspicion of poisoning, double ligatures 
 must be tied round the lower part of the oesophagus and about the 
 middle of the small intestine, and both must be divided between those 
 ligatures. The stomach and upper part of the small intestine are then 
 to be taken out of the body, and after a preliminary anatomical inspec- 
 tion placed in a clean vessel of porcelain or glass, and delivered to the 
 law authorities for further investigation. The oesophagus is also to be 
 tied close to the pharynx, divided above the ligature, anatomically 
 inspected, and placed in the same vessel. Finally, other substances 
 and parts of organs, as blood, urine, pieces of the liver, spleen, 8fc, 
 are to be removed from the body, placed in separate vessels, and delivered 
 to the law authorities for further investigation, when it is expected 
 that traces of poison may be found in them. 
 
 § 16. — In the post-mortem examination of new-born children, special 
 attention is to be bestowed on the following points : — 
 
 In the first place, the signs of maturity and viability must be ascer- 
 tained. These are — the length and weight of the child, the condition 
 of the general integuments and of the umbilical cord, the length and 
 condition of the hair on the scalp, the size of the fontanelles, the dia- 
 meters of the cranium {longitudinal, transverse, and diagonal), the 
 condition of the eyes (membrana pupillaris) , the condition of the carti- 
 lages of the nose and ears, the transverse diameter of the body at the 
 shoulders and hips ; in males, the condition of the scrotum and position 
 of the testicles ; in females, the condition of the external parts of gene- 
 ration. Finally, we must examine the inferior epiphysis of the femur 
 for its centre of ossification; to this end the skin over the end of the 
 femur is to be divided, the femur itself forcibly bent at the knee-joint, 
 the patella removed, and thin layers cut from the cartilage at the end 
 of the femur, till the greatest diameter of the centre of ossification 
 {if present) be attained; the exact measurement of this is then to be 
 
92 MODE OF MAKING THE AUTOPSY. 
 
 Should the condition of the foetus be such as clearly to prove it to 
 have been non-viable, it is not necessary to proceed further with the 
 examination, unless the law authorities distinctly require it. 
 
 § 17. — Jf n shall appear from this examination that the child has 
 been viable, we must in the next place ascertain whether it have 
 actually lived (that is, breathed) after birth. To this end we must 
 institute the docimasia pulmonaris, and with this view (a), immedi- 
 ately on opening the abdominal cavity the position of the diaphragm 
 in relation to the ribs is to be carefully noted, and in order that this 
 may be correctly ascertained, the abdomen of every new-born child is 
 to be opened first of all, and then the thorax and cranium ; (b) atten- 
 tion must be paid to the amount of dilatation of the lungs and their 
 relative situation thereon dependant, particularly with relation to the 
 pericardium ; (c) the pericardium is now to be opened and the trachea 
 ligatured, and divided above the ligature, in order that the thoracic 
 organs may be taken out of the cavity ; (d) after these organs have 
 been thus removed, the trachea and its subdivisions are to be laid open 
 and inspected ; (e) the colour and consistence of the lungs are then to 
 be noted ; (f) after removal of the thymus gland, the heart and lungs 
 are to be placed in a roomy vessel full of pure cold water, in order to 
 test their buoyancy ; (g) the lungs must then be separated from the 
 heart and their own, peculiar buoyancy ascertained ; (h) incisions are 
 next to be made into both lungs, and notice taken whether there be any 
 crepitating sound to be heard ; (i) attention is to be paid to the amount 
 and quality of the blood issuing from the cut surfaces on the applica- 
 tion of gentle pressure, and (k) the lungs are then to be incised be- 
 neath the surface of the water, to see whether any air bubbles rise 
 from the cut surfaces ; (I) finally, the lungs are to be separated into 
 their lobes, and these cut into many pieces, and the buoyancy of each 
 part carefully tested. 
 
 § 18. — The medical inspectors are also generally held bound pro-, 
 perly to examine every other organ not mentioned by name in the. 
 Regulations, in any case in which they are found to be injured or 
 otherwise anormal, and to incorporate the result in the protocol of the 
 inspection. 
 
 III. Teaming the Protocol and Report. 
 
 § 19. — An exact protocol of every thing done and observed at the 
 post-mortem examination must be drawn up by the presiding Judge at 
 the same time and place. (§ 168 of the Criminal Code.) 
 
FRAMING OF THE REPORT. 93 
 
 § 20. — In examining the body, the medical inspectors must always 
 keep in view the judicial object of the investigation, and its distinc- 
 tion from a purely anatomico-pathological dissection, they must, 
 therefore, investigate with precision and completeness everything 
 bearing upon this object, avoiding at the same time all irrelevant 
 prolixity. Every important appearance discovered must be pointed 
 out to the presiding Judge before being set down in the protocol. 
 
 § 21 . — The technical contents of the protocol of the autopsy, dictated 
 by the judicial physician present, must be clear, concise, and as far as 
 possible intelligible to non-medical persons. And for this purpose, 
 in the nomenclature of the appearances found, the use of foreign 
 scientific terms is to be avoided so far as may be consistent viith the 
 preservation of distinctness. In the technical portion of the protocol 
 the two leading divisions, the external and internal inspections, are to 
 be distinguished by large capitals (A and B), and the opening of 
 the three great cavities by ronian numerals (i, n, in). Moreover, 
 the examination of each separate part is to be included in a distinct 
 paragraph, headed by an arabic numeral, and these numerals must 
 run consecutively from beginning to end of the protocol. Several 
 parts are never to be included under one numeral, nor treated of 
 collectively, and no part is ever to be passed over in silence. The 
 appearances found must be accurately described in the protocol, and 
 no mere opinion is ever to be given (as for example, " inflamed," 
 "gangrenous," and the like). At the conclusion of the autopsy, the 
 medical inspectors must enter in the protocol their provisional views 
 regarding the case, summarily and without the addition of any 
 reasons. 
 
 § 22, — Should a report {reasoned opinion) be required from the 
 inspectors, after a customary short official introduction, as free as 
 possible from useless formalities, they must give a brief narration of 
 the facts of the case, so far as their cognizance permits, and they 
 must then incorporate in this report so much of the protocol of the 
 autopsy as is necessary for the elucidation of the ease, using the 
 exact words of the protocol and the same numerals, and expressly 
 pointing out any accidental variation in this respect. The style of 
 this report must be concise and clear, and the reasoning upon which 
 the opinion rests must be so developed, as to be convincing even 
 to non-medical men. Where the Judge has put distinct questions to 
 the medical inspectors, these must be answered fully, and, as far as 
 possible, word by word, or the reasons given why this cannot be done. 
 
94 FRAMING OF THE REPORT. 
 
 In accordance with § 185 of the penal code of tie \4sth April, 
 1851, it is no longer necessary to answer the three questions proposed 
 in §169 of the criminal code, or the four questions contained in 
 tlie ministerial rescript of the 15th May, 1833, addressed to the 
 Rhenish provinces, regarding death from injuries, unless the medical 
 inspectors are expressly requested to do so. Since it is evident that 
 every such report must be prepared conscientiously, and according to 
 the teachings and principles of science, therefore, no assurance that 
 this has been the case is required to be appended to it by the medical 
 inspectors. This report must be signed by the medical inspectors, and 
 should a district physician have assisted at the autopsy, his official 
 seal must be affixed to it. Every such report must be given in at the 
 latest, four weeks subsequent to its being asked for. 
 Berlin, 15th November, 1858. 
 The Royal Scientific Commission for Medical Affairs. 
 
§ 29. INSPECTION OF THE BODY. 95 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 EXTERNAL INSPECTION OF THE BODY. 
 
 § 29. Inspection op the Dead Body. 
 
 Coolness, impartiality, and zeal in his work are the conditions neces- 
 sary, if a medical jurist would satisfy himself and those concerned in 
 the execution of this, the most important of all the labours intrusted 
 to his skill ; the most important, because carelessness, or errors now 
 committed can never afterwards be remedied. Coolness — for whoever, 
 from want of knowledge or experience, or any other cause, proceeds 
 to this work in a hurried or embarrassed manner, is only too likely 
 to begin at the end, and to end at the beginning ; he jumps from the 
 inspection of the eyes to that of the extremities, from these to the 
 tongue, from the tongue to the umbilical cord, and, finally, produces 
 a protocol of the inspection so confused as to be unintelligible even 
 to an expert. Impartiality — this also is a most necessary attribute 
 of the medical jurist, in every case, but specially when at the dis- 
 secting-table ; without it he sees distorted features, and forthwith 
 concludes, that the death has been a violent one, which he can by- 
 and-by easily be able to show ; whilst in the same case, the man of 
 impartiality and experience only sees — for example, that one eyelid 
 has been pushed up after death and so remains, that the mouth has 
 after death been drawn to one side and distorted, that the nose has 
 been flattened by lying on it, and not by a blow, &c, so that all 
 such distortions are easily enough explained. It is a great advantage 
 and simplifies the matter much to follow some certain plan in inves- 
 tigating the various points which come under notice at an external 
 examination of the body, and are inventoried in the protocol. And 
 the following would seem to be the most advantageous order in 
 which to take up these various matters : — 
 
 (1.) The Sex. — In completely decomposed bodies this of course 
 can no longer be recognised. At a somewhat less advanced stage of 
 decomposition, even after the external parts of generation have been 
 
96 § 29. INSPECTION OF THE BODY. 
 
 completely destroyed, the sex may still be ascertained by a reference 
 to the growth of the hair around these parts, in so far as the circum- 
 scribed circlet of hair on the mons veneris is distinctive of the female, 
 while its prolongation, however slight, from this point towards the 
 umbilicus is equally distinctive of the male. It is well known, that 
 up to the third month of uterine life, the sex of an embryo is not to 
 be distinguished; the use of a strong magnifier 'is, however, of much 
 use in such cases {Fid. below under (13)). 
 
 (2.) The Age. — In the case of known bodies, the age assumed is 
 of but little importance, because in such a case the Judge can, if 
 necessary, easily obtain more certain information than a mere medi- 
 cal opinion. In the case of unknown bodies, however, where it may 
 be necessary for advertising the particulars of the unknown dead 
 body that has been found, this matter must rest entirely upon 
 medical opinion. But if it be difficult to decide as to the age of a 
 living person, where the look, gait, carriage, expression, &c, can all 
 be taken to account, how much more difficult is it to estimate even 
 approximately the age of a dead person. An entire or defective 
 state of the teeth, grey hair or the reverse, may of course deceive, 
 and wrinkles may be effaced by the swelling of the body, &c. The 
 most experienced, therefore, can but rarely do other than allow 
 tolerably wide limits to this conjecture — e. g., " between twenty and 
 thirty years." In this respect, also, the bodies of children are ex- 
 tremely deceptive, which would scarcely be expected, considering 
 that the age of living children can be much more readily guessed 
 than that of adults. But, here too, appearance and demeanour, 
 clothing, and other circumstances wanting in the naked corpse, 
 assist our judgment. When we reflect that growth proceeds vari- 
 ously in different children, and yet, that the size of the body is 
 almost the only criterion for guessing the age, and when we also 
 reflect, that every body increases in length after the cessation of 
 cadaveric rigidity, we shall readily excuse even an expert should he 
 -declare the body of a child of two to be that of one of four years old. 
 
 (3.) The size of the body. — For estimating the size of the bodies 
 of newrborn children, Siebold's balance is the most convenient thing 
 for the medical jurist; one of the scales of it is made of lacquered 
 leather, on which a foot-rule is painted in oil-colours, upon this' the 
 body of the child is to be stretched with both hands, and its length 
 can then be read off at once. A simple .six-foot measuring rod, with 
 one end divided into inches, is the most convenient instrument for 
 
§ 29. INSPECTION OF THE BODY. 97 
 
 determining the length of the bodies of adults, this must be taken in 
 a straight bine from the crown of the head to the sole of the heel, 
 these being the terminal points of the length of the body. 
 
 (4.) The general condition of the body. — There can be no difficulty 
 in ascertaining this in any case. Only gross ignorance could describe 
 an abdomen distended with gas as a fat belly, or mistake anasarca 
 for corpulence, &c. 
 
 (5.) Signs of death. — These we have already related in § 7, and 
 they must of course be always sought for and described in the pro- 
 tocol. But with respect to the post-mortem stains, the condition of 
 the cornea, and the cadaveric rigidity, it must be remembered, that 
 should the body show only the merest trace of decomposition, be it 
 the most trifling green coloration of the abdomen, so soon as this has 
 been registered, no more search for the earlier (above-mentioned) 
 signs of death is required. The major proposition involves the 
 minor, and everything superfluous must be always avoided in the 
 protocol. 
 
 (6.) Colour and condition of the hair. — In respect to this, as well 
 as the other individual particulars of a body, it may be demanded 
 whether, — according to the present construction of the penal code, 
 which states, that " causes of death inherent in the individual are no 
 longer to be taken cognizance of" (Fid. Penal Code, §185), — the 
 examination and description of the hair, eyes, teeth, &c, is any 
 longer required ? But, irrespective of the fact that the existing " regu- 
 lations" in § 10, prescribe this examination in the case of unknown 
 bodies, and consequently, no (Prussian) medical jurist is at liberty 
 to omit it, any alteration in this respect would be unadvisable. No 
 doubt often, perhaps in most cases, it is quite unimportant whether 
 the body — to determine whose mode of death is usually the sole 
 object of the legal inquest — had fair or dark hair, blue or grey eyes, 
 perfect or defective teeth, &c. But at the time of the medico-legal 
 examination the whole of the case cannot be had in view, and phy- 
 sician and judge .alike cannot as yet anticipate to what seemingly 
 trifling circumstance great importance may become attached in the 
 course of the case, the early neglect of which may be then most 
 deeply deplored. In Case LXL, given below, of fatal ill-usage of a 
 child, the guilty person had, amongst other things, knocked off the 
 crown of a double tooth, and this, as well as every other act of. 
 violence, she denied. This defect we had taken notice of in the 
 protocol ; and three days after the dissection the crown of this tooth 
 
 H 
 
98 § 29. INSPECTION OF THE BODY. 
 
 was found in the sweepings of the room in which the accused had 
 committed the murder, and this circumstance became of course of 
 the greatest importance. Moreover, the careful description of these 
 generally unimportant matters becomes sometimes of the utmost ■ 
 importance in establishing the identity of an unknown body, and 
 this is very well shown in the history of Case CCCXIV. detailed 
 below, that of a man indubitably murdered. We had of course 
 described in the protocol of the inspection, the colour of the eyes 
 and hair' (and of the peruke also, firmly attached to the bald por- 
 tion of the head). Subsequently, the identity of this body, with that 
 of a man missing, which had been suspected from various circum- 
 stances, was thrown into doubt, and towards the end of the inquiry, 
 the wife of this missing man was examined as to the colour of his 
 hair and eyes, but she, being of very weak intellect, knew not how 
 to describe them ! 
 
 (7.) Colour of the eyes. — This point is one extremely apt to mis- 
 lead in the dead body, wholly irrespective of the fact, that the 
 discrimination of colours is somewhat of a special faculty. If the 
 body be perfectly fresh, and the colour of the iris is a decided blue or 
 brown, then indeed two or more observers will be certain to recog- 
 nise it as such, but if the colour be, as it often is, greenish-blue, 
 greyish-brown, or quite lustreless, then we may be quite certain, 
 that A. will have a different opinion of it from B. Moreover, the 
 process of decomposition very soon alters the original colour, and, 
 as the white of the eye becomes by sugillation reddish-brown, and 
 finally, greenish-black, so the iris also undergoes a similar change of 
 colour. 
 
 (8.) Number and condition of the teeth. — In the case of known 
 bodies the specification "complete" or "incomplete" will generally 
 suffice. In .the cases of unknown bodies, however, a more exact 
 description of their number and condition is required, for the reasons 
 already mentioned. I may refer to the trial of Schall for proof of 
 this, for in the course of it, it became necessary to exhume the head 
 of the murdered person for the third time, solely and alone to 
 examine his teeth {Vide page 81). 
 
 (9.) The position and condition of the tongue. — The opinion that 
 the position of the tongue between the jaws or teeth is a sign of 
 death by suffocation is as general as it is erroneous, as I shall by-and- 
 by have to show. Nevertheless, the investigation of the position of 
 the tongue, whether behind, between, or protruded before the teeth 
 
§ 29. INSPECTION OF THE BODY. 99 
 
 (or jaws) must never be omitted. Its condition is, however, still 
 more important. It may be normal or swollen, injured or uninjured, 
 and particularly in doubtful cases of poisoning with corrosive poisons, 
 the noticing or not noticing the state of its mucous surface may 
 serve to clear up or obscure the case, as is shown by the following 
 very peculiar case. 
 
 Case XXXII. — Suicide by Sulphuric Acid, alleged to be a 
 Case op Murder by Cutting the Throat. 
 
 On the 24th of June, 18 — , in a market-town, not far from 
 Berlin, a mother, with her two little children, were found dead in 
 their room with great gashes in their throats. The medical inspectors 
 supposed they had found "an effusion of half-a-pound of black, 
 treacly blood in the abdomen, the coats of the stomach torn and stained 
 with black, treacly, carbonised blood, the spleen also torn and pul- 
 taceous ; " the physician declared this to be a case of triple murder, 
 and that the mother had been killed either by first receiving four 
 cuts in the throat and thereafter so falling as to burst the very thin 
 coats of the stomach and the spleen ; or, that she had first been vio- 
 lently struck on the stomach, whereby both it and the spleen had 
 been burst and the effusion of blood occasioned. The opinion 
 of the second medical inspector differed from this ; and as variations 
 as well as contradictions existed in both opinions, the public prosecu- 
 tor resolved to summon me at once by telegraph, and to refer the 
 case to me for judgment before the burial of the body. I found the 
 body clad in graveclothes, lying in an open coffin. A yellowish- 
 brown streak, running from the corner of the mouth to the chin, led 
 me at once to the supposition of poisoning by sulphuric acid. The 
 tongue, which had not formerly been examined at all, drawn forward 
 by a hook, appeared to be half tanned, and covered with a muco- 
 sanguinolent fluid, which instantly reddened litmus paper, and a 
 similar acid reaction was displayed by the black pulp in the abdo- 
 men, i.e., the carbonised stomach and its contents ! Of course no 
 further examination was necessary to explain, that the mother had 
 first killed her children, then attempted to destroy herself with sul- 
 phuric acid, and finding that death came not so soon as wished for, 
 had cut her throat with the razor that lay besmeared with blood upon 
 the floor. This opinion was fully confirmed the same evening, after 
 my departure, by finding, on searching the house, a letter from the 
 
 H2 
 
100 § 29. INSPECTION OF THE BODY. 
 
 deceased, declaring her intention, and the remains of the sulphuric 
 acid in the cupboard. 
 
 (10.) The condition of the natural openings of the ears, nose, 
 mouth and fauces, anus and female organs of generation. — Cases in 
 which foreign bodies are found in these openings are certainly rare, 
 but they do occur, particularly in drowned persons, in whom mud, 
 earth, &c, may be found, and persons suffocated, particularly new- 
 born children, which are often choked by stuffing their mouths with 
 all sorts of strange substances. But for other reasons also, the exami- 
 nation, particularly of the mouth and fauces, must never be omitted, 
 especially in cases of suspected poisoning by corrosive poisons, as 
 in these cases traces of such poisons may be expected to be found in 
 these situations, and in such as have shot themselves through the 
 mouth. As respects the examination of the vagina, the determina- 
 tion of the existence of virginity, of the presence of the catamenia, 
 or of injuries of the parts, &c, may subsequently assume an im- 
 portance little thought of at the time of the inspection. The anus 
 is to be examined for traces of evacuated faeces, though I lay but 
 little stress on this sign, as being one that is as often absent as pre- 
 sent in every kind of violent death, and not only may the carriage 
 of the body produce it, but the water in which it has been lying may 
 wash away its traces, and thus its appearance or non-appearance is 
 dependant on accident of every kind. 
 
 (11.) The neck in every case, for obvious reasons, demands a par- 
 ticularly careful examination. The most trifling yellowish-brown 
 patch leads, a priori, to suspicion of strangulation ; and there are 
 cases in which the results of the dissection have left the proof of the 
 strangulation which had actually taken place so doubtful that the 
 most careful examination and estimation of the results of the external 
 inspection have been of the utmost value in giving a final opinion 
 on the case. It is equally important to investigate the integrity of 
 the larynx and the cervical vertebra?. In respect to the latter I 
 must, however, guard against an apparently great mobility of the 
 neck leading to rash suspicions of luxation or fracture of the cervical 
 vertebrae, for when the cadaveric rigidity has passed, when the body 
 is lean, or the fat not half-frozen by a low temperature, and particu- 
 larly in the case of little children, great mobility of the head is a 
 phenomenon of constant occurrence. Lastly, I need scarcely say 
 that small penetrating wounds of the neck, however trifling they 
 may appear externally, may be of the utmost importance in deter- 
 
§ 29. INSPECTION OF THE BODY. 101 
 
 mining the cause of death, and must, therefore, never be over- 
 looked. 
 
 (12.) The hands. — These present various important matters for 
 observation. The question does not arise every day, whether a mar- 
 riage-ring had been worn during life, or merely placed upon the dead 
 body ; this would be easily solved by the finding of a deep farrow on 
 the finger. But much more frequently dried blood is found on the 
 hands that may be of importance in determining the question of 
 murder or suicide, or the hands of those found shot may be burned 
 with powder, or one of them may be injured, — all facts that may be of 
 weight in forming an opinion respecting such cases ; or we may have 
 the grey colour of the hands and feet and the longitudinal folds in 
 the skin, betokening that the body has been in the water more than 
 twenty-four hours, or sand, mud, &c, may be found upon and be- 
 neath the nails in such bodies, &c. We shall return to this subject 
 by-and-by, when we come to speak of the various kinds of violent 
 deaths. 
 
 (13.) The parts of generation must be carefully inspected as well 
 as every other part {Fid. under 10); they very seldom, however, 
 yield any information useful in deciding a dubious case ; the only 
 exceptions being the discovery by the microscope of an effusion of 
 semen in the case of men found suspended, and that of the peculiar 
 shortening of the penis common to drowned persons {Fid. § 45 and 
 § 54, Special Division). I may mention, as something specially 
 curious, that in one case I was asked if I could determine from the 
 state of the genitals whether the deceased had been capable of pro- 
 creation on a certain day three months before his death ! 
 
 (14.) The general colour of the body. — In general, the usual colour 
 of a corpse is all that is found, and this statement suffices for the pro- 
 tocol. The colour of the white unbleached wax of commerce, a dirty 
 greenish-white, which is the colour of those who have died from 
 hemorrhage, whether internal or external, is very like, and extremely 
 difficult to distinguish from this ordinary corpse-colour. When 
 injuries of the head prove fatal after long illness, the whole body is 
 often found of that icteric hue which is so commonly present in such 
 cases while alive. The body is also occasionally found of other hues, 
 as a uniform red-brown in aborted foetuses, the colour of roast-meat 
 in those that have been roasted, coal-black in such as have been quite 
 charred, &c. In describing the general colour of the body, the 
 various hues of decomposition, or if these are not yet visible, then 
 
102 § 30. MORBID PRODUCTS. 
 
 the colour of the post-mortem stains must be stated. The Prussian 
 regulations very properly direct suspicious or only remarkable look- 
 ing stains to be washed clean, because if this be neglected more im- 
 portant matters may remain concealed, as, for instance, stains pro- 
 duced by sulphuric acid, or trifling injuries which may be covered by 
 blood, or something important may be supposed to be seen, such as 
 blackening from gunpowder, or a contusion, &c, which the use of a 
 damp sponge at once shows to be mere dirt — truly an every-day 
 experience !* 
 
 § 30. Continuation. — Anoemalities of the Body. — 
 («) Products op Disease. 
 
 It is quite common to find in medico-legal subjects many deviations 
 from the normal, e.g., hernise, absence of sundry organs, tumours of 
 various kinds, deformities, ulcers, bed-sores, dropsical swellings, &c. 
 In the case of known bodies, which there is no difficulty of getting 
 identified, all such discoveries are to be most concisely described in 
 the protocol, when a more accurate examination and description is 
 not required by the nature of the case, as when there is a suspicion 
 of malapraxis on the part of the physician attending the deceased. 
 The same may be said of internal anormalities, as tubercles in the 
 lungs, ossification or other organic alterations of the heart, ovarian 
 tumours, &c. {Fid. § 23 p. 56), where there is no question of mala- 
 praxis, and when the organic anormality does not stand in any direct 
 relation to the death. In unknown bodies, on the contrary, every- 
 thing externally visible, defects, deformities, and products of disease, 
 must all be correctly detailed, for cases have often enough occurred 
 in which the presence or absence of ulcers, of the want of a finger, 
 &c, has proved of the greatest importance in establishing the doubt- 
 ful identity of a body. 
 
 § 31. Continuation. — (b) Op Scars. 
 
 The marks of wounds on bodies, particularly on such as are un- 
 known, are deserving of careful attention, and may give rise to many 
 judicial queries. First of all it may be asked, Do such marks ever 
 entirely disappear ? and in the case of Schall this query was con- 
 
 * Speoial referenoe to the inspection of the bodies of new-born ohildren 
 will be found, Special Division, § 77, &c. 
 
§ 31. OF SCARS. 103 
 
 sidered of so much importance in respect to the marks left by cup- 
 ping instruments and tattooing, as to occasion an exhumation of the 
 body (Fid. §32). The length of time during which a scar may 
 subsist, depends upon the depth to which the vessels and tissues of 
 the cutis has been injured. Scars of injuries which have only 
 affected the epidermis, or penetrated but slightly into the cutis may 
 completely disappear, and may be no longer fouud on the dead 
 body, though they have indubitably been present at an earlier period 
 of life. To this category belong not only needle scratches, but also 
 venesection wounds, leech bites, and the marks of cupping-glasses. 
 When the cupping instrument has incised deeply, the marks may 
 subsist for many years of life, as daily experience teaches us, but, 
 nevertheless, after a longer lapse of years they may disappear. Por 
 we learn from a customary proceeding in France, related by Devergie, 
 that the scars of even deeper injuries of the skin may disappear 
 during life. Devergie * states, namely, that where the brand mark 
 of a galley-slave has vanished, it may be recalled to sight by slapping 
 its usual position with the flat of the hand, till it reddens, the brand 
 mark which cannot redden, at once becomes visible by its perma- 
 nent whiteness. Scars accompanied by loss of substance never disap- 
 pear, as is evidenced by the marks of chancres or buboes, contracted 
 during youth and healed with loss of substance, yet remaining to 
 the most advanced age, as well as by the persistance of the scars of 
 various ulcers long since healed. To this category also belong the 
 scars of issues and blisters, which have suppurated for some time, as 
 well as the marks of variola vera ; these all leave scars which never 
 completely disappear, because the sores from which they result have 
 produced loss of substance by destruction of the dermoid tissues. 
 Eurther, all such wounds as heal, — not by prima intentio, but by 
 granulation, leave indelible marks. Such scars are quite common in 
 medico-legal subjects, as most of the lower classes have the usual 
 well-known marks of cudgel blows on some parts of their hairy 
 scalp. It comes now to be a secondary question, whether one can 
 from the appearance of the scar, particularly from its colour, form 
 any conclusions as to its age, that is, as to the probable time elapsed 
 since the receipt of the injury? All scars, whether arising from 
 injuries or the exanthemata, exhibit at first a well-marked red colour 
 distinct from that of the surrounding skin, which, by-and-by, grows 
 white and glistening. But the source of the cicatrix, and the pecu- 
 * Op. cit. II., pp. 31, 32'. 
 
104 § 31. OF SCARS. 
 
 liar characteristics of the injured person, — which we can only assume 
 • as hypothetical conditions, since, a posteriori, we know nothing 
 about them, — cause in this respect the greatest differences. We 
 know, for instance, how varied the time is required'for the primarily 
 dark-red marks of small-pox to become white in different individuals, 
 so that in some they are already white at the end of six or eight 
 months, whilst in others, they remain unpleasantly red-looking even 
 after the lapse of two or three years. This is also the case in scars 
 of every nature, even in those caused by injuries. The opinion of 
 the medical jurist respecting the age of any scar must, therefore, be 
 always given most cautiously, and can only be given negatively with 
 any certainty. For instance, we may certainly affirm that a per- 
 fectly white and glistening sear cannot have arisen from an injury 
 received two, three, or four weeks previously, because experience has 
 taught us, that under no circumstances do scars become white in so 
 short a period ; but we cannot in such a case decide whether the scar 
 be two or six years old. Consequently, the scars occasioned by 
 
 ACTUAL LOSS OF SUBSTANCE, OB, BY A WOUND HEALED BY GRANULA- 
 TION, NEVER DISAPPEAR, AND ARE ALWAYS TO BE SEEN UPON THE 
 BODY. BUT THE SCARS OF LEECH BITES, OF LANCET WOUNDS, OR OF 
 CUPPING INSTRUMENTS MAY DISAPPEAR AFTER A LAPSE OF TIME THAT 
 CANNOT BE MORE DISTINCTLY SPECIFIED, AND MAY THEREFORE CEASE 
 TO BE VISIBLE UPON THE BODY. It IS EXTREMELY DIFFICULT OR 
 IMPOSSIBLE TO GIVE ANY CERTAIN OR POSITIVE OPINION AS TO THE 
 
 age of a scar. In the following case : — 
 
 Case XXXIII. — Determination of the age of a Scar. 
 
 This diagnosis was of some judicial importance in relation to a 
 great burglary, accompanied with violence, the perpetrators of which 
 it was difficult to discover. On the 1 7th of March we were asked 
 whether it could be determined, if the scar on the finger of the ap- 
 prentice N., who was strongly suspected of having aided in the deed, 
 had originated in a wound received in the beginning of February, 
 and whether this wound had been caused by a chisel, crowbar, brad- 
 awl, blow, or how else ? The scar was on the outer side of the right 
 little finger near the metacarpal joint; it was circular, the size of a 
 pea, and of a pale-red colour, surrounded by a border of deeper red. 
 ''The statement of the accused, that this wound was produced in a 
 scuffle on Shrove Tuesday last (Feb. 5th), by striking the hand 
 
§ 32. OF TATTOO MARKS. 105 
 
 against a broken porcelain door-plate, is extremely improbable, since 
 a wound produced in this manner would have more of a lacerated 
 and irregular appearance. It is much more probable, that the scar 
 arises from a wound made by some round-pointed instrument, such 
 as a brad-awl or punch. The assumption that the wound was pro- 
 duced six weeks ago, that is, in the beginning of February, is, from 
 the appearance of the scar, not improbable." 
 
 § 32. Continuation. — (c) Op Tattoo Maeks. 
 
 As already related in Case XXXI., I was called upon in the course 
 of a most obscure and intricate criminal case to answer the ques- 
 tion — Can tattooing, known to exist during life, ever become so 
 thoroughly effaced as to leave no trace on the body ? The inquiry 
 was a perfectly novel one, and, from being entirely omitted by all 
 writers on medical jurisprudence, could only be solved by my own 
 individual investigations. Should the answer be negative, then the 
 particular body" in ( question could not be that of the man missing, 
 because he was well known to have exhibited on his person, when in 
 life, the marks of tattooing, and with the loss of this proof of iden- 
 tity, the whole case against the prisoner accused of murder fell to 
 the ground, which would not, however, be the case could it be shown 
 that even in a single individual such marks had ever really com- 
 pletely disappeared. The practice of tattooing, which in this country 
 is exercised almost solely by men, and that chiefly on the arms and 
 also on the breast, while savage nations cover more or less of the 
 whole body with the pattern, indicating by it various degrees of rank, 
 is accomplished by means of three or four sewing needles, stuck 
 in a cork or piece of wood, and so covered (by being wound 
 round with cotton, &c.) as to leave only the points bare, which 
 are deeply pricked into the skin, on which the desired pattern has 
 been traced. Our lovers of this species of ornament (soldiers, 
 sailors, and the Hke) usually choose one or two hearts, their own or 
 their sweetheart's initials, a date (of a year, &c), crossed swords, a 
 tobacco-pipe, and such like. When the bleeding from the small 
 punctures has ceased, some colouring-matter is rubbed into the 
 recent wounds, consisting usually of cinnabar or gunpowder, gene- 
 rally of both, to make the picture striking, or Indian ink, char- 
 coal, ink or Prussian (washing) blue. Desirous of investigating on 
 as large a scale, as possible whether such marks might not possibly 
 
106 § 32. OF TATTOO MARKS. 
 
 be made to disappear during life by the continuous regeneration of 
 the cuticle, and believing that the opportunity desired would be 
 best afforded by a large body of old soldiers, I- proceeded to examine 
 the dwellers in our Royal Invalid Establishment,* amongst whom 
 I discovered thirty-six men who had been formerly tattooed. 
 Amongst these I found in one case still some tattoo marks visible 
 after the lapse of fifty-four years ; in many others they were quite 
 distinct after more than forty years, whilst in two cases they had 
 completely disappeared after the lapse of the respective periods of 
 thirty-eight and thirty-six years. The general result of this inves- 
 tigation was, that of thirty-six persons tattooed, in three the marts 
 faded in course of time, in two they became partially, and in 
 four wholly obliterated. Consequently, in one case out of nine, 
 the tattooing was found to disappear in course .of time. In the 
 open jury court in which I gave this evidence, a competent witness 
 came forward and displayed his arm, which in his youth had been 
 tattooed with cinnabar, and from which every trace of it had dis- 
 appeared. A year later Dr. Hutin, in Paris, instituted a similar 
 investigation on a much larger scale in the large Hopital des Invalides 
 of that city, where he found, among 3000 men, no fewer than 506 
 who had formerly been tattooed. The results he obtainedf agree in 
 the main with my own. The colouring-matters employed were the 
 same as those already mentioned, cinnabar being the general favourite. 
 The marks made with it, according to Dr. Hutin, frequently become, 
 wholly or partially effaced, those made with Indian ink or powdered 
 charcoal remain visible, while those made with gunpowder, washing 
 blue or ink, generally fade, but in by far the largest proportion of 
 cases never become wholly effaced. This observer found, among 
 the 506 men formerly tattooed, 47 from whom the marks had com- 
 pletely disappeared (one in ten and a-half) — almost the same result I 
 myself had obtained. Two years later the question was anew inves- 
 tigated by a Parisian physician, named Tardieu, who investigated 
 the matter for himself, and has published a valuable treatise on 
 the medico-legal aspects of tattooing.} He found that the tattooing 
 had completely disappeared in three cases out of seventy-six, or in 
 one case only out of twenty-five ; and this proportion, so remarkably 
 small, when compared with the results obtained by myself and Dr. 
 
 * Vide the full account of this research in my Vierteljschft. I. s. 288. 
 
 t Eecherohes Bur les tatouages. Paris, 1855-8. 
 
 t Annales d'Hygiene publicjue. Janv., 1855, p. 171, &o. 
 
§ 32. OF TATTOO MARKS. 107 
 
 Hutin, Tardieu explains by referring to the colouring-matters em- 
 ployed. In all our investigations we found cinnabar to be the pig- 
 ment most usually employed, whilst Tardieu found a large proportion 
 of his subjects had been tattooed with Indian ink, and he concludes 
 that cinnabar and blue ink create far less indelible marks than In- 
 dian ink, soot, or washing blue. That is to say, in other words, 
 that the former pigments are more readily absorbed than the latter. 
 For Follin has re-discovered the pigment vanished from a tattoo 
 mark in the lymphatic glands, and our deceased talented Prof. V. 
 Meckel has made the same observations having found cinnabar, char- 
 coal, &c, in the lymphatic glands of several who had been recently 
 tattooed. And I can confirm this observation from the results of 
 my own experience : — 
 
 (1 .) On the body of a young man of twenty, who had been drowned, 
 we found a very bright-red A upon the inner surface of the left fore- 
 arm, obviously very recently tattooed, and with the naked eye we could 
 very plainly see the cinnabar in the axillary glands. 
 
 (£.) Another case is represented (Plate Till. Eg. 25 of the Atlas). 
 It exhibits a gland from the axilla of a man aged sixty, who had died 
 of empyema, and who on the same part of his arm as the former 
 case had tattooed a large, brilliant, and strongly defined red heart, 
 within which were the initials J. C. G., and the date 1858. Along 
 the edge of the gland a copious sprinkling of cinnabar was distinctly 
 seen. 
 
 (3.) On the right forearm of a man aged sixty-six, who killed 
 himself by cutting his throat in 1856, there was a heart with the 
 date 1813 (forty-three years previously), and beneath two faces, 
 which were tolerably distinct. All these were tattooed with cin- 
 nabar alone, and this was plentifully deposited in the right axillary 
 glands. 
 
 (4 and 5.) Four young journeymen-butchers were suffocated in 
 1857 in carbonic oxide gas. Two of them were tattooed on the 
 right arm. A. had a crown, three initials, and the date 1855. All 
 of these were still (after two years) very distinct, and in the axillary 
 glands there was no deposit of cinnabar. B. had a highly ornamental 
 design, consisting of the head of an ox, beneath it two crossed 
 pole-axes, initials, and the date 1851. Except the figure 5, 
 which was somewhat faded, the design was quite distinct. But 
 in this case (after six years) cinnabar was already deposited in 
 three separate spots of one of the axillary glands. 
 
108 § 32. OF TATTOO MARKS. 
 
 (6.) G., a pensioner, aged sixty-eight, was killed in March, 
 1858, by being run over by a carriage. He had on both fore- 
 arms very well preserved cinnabar tattooings, — a heart. and a flower- 
 pot on each arm, on the left the date 1809, on the right, 1814. 
 In the right axillary gland we found cinnabar more plentifully than 
 in any previous case, in the left there were only a few scattered and 
 not very visible particles of cinnabar. 
 
 (7.) H., a shopkeeper, aged thirty- eight, hanged himself on the 8th 
 of July, 1858. On the right forearm there was a cinnabar tattoo 
 mark, a heart, a cypher, and the date 1841, all perfectly well 
 preserved. In the axillary glands (after seventeen years) there was 
 a little cinnabar. 
 
 Meckel found the cinnabar still more plentifully in the glands 
 of those from whose arms the tattoo marks had almost completely 
 faded, so that it is probable that the absorbed pigment may be 
 found in the glands after every trace has disappeared from the 
 skin. Whether, besides the difference of the pigmentary material, 
 any other influence, such as personal constitution, mode of life, 
 deepness of the punctures, &c, has any effect in hastening the ob- 
 literation of the marks must, from the novelty of the question, be 
 left still undetermined. Tardieu also expresses himself in much 
 too .decided a manner on another point, when he states that it is 
 possible to determine from the character of the pattern the doubtful 
 identity of the body and the position in life of the deceased, &c, in- 
 asmuch as he thinks he has found that soldiers, sailors, and public 
 women, all as classes affect separate and distinct kinds of pictures. 
 Such an idea is evidently likely to lead to gross error, and it is 
 impossible from the state of the facts to recognise it as worthy of 
 general acceptance. Another statement of Tardieu' s is, on the con- 
 trary, of great practical importance, viz., that tattoo marks may be 
 effaced by art. Acting on the information of a prisoner who had 
 employed art for the purpose of deceiving the judge, Tardieu made 
 a successful experiment on an inmate in the Hospital who had a 
 crucifix tattooed with Indian ink on his forearm. The mark was first 
 well rubbed with a salve composed of pure acetic acid and axunge, 
 then with a solution of potash, and finally with weak muriatic acid. 
 The acetic acid ointment was spread thickly on the arm and allowed 
 to remain for twenty-four hours ; next day the solution of potash was 
 well rubbed into the arm four or five times. Neither of these ope- 
 rations occasioned more than a trifling uneasiness. On the following 
 
§ 33. INJURIES. 109 
 
 morning, a thin but firmly adherent crust was found to have formed, 
 and this fell off on the seventh day. But a new crust formed spon- 
 taneously, which adhered for more than fourteen days, and then fell 
 off, leaving a flat scar, in which not the smallest trace of the design 
 formerly existing was any longer visible. Experiments of this sort 
 require, however, to be repeated. Nevertheless, the investigations 
 of Tardieu, Hutin, and myself have already ascertained the follow- 
 ing facts, which may be of practical value in determining the doubtful 
 identity of a body, namely: — That tattoo marks mat become 
 
 PERFECTLY EFFACED DURING LIFE ; THAT IN NOT A FEW CASES THEY 
 DISAPPEAR, SO THAT THEY ARE NO LONGER VISIBLE ON THAT 
 BODY WHEN DEAD, ON WHICH DURING LIFE WITNESSES HAD OFTEN 
 SEEN THEM, AND THAT THEIR EXISTENCE AT A FORMER PERIOD MAY 
 POSSIBLY BE ASCERTAINED BY AN EXAMINATION OF THE AXILLARY 
 GLANDS. 
 
 § 33. Continuation. — (d) Injuries. 
 
 In respect to this most important point of the external medico- 
 legal inspection of the body, several varieties are to be distinguished. 
 
 (1.) No injuries are traceable externally, although death had 
 evidently occurred from violence, and from such violence as would 
 naturally lead to the expectation of finding visible traces of it, e. g., 
 personal ill-treatment, kicks, the being driven over, or suddenly 
 falling from a height, &c. " Traces of external iirjury wanting/' is 
 the usual formula in the public judicial notice respecting the finding 
 of an unknown dead body, and then it continues, that there is no 
 suspicion of death by violence, and that there is, therefore, no need 
 of any further medico-legal examination ; for where no " traces" are 
 visible externally, we cannot expect to find the death to have arisen 
 from any internal injury. Such reasoning may well be excused in 
 non-medical persons, when we find that all the hand-books on legal 
 medicine pass this subject over entirely, as one perfectly self-evident. 
 Henke alone mentions, in treating of rupture of the spleen, that in 
 such cases there is sometimes no ecchymosis, nor any other external 
 mark of violence, but he adds, that he has had no experience in such 
 cases. But the actual truth is precisely the reverse, and justifies the 
 conclusion, that it is the rule in all such injuries as are followed by in- 
 stant or very sudden death, particularly in all cases of rupture of inter- 
 nal organs proving rapidly fatal from internal haemorrhage, for the 
 
1 10 § 33. INJURIES.— CASES XXXIV. AND XXXV. 
 
 body to exhibit no external appearance of violence, presupposing of 
 course, that the orgin of the injury be not of itself of a penetrating 
 nature, as a gun-shot, &c, because during the short remaining life of 
 the wounded person there is no time for the production of ecchymosis. 
 The following cases illustrative of the occurrence of the most impor- 
 tant internal injuries unbetrayed by even the most trifling external 
 trace of violence, confirm the truth of this opinion. This experience 
 has often enabled us to diagnose the rupture of some important organ, 
 in the case of men killed by falling from a height, or by being driven 
 over, Sec, Just because no trace of injury was to be found externally, 
 and our opinion has proved correct in every case. In such cases of 
 course it is easy to satisfy the judicial functionaries, that an autopsy 
 apparently unnecessary from the absence of the external marks of 
 violence, is in truth most needful. 
 
 Case XXXIV. — Fracture of the Eibs, and Rupture of the 
 Liver and Spleen. No trace of injury externally. 
 
 A man, aged 63, was run over by a vehicle, and died in about ten 
 minutes. Two yellowish-brown leathery patches of skin, each the 
 size of sixpence, situate on the left side of the pelvis, and on the 
 elbow were the only external injuries. But the seventh and eighth 
 ribs on the left side were fractured diagonally across their centre, 
 without any trace of effusion of blood in the neighbourhood, and per- 
 fectly resembling a fracture produced after death. There was also a 
 laceration of the hver three inches in length, running diagonally 
 across the under surface of the right lobe, and penetrating half 
 through its parenchyma; there were also two lacerations, each an 
 inch long, in the lobulus quadratus, and the spleen was completely 
 broken up. 
 
 Case XXXV. — Fracture op the Eibs and Eupture op the 
 Liver prom being run over by a vehicle. No trace of 
 injury externally. 
 
 A labouring-man was knocked down by a carriage, and so injured 
 that almost immediate death resulted. With the exception of a 
 piece of skin,- the size of the palm of the hand, upon the left side of 
 the chest, which appeared is if burned, and a trifling ecchymosis 
 on the right ileum, neither of which corresponded in situation with 
 
§ 33. INJURIES.— CASES XXXVI., XXXVIL, AND XXXVIII. Ill 
 
 any internal injury, there was nothing particular to be seen on the 
 body. But, internally, there was a complete longitudinal rupture of the 
 liver, which had divided it into two parts, and a transverse fracture of 
 the fifth and sixth ribs on the right side, all of which would have 
 remained undiscovered had not the trifling external injuries men- 
 tioned above, led to a judicial examination of the body. 
 
 Case XXXVI. — Bupture of the Liver from being driven over 
 by a vehicle. No trace of injury externally. 
 
 A strong boy, aged fourteen months, was killed by being run over 
 by a carriage. Except a trifling abrasion of the skin on the back of 
 the head, and an ecchymosis the size of a walnut on the right large 
 trochanter, nothing at all anormal was visible on the body externally. 
 The head was perfectly uninjured. Just because of this negative 
 result of the external examination in a case of sudden death from 
 such a cause, I diagnosed, previous to the autopsy, the existence of 
 rupture either of the liver or spleen ; rupture of the former was found 
 to exist. The right lobe of the liver was almost completely divided 
 by a longitudinal laceration. 
 
 Case XXXVII. — A similar Case. 
 
 A six-years' old boy was run over and killed. With the excep- 
 tion of quite trifling ecchymotic patches, each the size of a bean, on the 
 left ileum, left knee, left ankle, and right side of the frontal bone, 
 the body exhibited nothing peculiar. But in this case also the cause 
 of death was found to be a longitudinal laceration of the liver, which 
 completely divided it into two. 
 
 Case XXXVIII. — Rupture of the Pulmonary Artery by an 
 iron fly-wheel. No important external injury. 
 
 A large iron machine-wheel fell upon the body of a boy aged five, 
 and killed him on the spot. On the middle of his breast there was 
 a faint-blue patch about an inch long, and not ecchymosed. There 
 was no fracture either of the ribs or sternum, but the right pleural 
 cavity was completely filled with thin fluid blood, and this haemor- 
 rhage was found to have arisen from an exceedingly rare accident, 
 
112 , § 33. INJURIES.— CASES XXXIX AND XL. 
 
 viz., a rupture of the pulmonary artery, one-third of an inch long, 
 close to its entrance into the right lung. There was in this case 
 general anaemia, and yet there also existed distinct cerebral hypos- 
 tasis, as well as the usual post-mortem stains (Fid. p.p. 20 and 21). 
 
 Case XXXIX. — Ruptuee of the Lungs by being deiven ovee 
 
 BY A VEHICLE. 
 
 A coachman was run over on the 11th of March, and lived till the 
 15th. Over the left ear there was a semicircular wound two inches 
 and a-half long, from which thin pus exuded. The whole of the scalp 
 was an inch thick with purulent infiltration, the cranial hones were 
 uninjured. The right lung was quite collapsed ; on the inferior sur- 
 face of the middle lobe there was an obtuse angled rupture, two 
 inches long, and one inch and a-half distant there was a second, 
 the form and size of a hazel-nut. Twenty ounces of fluid blood 
 lay in the pleural cavity. The inferior lobe of this lung was very 
 emphysematous, and the parenchyma was completely broken up 
 and strewn with blood coagula ; this portion of the lung no longer 
 floated in water. The uninjured left lung had more than the usual 
 amount of cadaveric oedema. On the right arm there was an ecchy- 
 mosis the size of the palm of the hand. These appearances justified 
 us in subsequently denying the truth of the statement of the accused, 
 that the deceased had only got "a. blow" from his waggon, since 
 the injuries of the head, chest and arm could not simultaneously 
 have arisen from one blow, and the case resembled much more what 
 usually happens in cases of death from being driven over by a 
 vehicle. 
 
 Case XL. — Complete separation op the Heaet by a violent 
 blow, feactuee of one of the veetebeal spinous peocesses, 
 laceeation of the Lung and Livee without any exteenal 
 appeaeance of injuey. 
 
 Complete separation of the heart from its attachments is indu- 
 bitably one of the rarest discoveries at an autopsy. A dealer in glass, 
 aged 24, in crossing the heights of Spandau on a bitterly cold night 
 in winter, had got off his waggon, heavily-laden with boxes of glass, 
 for the purpose of leading his horse downhill ; the waggon, however, 
 began to slide and crushed the unfortunate man, unquestionably 
 
§ 33. INJURIES.— CASES XL. AND XLI. 113 
 
 with the greatest violence, against one of the poplars which there 
 border the highway, and there he was found lying dead that same 
 night by those who went out to seek him immediately on the wagon 
 entering Charlottenburg without a driver. With the most important 
 internal injuries here, there was externally visible — Nothing — save a 
 trifling abrasion of the cuticle over the right cheek-bone, and a similar 
 one upon the left arm. Who could have suspected what was found in- 
 ternally ? On and in the head there was nothing remarkable, only that 
 the sinus transversalis was more than usually full of blood. On opening 
 the spinal canal in the neck, about a quart of dark fluid blood gradu- 
 ally escaped. The spinous process of the first thoracic vertebra was 
 broken off and lay loose in the soft parts. The deep muscles of the 
 back were ecchymosed down its whole length; the spinal mar- 
 row was uninjured. On opening the left thorax, about thirty ounces 
 of dark fluid blood was found, but there was no heart in the usual 
 position; on the contrary, it was lying loose at the bottom of the 
 thoracic cavity, for the pericardium had been completely torn across, 
 and the heart torn from the large blood-vessels. The terminations 
 of the aorta and pulmonary artery could be clearly made out, the 
 substance of the heart was dense and firm, and both sides, particu- 
 larly the ventricles, contained much dark coagulated blood {Fid. 
 page 25). The left lung was also torn almost across at its middle 
 division, and finally, there was a laceration in the right lobe of 
 the liver, two inches long, and half-an-inch deep ! and yet nothing 
 was perceptible on the body externally ! 
 
 Case XLI. — Ill-treatment. — Fracture of five ribs, with- 
 out ANT EXTERNAL APPEARANCE OF INJURY. 
 
 The following case forms a chapter from the lowest life in Berlin. 
 An extremely passionate man, M., lived in irregular wedlock with B., 
 but also in a continual state of quarrelling and strife. On the 
 morning of the 20th of December, B. was seen in a state of perfect 
 health. At noon, a fellow-lodger on his return home, saw M. ill- 
 treat B. in the most revolting manner, striking her alternately with 
 his fist and with a wooden shoe, on the head, face, mouth, &c. ; re- 
 gardless of the presence of an eyewitness, he threw her on the table, 
 and on the floor, and when she attempted to rise he seized her by 
 the hair and threw her down again. An eyewitness saw from the 
 court this poor tormented woman sitting in the afternoon on the 
 
 i 
 
114 §33. INJURIES.— CASES XLI. AND XLII. 
 
 floor half-naked, her face streaming with blood, her mouth swollen, 
 and her hair dishevelled. She saw M. knock her flat with a blow on 
 the breast. B. then attempted to rise and go towards the stove, 
 staggering as she went. M. again attacked her, threw her down back- 
 wards and kicked her on the belly and breast. At seven o'clock in 
 the evening, the poor woman died. Assuredly, the abrasions and 
 ecchymoses on the body were innumerable ; there was an ecchymotic 
 swelling of the eyelids, and a laceration of the mucous membrane of 
 the lips, evidently produced by the blows of the wooden shoe. But 
 it was a more important fact, however, that no external appearance 
 revealed the existence of a fracture of the first five ribs of the right 
 side, or of an extravasation of half-a-drachm of half-coagulated blood 
 upon the pons Varolii. To this category also belongs the case 
 already related (§ 27, page 64), of fracture of four ribs and rupture 
 of the liver, without any external evidence of injury. 
 
 Case XLII. — Rupture of the Brain prom being run otee. — 
 
 NO EXTERNAL MARK. 
 
 An aged tailor was run over and killed. The whole body, and 
 particularly the head, evinced not the slightest trace of injury, and 
 yet there was a fissure of the skull, extending from the end of the 
 sagittal suture to the middle of the squamous portion of the left 
 temporal bone ; underneath this about an ounce and a-half of black 
 coagulated blood lay over the brain, and beneath this there existed 
 that most rare phenomenon, a rupture of the brain, about an inch 
 in length and width, and filled with about two ounces of similar 
 blood. The man had lived about seven hours, and had been cupped 
 at the nape of the neck, as was proved by the marks on the body. 
 Among many hundreds of medico-legal dissections, I have only seen 
 this case, and one other, of rupture of the brain (Fid. Case 
 CCCXVIIL). It is evident that this, as well as every other rup- 
 ture of an internal organ, can only be produced by very consider- 
 able external violence, for healthy organs are never lacerated 
 without it. 
 
§33. INJURIES.— CASES XLIII. AND XLIV. 115 
 
 Case XLIII. — Fall from a height. Fracture of the Skull, 
 
 LACERATION OF THE PERICARDIUM, OF THE LlVER AND SPLEEN ; 
 INDENTATION OF SEVERAL ElBS. No EXTERNAL TRACE OF INJURY. 
 
 By a too common act of carelessness, a wealthy brewer met with, 
 a terrible death within the walls of his own extensive establishment. 
 For a trap-door — leading from an upper story, by a shaft forty-six feet 
 deep, to the cellar in which lay the great beer casks — having been left 
 open, the unfortunate man fell through in the dark down the shaft, 
 and, so soon as missed, he was drawn up dead. He was just forty- 
 four years old. A great patch of the scalp covering the left half of 
 the skull was torn off, — a proof that the man had fallen with his head 
 upon some sharp edge, most probably that of one of the casks. The 
 entire brain was covered with a layer of dark coagulated blood one 
 line thick, and the lateral ventricles were filled with a similar extra- 
 vasation. The base of the skull was fractured transversely, and 
 completely split in two — a sufficient proof of the extraordinary force 
 applied. Other evidence of a similar character was also afforded by 
 the bursting of the pericardium throughout its entire length, the 
 heart being, however, uninjured; by a transverse laceration of the 
 liver, two inches long, in the inferior surface of the left lobe, and by 
 a similar one in the spleen. Finally, the four first ribs on the left 
 side were bent inwards. And in spite of all these dreadful internal 
 injuries, the surface of the body displayed externally not even a trace 
 of ecchymosis, neither over the indented ribs, nor over the liver or 
 spleen. 
 
 Case XLIV. — Fall from a height. Fracture of the Sternum, 
 of several ribs, and of a cervical vertebra; rupture of 
 the Spinal Marrow and of the Liver, without any external 
 signs. 
 
 A workman, aged 30, fell sixty feet into a limekiln, and lay sense- 
 less, and breathing stertorously, for three hours, when he expired. 
 Except a few unimportant abrasions of the cuticle on the hands and 
 inferior extremities, and a trifling ecchymosis on the back of the neck, 
 there was neither any external trace of injury, nor any appearance 
 leading to the supposition of internal injury. The autopsy revealed 
 (1.) apoplectic hyper3emia,both of the cerebrum and of the cerebellum; 
 
 i2 
 
116 §33. INJURIES.— CASES XLIV., XLV. AND XLV1. 
 
 (2.) a fracture of the third cervical vertebra, the spinous process of 
 which was also broken off; (3.) the spinal marrow was torn across 
 at this spot, and the spinal canal filled with half -coagulated blood ; 
 (4.) the sternum was completely separated from its manubrium ; and 
 (5.) the second, third, and fourth ribs were fractured ; finally (6.) 
 there was a superficial T-shaped laceration of the right lobe of the 
 liver, and (7.) a small rupture of the lobulus guadratus. (The 
 superficial character of this laceration was a sufficients explanation of 
 the small quantity of blood, only three ounces, poured into the ab- 
 dominal cavity.) 
 
 Case XLV. — Death from a violent blow, eupttjee of the 
 Livee. — Nothing anoemal exteenally. 
 
 A girl, aged eleven, had gone into a mill, and was violently thrown 
 from a beam against the wall. Death occurred one hour and a-half 
 after. The body in this case also exhibited not the slightest trace of 
 injury, and just because of this, and considering the cause of death 
 and its suddenness, we were led to predict the rupture of some im- 
 portant organ. The autopsy revealed a longitudinal laceration in 
 the liver six inches long, which had divided the right lobe from 
 behind forwards. In the abdominal cavity there were seventeen 
 ounces of partially coagulated blood. 
 
 Case XLYI. — Pall feom a caeeiage, peactuee of the steentjm 
 
 AND OF SEVEEAL EIBS, EOTTTTEE OF THE LlVEE. No TEACE OF 
 
 INJTJEY EXTEENALLY. 
 
 This case exactly resembled the preceding. A coachman had 
 fallen from his carriage during severe frost, and shortly after died. 
 He was asserted to have died from " apoplexy," and "traces of 
 external violence," were declared not to have been found on the 
 body. And they were indeed so completely wanting, that for that 
 reason alone we prognosticated an internal rupture, and we did so 
 the more readily, that the corpse had a decided dirty greenish-white 
 (hsemorrhagic) colour. The rupture of this perfectly healthy liver 
 was of a most frightful extent, so that the fall must have been 
 a most violent one. The right lobe of the liver was com- 
 pletely torn off, and a very large quantity of frozen blood lay in 
 
§33. INJURIES.— PSEUDO-ECCHYMOSES. 117 
 
 the abdomen. The urinary bladder was full, and with its frozen 
 contents lay like a solid ball in the pelvis. The sternum was 
 completely broken across close below the manubrium, and the last 
 five true ribs on the right side were also broken across. There was, 
 however, no external trace of injury ! I may also add, that the 
 perfectly ansemie lungs were not frozen, but the brain, also anaemic, 
 was frozen hard.* 
 
 (2.) Very frequently there is found on the bodies of men who 
 have died a violent death, one or more suspicious-looking spots; 
 these are chiefly seen on the forehead, face, superior and inferior 
 • extremities, the elbow, back of the hand, ankle, shinbone, &c. ; they 
 are small, from one-quarter or half-an-inch to three-quarters of an 
 inch in diameter, usually circular in form, of a red or reddish-brown, 
 or a dirty yellowish-brown, feeling and cutting more or less hard 
 and leathery, displaying when cut perhaps a trifling congestion of 
 the small cuticular vessels, often not even this, and never exhibiting 
 any true ecchymosis. These spots may puzzle the medical jurist, 
 and in fact, they require a most careful investigation and description 
 in all cases of death under suspicious circumstances, the particulars 
 of which have not yet been ascertained, as they may betoken some 
 antecedent struggle, and may at any rate yield some information. 
 But in most cases these pseudo-ecchymoses have a perfectly different 
 signification, and careful attention will soon teach the medical jurist 
 the difference, for in general they are but the results of blows and 
 scratches received by the body in falling on some hard substance at 
 the moment of death, and have, of course, not the slightest connection 
 with the cause of death. Similar spots are often produced after 
 death by rough handling of the body during transport, &c. Nu- 
 merous experiments on the dead body, still continuously prosecuted, 
 have made me perfectly certain of the possibility of producing 
 such pseudo-ecchymoses even days after the death, and also other 
 alterations of the cadaveric surface that might be readily confounded 
 with the phenomena of living action. The sooner after the death 
 the experiments are commenced the more striking are the phenomena 
 observed. If any part of the dead body be firmly and for some time 
 rubbed, so as to excoriate it, with a hard brush or coarse woollen 
 
 * See also numerous other eases of the most various and important injuries 
 of both hard and soft parts, without any perceptible external trace of injury, 
 in the illustrative cases, § 8, Special Division, particularly Cases LIV., 
 LXXXVIII., XCL, XCIIL, XCY., XCYI., XCYII., CIII., &o. 
 
118 §33. INJURIES,— PSEUDO-ECCHYMOSES. 
 
 rag, or if the body be pulled about upon a rough floor, and examined 
 twenty-four to thirty-six hours afterwards, phenomena are often ob- 
 served, which might indubitably be held to be the result of living 
 action, bright cinnabar-red patches forming a striking contrast to the 
 surrounding cadaveric pallor, dirty yellowish-brown epidermic crusts, 
 that cut dry and hard, &c. The results of such experiments testify- 
 that the explanation, already given, of the mode of origin of 
 these common cadaveric phenomena, is at once natural and true 
 (Fid. Plate V., Pig. 14). Engel has made some similar experiments 
 perfectly confirmatory of mine, and any one may repeat them with 
 the same result. He says,* " If any part of the skin of a corpse • 
 be excoriated, that is, if the epidermis be removed from it by con- 
 tinued friction, evaporation from its surface is thereby favoured, and 
 it acquires the possibility of drying better and more quickly than any 
 other part of the skin not so treated ; it acquires, in fact, all the 
 peculiarities observed in a patch of skin altered by friction during 
 life, for similar conditions, are present in both, giving rise to the pos- 
 sibility of a rapid desiccation. The colour of any part of the skin of 
 a dead body so treated may be varied according to desire. If the 
 excoriation is produced on any part of the body on which hypostases 
 cannot form, then, as is usual in parts altered by friction, the desic- 
 cated skin becomes of a clear yellowish-brown, transparent at the 
 edges. But if on the contrary, the excoriation is made on a spot on 
 which hypostases already exist, or may subsequently form, then it 
 becomes gradually of a blackish-brown colour. In neither of 
 these cases can the excoriation produced after death be distin- 
 guished from one that has been made during life." "We cannot 
 be too urgent in directing attention to these results of experience 
 and observation, for the cases are innumerable in which from 
 ignorance or neglect of them, the most important conclusions 
 have been erroneously arrived at. Intimately connected with this 
 matter is the query : — 
 
 (3.) "Whether wounds observed on the body have been produced 
 during life or after death ? "When we reflect how seldom there is 
 any opportunity for obtaining experience on the great scale in 
 medico-legal matters, we can the more readily excuse the amount of 
 error that has crept into the medico-legal science and practice, that 
 has been handed down from handbook to handbook, from teacher to 
 scholar, till it has spread from one court of medical inquiry to 
 * Op. cit. p. 322. 
 
§ 33. INJURIES.— VITAL AND POST-MORTEM. 119 
 
 another ; and if this has been the case in any one point, it has been 
 pre-eminently so in regard to the question now before us. It has 
 been theoretically assumed, and it is so stated in the best handbooks, 
 that wounds inflicted during life are very readily distinguished from 
 such as have been inflicted after death, by the entire absence of any 
 of the usual signs of vital reaction, as inflammation, haemorrhage, 
 suppuration, swelling or cicatrization of the edges of the wound, 
 granulation, &c, and every one that has ever cut or stabbed a dead 
 body, thinks he has obtained positive proof of the correctness of this 
 opinion — and this opinion is indubitably correct, when regarded as 
 affirmative (that the wound has been inflicted during life), though 
 even in this case it may not be superfluous to recite a few of the 
 limitations to which experience has taught us that it is liable. Inflam- 
 mation, ecchymosis of the lips of the wound, and suppuration can, of 
 course, never be observed on a wound inflicted on a corpse, but in 
 very fat subjects, it not infrequently happens that in wounds, par- 
 ticularly incised wounds inflicted after death, when the body begins 
 to swell, the subcutaneous fat protrudes, and the edges become more 
 or less everted, so that a certain amount of doubt may thereby be 
 thrown over the time when the wound was inflicted, and this doubt 
 may be much increased if any blood be observed trickling from the 
 wound, which may readily be the case should the wound be situated 
 on any depending part, and should the blood be peculiarly fluid. If 
 this experiment be made on several bodies in which these conditions 
 concur, if they be allowed to he one or two days, and the condition 
 of the wounds then examined, these statements will be found per- 
 fectly confirmed. If the bodies, however, be allowed to he for whole 
 weeks or months, then we will find something else. Prom the very 
 nature of the subject, the experiment cannot of course be so carried 
 out, but medico-legal practice exhibits after a different fashion similar 
 results. I refer to the case of bodies that have lain long unsuspected 
 in some certain place, particularly in the water, and are already 
 putrid when first discovered. In such cases we have the whole 
 surface, or perhaps only that part in which the injury is, 
 green, greyish-green, denuded of its epidermis, large venous cords 
 filled with decomposed blood course across the part, the edges of the 
 wound are soft and spongy, fat and serum well out from between 
 them ; and I can testify that the most experienced hand may well 
 hesitate in such a case to decide from a mere external examination, 
 whether the wound has been inflicted during life or after death, and 
 
120 §33. INJURIES.— VITAL AND POST-MORTEM. 
 
 may think himself lucky should the further internal examination of 
 the case throw any light upon this point, which is by no means 
 always the case. In other cases again, the facts may be obscured 
 after a different fashion, by the burning of the body, or by the 
 burning or singeing of that part of the body in which the injury is 
 situated ; and this is not a very rare occurrence. In such a case it is 
 difficult, or impossible, to investigate the condition of the edges or 
 bottom of the wound, because both it and the neighbouring parts 
 are completely charred, and should the further examination afford 
 no information, the matter must for ever remain obscure. But if 
 from this we find that the opinion already given of the diagnostic 
 value of the phenomena of reaction is subject to limitations which 
 have not hitherto been related, so we also find from other circum- 
 stances, that this opinion, taken in its negative sense, is utterly untrue. 
 It is assumed to be easy to distinguish injuries inflicted during life 
 from such as have been inflicted after death, regarding those injuries 
 as most certainly belonging to the latter category, in which there are 
 no visible traces of reaction, no trace of ecchymosis of the edges of 
 the wound, of inflammatory areola, of suppuration, &c, and yet cases 
 do occur perfectly contradictory of all this, and in certain circum- 
 stances which we shall presently describe, such cases constantly 
 occur. We have already, in the second subdivision (2) of this 
 paragraph, been taught the great similarity which may subsist be- 
 tween injuries inflicted during life and those which have been 
 inflicted after death. And this similarity is much greater and more 
 liable to lead to error, when death has instantaneously followed the 
 injury inflicted during life, as in the case of punctured, incised, or con- 
 tused wounds implicating any important vessel, as the carotid artery, 
 jugular vein, &c, or any vital organ, as the heart or lungs, in a serious 
 manner. In such a case the wounded person does not, properly speak- 
 ing, die, that is, there is in such a case no agony — no act of dying, so 
 to speak — interposed between life and death ; he is alive and is dead 
 in the same instant of time, or within, at most, but a few seconds. One 
 would, h priori, expect that in such a case there could not be any trace 
 of reaction, even as evinced by ecchymosis of the edges of the wound, 
 to say nothing of swelling, suppuration, &c. ; and experience con- 
 firms this in a most remarkable manner, inasmuch as it shows that 
 these wounds are of such a character, that if after the conclusion of 
 the autopsy, a similar wound be made purposely in the neighbour- 
 hood, it is perfectly impossible to distinguish the one from the other. 
 
§33. INJURIES— UNATTENDED BY VITAL REACTION. 121 
 
 In considering all we have said under this head, we must, therefore, 
 always remember, that it is by no means easy in all cases to 
 
 DISTINGUISH BETWEEN INJURIES INFLICTED DURING LIFE AND THOSE 
 
 inflicted after death. I need not proceed to prove the practical 
 importance of this doctrine, nor to show that injuries to the dead, 
 particularly in the case of those drowned, buried, or found in privies 
 or dungheaps, are often produced by the instruments employed for 
 their removal from these situations, and in every such case this 
 question must be decided. The following cases afford proof of the 
 truth of the doctrine I have just laid down. 
 
 Case XL VII. — Penetrating Wound of the Sternum by a stab. 
 — "Wound of the arch of the Aorta. 
 
 One Siegel, a labourer, and formerly an executioner, had been 
 scornfully abandoned by his wife, and every attempt to pacify her 
 and induce her again to live with him was fruitless; so he decided to 
 make one more trial, and if that failed, to kill her, and this he did, 
 stabbing her in the breast with an ordinary tableknife and saying, 
 " Now, you have your deserts." S. repeatedly assured me while in 
 prison, that the knife went in as into "butter," and yet it had in a most 
 unheard-of manner made a wound one inch in length right through 
 the sternum. The edges of the wound in the bone were quite smooth, 
 without a trace of splintering. In the thoracic cavity, taking both 
 pleural sacs together, there was about one pint of dark fluid par- 
 tially coagulated blood, and about eight ounces of coagulated blood 
 in the pericardium. The knife had gone straight through the right 
 lung just where the large vessels enter it, had also penetrated the 
 pericardium and the arch of the aorta, five-fourths of an inch above 
 its origin from the heart. The wound in the aorta was slightly 
 rounded (halfmoon shaped), half-an-inch long, with clean and feebly- 
 bluish edges, the posterior wall of the arch of the aorta also ex- 
 hibited a precisely similar sickle-shaped wound with clean bluish 
 edges, so that the knife had completely penetrated the arch of the 
 aorta as well as the sternum. The murdered woman gave one 
 shriek and fell dead on the ground, and yet in this case, also, we found 
 the blood coagulated {Fid. § 11, page 23). The external appear- 
 ance of the wound was remarkable, it was situated between the first 
 and second ribs on the left side, close to their junction with the 
 sternum, extended obliquely inwards, was three-quarters of an inch 
 
122 § 33. INJURIES.— UNATTENDED BY VITAL REACTION. 
 
 long, half-an-inch broad, acute angled, and its edges clean, smooth, 
 not inflamed, and without a trace of ecchymosis, it was also wholly 
 without any trace of fluid or dried blood about it, so that in all 
 respects it perfectly resembled a wound inflicted on a dead body. 
 The non-correspondence of the external with the internal wound 
 arose from the oblique direction in which the deceased had been 
 standing when she received the wound, whilst of course at the dis- 
 section she was placed flat on her back, and the external coverings 
 had been thereby displaced. 
 
 Case XLVIII. — Stab with a knife in the Lung. 
 
 A boy, aged 14, was stabbed in the back by his enraged and 
 half-drunk stepmother with the knife with which she had just been 
 killing a fish, a few minutes afterwards he fell fainting on the floor, 
 and died six hours after. The wound in the back was ten lines 
 long, gaping slightly in the middle where it measured three lines 
 across, its edges were clean and smooth, perfectly free from ecchy- 
 mosis, soft and dry, just such edges in short as would have existed 
 in a wound made upon a corpse. The cause of death was internal 
 haemorrhage from a wound which had penetrated one inch and a-half 
 into the inferior lobe of the left lung, and in the left pleural cavity 
 we found about four pounds of dark fluid blood containing some 
 coagula. We also found of course a state of general anaemia, to 
 which, however, the posterior cerebral veins and sinus presented the 
 usual exception. ( Fid. Death from Haemorrhage, § 21, Special 
 Division.) 
 
 Case XLIX. — Stab with a dagger in the Lung. 
 
 This was indeed a most mournful case ! At a family feast a large 
 quantity of Bavarian beer was drunk. The brother-in-law of the 
 landlord became quite stupid from its effects, wandered into the 
 kitchen and there laid hold of a broken militia sword, one foot long 
 and half-an-inch broad, which was used for toasting herrings, and had 
 been for this purpose ground to a sharp point, with this he returned 
 to the room and reeled about brandishing it. His brother-in-law 
 went up to him, the drunken man put his arms round him, and in 
 doing so stabbed him in the back. The wounded man died in three- 
 
§ 33. INJURIES.— UNATTENDED BY VITAL REACTION. 123 
 
 quarters of an hour. The body was of a waxy-white. At the inner 
 edge of the right shoulder-blade we found a gaping wound one- 
 quarter of an inch long and one-third of an inch wide, with its edges 
 clean, smooth, quite dry, of a deadly paleness, and wholly without 
 ecchymosis. In the right pleural cavity there was one quart and 
 a-half of partly coagulated, but mostly fluid, dark blood, the superior 
 lobe of the right lung was horizontally perforated by a wound which 
 went right through the intercostal muscles between the second and 
 third ribs, and ended in the subcutaneous cellular tissue above them. 
 The body was of course perfectly ansemic, the only exception being 
 the veins of the pia mater. 
 
 Case L. — Gun-shot wound of the Spinal Makuow. 
 
 On the 16th of October, 1848, there was a great popular out- 
 break at Berlin, attended by an obstinate barricade fight between 
 the rioters and the city militia, which cost the lives of eleven men, one 
 only of whom died an honourable death in the discharge of his duty ; 
 he was one of the city militia shot on the barricade, which he had 
 already half surmounted ; the fatal shot came from behind and below ; 
 it had entered about the seventh cervical vertebra, had shattered in 
 pieces the three lowest cervical vertebrae, had torn across the spinal 
 cord, and finally escaped at the angle of the right lower jaw by an 
 angular opening about the size of a sixpence, which seemed to be 
 caused by a conical bullet ; neither the edges of the wound of en- 
 trance, nor those of that of exit were ecchymosed, a circumstance 
 readily explicable by reference to the instantaneous death which 
 must have followed the laceration of the cervical spinal marrow, and 
 they differed in no respect from the edges of gun-shot wounds which 
 we have made on dead bodies in the course of our experiments. 
 Precisely similar results were found in the following 
 
 Case LI. — Gun-shot wound of the Lung, 
 
 In which a man, during one of the popular outbreaks of 1848, re- 
 ceived a bullet right through his body, which perforated the inferior 
 lobe of the left lung. In this case, also, of sudden heemorrhagic 
 death, both the wound of entrance and of exit had the exact appear- 
 ance of those of a gun-shot wound inflicted on a corpse. 
 
124 § 33. INJURIES.— MODE OF EXAMINATION. 
 
 (4.) Very frequently the wounds found on the dead body are such 
 as have been produced professionally and secundum artem, from leech 
 bites, recent wounds from cupping instruments, recent venesection 
 wounds, up to surgical sutures, incisions, crucial incisions, and am- 
 putation wounds generally (in this category must also be included 
 all traces of attempts at revivification). It is usually sufficient to 
 describe such wounds summarily in the protocol, ' but of course, 
 where the medical treatment has become the object of complaint and 
 inquiry, it is necessary to describe most accurately every such wound, 
 even a venesection wound, should it have been stated to have been 
 the cause of death. To this category also belong, as already men- 
 tioned, all such injuries as may be inflicted on dead bodies by the 
 means used to secure them, or by the gnawing of predatory animals. 
 Such easily recognised injuries are specially found on all bodies, 
 whether adult or infantile, that have been dragged from the water 
 by pikes or hooks, &c, or that have been attacked by the vo- 
 racious water-rats {Fid. §57, under subsection (No. 22.), and 
 § 120, Special Division). 
 
 (5.) Pinally, those cases, the most numerous by far, remain to be 
 considered, in which the wounds themselves must, a priori, be looked 
 upon as the cause of death. § 19 of the "regulations" already 
 quoted, lays down the procedure to be followed in such a case, 
 and to these we have only the following additions to make. Even 
 science cannot but approve, when the present " regulations " require 
 that "in the case of wounds and injuries of the dead body, which 
 have evidently no connection with the cause of death," " only a 
 summary description of their appearance is to be given," and also 
 when they further permit " the general appearance of ecchymoses, 
 excoriated patches of skin, &c, which have also apparently no con- 
 nection with the cause, of death, to be compared with well known 
 bodies, such as pieces of money, fruit, &c." The scientific determi- 
 nation of the cause of death, is never fortified by any of these 
 accessory appearances. Sometimes cases occur, particularly where 
 murder has been preceded by a violent struggle (Case LXX.), or 
 where the person has died from a multiplicity of injuries (Case 
 LXL), in which such a number of external injuries exist, that ex- 
 amples of every class, solutions of continuity, excoriations, cuticular 
 abrasions, ecchymoses, &c, may be. reckoned by the dozen. In 
 such a case the protocol of the autopsy may be made to consist of a 
 
§ 33. INJURIES.— MARKS OF THE ROD. 125 
 
 hundred or more subsections (under different numerals), and this 
 must be avoided in every case (Fid. § 50), because a top minutely- 
 accurate description of every anormality, even if it were possible, 
 would seriously interfere with the distinctness of the report ; the 
 autopsy conducted in such a manner would further occupy a most 
 unreasonable time, and, what is of more importance, such an absurdly 
 careful description would be of no use after all, since it could not 
 assist in throwing light upon the case, but would rather indeed, in 
 most cases, obscure it. In such a case it is sufficient to make an 
 accurate examination and description of the more important of such 
 injuries and anormalties, of those which most evidently appear of con- 
 sequence for the correct elucidation of the case, and then to give a more 
 summary description of the rest, which may be conveniently slumped 
 together after this fashion, " ten or fifteen patches precisely similar 
 to that described were visible upon — ." We must now say a few words 
 regarding the marks of the rod, which not infrequently require to be 
 investigated in cases of the death of children from ill-treatment. Marts 
 of the rod are recognisable on the dead body in a twofold manner. 
 Either we find, where the birch has been flatly laid on, two, three, or 
 four parallel running stripes, which may be shorter or longer, up to 
 two or three inches long, and are red and slightly ecchymosed, or we 
 find, when the rod has struck more with the point, a number of 
 large ecchymosed spots on the part struck ; these resemble ordinary 
 petechiee very much, but can readily be distinguished from them by 
 being confined to one part of the body, usually the back and hips. 
 In the longer stripes small abrasions of the cuticle are sometimes 
 found, but I have never observed upon bodies any more serious in- 
 juries as the result of the rod as commonly used among us for the pur- 
 pose of correction.* Finally, in examining solutions of continuity, 
 the " regulations" permit the " careful introduction of the probe," 
 where the medical inspectors consider it necessary, but to prevent 
 any abuse of this permission they very properly require the reason 
 for this procedure to be explicitly stated in the protocol. Probing 
 
 * In the admirably conducted Marine Hospital at Cronstadt (in Russia) 
 I have seen a culprit lying on his belly, who, eight days previously, had run 
 the gauntlet, and received twelve hundred stripes, — a smaller dose of the 
 same was even then awaiting him ! His back was entirely covered with 
 superncial ulcers : his general condition was, however, perfectly satis- 
 factory. 
 
126 § 33. INJURIES.— OF PROBING THE "WOUND. 
 
 is, however, in fact, perfectly superfluous in most cases, since the 
 depth of a wound is easily ascertained without it, when we proceed 
 to the internal examination of the body and of the part injured. 
 But it is not only not improper, but actually necessary, after correctly 
 examining and describing the original injury, to open it up in order 
 to examine the internal condition of its edges, as also that of the 
 subcutaneous cellular tissue, and I may now again reiterate the ne- 
 cessity of incising every seeming ecchymosis, in order to discriminate 
 them from post-mortem and other stains (Fid. § 8). 
 
ON THE INSPECTION OF THE WEAPONS. 127 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 INSPECTION OF THE WEAPONS. 
 
 Statutory Regulations. 
 
 Penal Code, § 162. In every case the opinion of the experts must 
 be taken as to the weapons ivith which the injuries might have been 
 inflicted, any weapons found must be laid before them, and they must 
 be interrogated whether the wounds might have been caused by such 
 weapons, and whether any conclusions as to the mode in which the 
 perpetrator had acted, as to his object and bodily strength, can be 
 drawn from the position and size of the wounds. 
 
 § 34. Classification of weapons. 
 
 Judicial Medicine has nothing whatever to do with the ancient 
 legal, classification of weapons into lethal and non-lethal. It can- 
 not be too often repeated, nor too strongly impressed on the mind, 
 that an expert in natural science called to the assistance of the 
 Judge, has nothing whatever to do with the arguments, discussions, 
 or definitions of purely legal science. However useful for a Judge 
 it may be to classify weapons into lethal and non-lethal, such a 
 classification is, from a medical point of view, simply absurd ; and in 
 judicial medicine, only such a classification is likely to prove ser- 
 viceable as shall arrange the various weapons, and modes of pro- 
 ducing death, under the heads of their various actions on the 
 animal economy, as from these actions we can in unexplained cases, 
 during life or after death, infer the nature of the weapon so em- 
 ployed. It is obvious, therefore, that the simplest classification of 
 instruments capable of producing injury is into (1.) sharp, (2.) 
 blunt, (3.) fire-arms, and (4.) instruments capable of producing 
 strangulation. 
 
 § 35. Sharp-weapons. 
 Under this head must be included every kind of one-edged cutting 
 
128 § 35. SHARP WEAPONS.— CASE LII. 
 
 instrument, as a razor, every kind of one-edged and sharp-pointed 
 instrument, as most table and pocket-knives, every kind of double- 
 edged cutting instrument which are usually also sharp-pointed, as 
 daggers, stilettos, cane-swords, and rapiers; every kind of three- 
 edged weapon, as sharp bodkins and bayonets ; all weapons whose 
 cutting edge is more or less straight; also every kind of cutting 
 weapon with a more or less crooked or halfmoon-shaped edge, as 
 sabres, scythes, and sickles ; to this category also belong sharp pieces 
 of glass and metal. We have had occasion to investigate wounds 
 made with all these weapons, as the reader will, to some extent at 
 least, be able to perceive from the cases given. 
 
 Contused wounds inflicted bysuch weapons maybe superficial or deep. 
 When recently given, their edges are certainly smooth, when the weapon 
 has been recently sharpened, but still always more or less contused at 
 the external surface. The reactive phenomena depend, of course, upon 
 the part where the blow was struck, and the results found, upon the 
 time elapsed between the infliction of the wound and its examination, 
 whether that take place during life or after death. When such wounds 
 reach the bones, they either splinter them or divide them cleanly, 
 and the latter is specially apt to occur in the case of the larger and 
 smaller long bones, as the fingers, arm bones, &c. Both kinds of 
 injury, splintered fracture or clean division, can also be produced by 
 cuts inflicted on the skull. The following case shows that even the 
 short Prussian infantry side-arm, wielded with sufficient strength, is 
 able to cut completely through the skull. 
 
 Case LII. — Sabre-cut fatal from penetration of the 
 Skull. 
 
 In a quarrel betwixt civilians and soldiery, a workman aged 42, 
 received a cut across the head from the sharp sabre of an infantry 
 soldier. The cut extended three inches and a-half from the sagittal 
 suture towards the left parietal bone, and this bone was towards the 
 middle of the cut completely divided to the extent of one inch. The 
 internal or vitreous table was splintered in every direction round the 
 wound, and the coverings of the brain cleanly divided to the extent 
 of one inch. At this spot there was an abscess the size of a walnut 
 which contained splinters of the vitreous table. Recent leech bites 
 over the upper part of the abdomen showed that the deceased must 
 have complained of pain in this region, and this was probably refer- 
 
§ 35. SHARP WEAPONS. 129 
 
 rible to a tuberculosis of the liver, which was revealed on dissection.* 
 Contused wounds have this peculiarity, which is deserving of attention, 
 that they almost never represent the exact dimensions of the weapon 
 employed, and do not therefore contribute any data for estimating 
 its nature. And in this respect an important difference obtains when 
 muscular parts have been divided in the longitudinal direction of the 
 fibres or across them, in which latter case a gaping wound is left, 
 differing very much from the dimensions of the weapon employed. 
 
 Incised Wounds may be superficial or deep, and have sharp smooth 
 edges nowhere contused, which converge to an acute angle at both ends. 
 The reactive phenomena resemble those in contused wounds. They 
 may, as is well known, occasion important and fatal haemorrhage, when 
 they implicate any considerable vessel that may be directly beneath 
 the skin. It is extremely difficult, and often impossible, to deter- 
 mine, when such is necessary (as, for example, in cases of doubtful 
 suicide), where the incision commences or where it ends ? whether 
 it runs from right to left or the reverse ? This question is specially 
 apt to arise in cases of cut-throat. Stains of blood on the one hand 
 and not on the other, incisions in some articles of clothing on the 
 one side and not on the other, and similar accessory circumstances 
 often afford an explanation in such cases. 
 
 Cases of cut-throat may in certain circumstances give rise to 
 another perplexing phenomenon, extremely apt to mislead, as I have 
 seen in one remarkable case, which I helped to unriddle ; where, for 
 instance, the incision has been made across a neck covered with those 
 numerous folds, so common in aged or meagre persons, with the head 
 bent forwards ; on the neck of the corpse being stretched or. bent 
 backwards, there is no longer apparent only one continuous incision, 
 but several interrupted ones, often tolerably distant from each other, 
 just as we see more plainly in a piece of cloth which has been folded, 
 cut, and then unfolded. The medical inspection in a case of this 
 nature (No. XXXII., already detailed), had made "four incised 
 wounds " of the one which really existed, and supposed they had de- 
 monstrated a murder, and that the murderer had made several 
 attempts to complete the cutting of the throat! 
 
 Punctured toounds occasion but little external hemorrhage, except 
 
 * Two other examples of division of the cranial bones by sabre-cuts will 
 be found in Cases LXIII. and LXIV. Another case of a fatal sabre-cut 
 upon the head, though not related here, will be found among the second 
 hundred of my Gerichtliche Sectionen, s. .49. 
 
 K 
 
130 § 35. SHARP WEAPONS. 
 
 in such situations as the neck, where large blood-vessels he near the 
 surface, and if they are of small size are attended by the most trifling 
 reactionary phenomena. But, on the contrary, when such wounds 
 penetrate deeply they give rise to the most considerable internal 
 effusions of blood, urine, the remains of food, &c. ; and in regard to 
 this there is one point to which I must direct attention, inasmuch as 
 it is essentially a practical one, and appears quite different when 
 regarded from the two opposite points of view of the study and the 
 dissecting table. Nothing is more common, for example, than to 
 blame the medical jurists for not ascertaining the precise source, 
 place, or vessel, from which internal haemorrhage has proceeded 
 m cases of penetrating wounds. But this is frequently most 
 undeserved; for in many cases it is either perfectly impossible to 
 ascertain this, or it can only be ascertained after a most laborious 
 examination, by first removing all the internal organs and then 
 introducing a blow-pipe into the principal vessel, and such a waste 
 of time serves, after all, in general, no practical end, for the internal, 
 haemorrhage being the indubitable cause of death, the circumstances 
 of the case may render it perpectly unimportant, in a legal point of 
 view, to ascertain from what vessel it has originated. I need scarcely, 
 however, state, that cases of an opposite nature do sometimes occur. 
 .Punctured wounds also seldom represent the exact dimensions of 
 the weapon employed, because the weapon is so forced through the 
 skin and superficial muscles that any comparison between it and the 
 wound made may lead to erroneous conclusions. Moreover, in all 
 punctured, contused, or incised wounds, any comparison of the wound 
 withihe weapon supposed to have produced it cannot, of course, lead 
 to any correct conclusions, when the person wounded has died after 
 the commencement of granulation or cicatrization, — a circumstance 
 that frequently occurs after injuries of the head. 
 
 Scratches, or the marks of finger-nails, are found on the body in a 
 twofold form. Should strong pressure alone have been made by the 
 nails, then we find, even when true ecchymosis has not occurred, a 
 semicircular, more or less reddened, and feebly ecchymosed stripe, 
 which exactly points out by its situation and direction the position 
 in which the finger or fingers have been applied, a point of consider- 
 able importance in cases of strangulation, or of doubtful self-delivery. 
 If the nails have been used to scratch more than to squeeze, the 
 cuticle is found to be peeled off, the skin beneath being sometimes 
 of a bright-red, and sometimes not remarkable at all in its appear- 
 
§ 36. BLUNT WEAPONS. 131 
 
 ance. The whole spot is usually not larger than a lentil, so that 
 an excoriation thus produced is readily distinguished from that 
 produced by any other cause. Case CCLXXXIII. well exhibits 
 how much practical importance may become attached to even the 
 most trifling appearances on the dead body. The marks of scratches 
 were found upon the neck, of the person strangled. But inasmuch 
 as the individual then suspected of the murder (which he afterwards 
 confessed, and for which he was executed) had on both his hands 
 deformed and stunted nails, which were only half the usual length, 
 and did not reach the ends of his fingers, we were obliged to 
 conclude that the scratches could not have been made with these 
 nails, and that he must, therefore, have had an accomplice at the 
 commission of the deed. At first the accused stoutly denied this, 
 out of pity for his partner in crime, a boy, but he afterwards confessed 
 that this had really been the case. 
 
 § 36. Blunt Weapons. 
 
 Blunt weapons may be followed by the utmost variety of external 
 and internal results, according to the force- with which they have 
 been wielded, and the part on which the blow has been struck. 
 Blows from such weapons occasion concussion of enclosed organs, 
 and may thereby produce death instantaneously (as in the case of 
 severe concussion of the brain, spinal cord, or heart), or more or 
 less rapidly by the rupture of vessels or vascular organs from the 
 concussion. They may also cause fracture of the bones, from its 
 simplest form up to complete comminution of the entire skeleton. 
 Blows from such weapons may also divide the soft parts, making 
 wounds with obtuse, irregular, serrated, lacerated, and more or less 
 contused edges, often widely differing in form from the weapon that 
 has produced them; because the soft parts have been lacerated by the 
 blow,— a circumstance deserving of remembrance in every such case. 
 In other circumstances such blows contuse and disfigure, by flatten- 
 ing, as in the case of the nose and ears, by causing swelling, as in 
 the case of the eyelids and lips, or by fracturing those bones which 
 give the form, as in the case of the face. It frequently happens that 
 one body affords examples of several of these varieties of wounds, 
 either because several blunt weapons have been used, by one or more 
 assailants, or because one and the same weapon, a hatchet, or other 
 instrument possessing different faces, blunt, sharp, or angular, has 
 
132 § 36. BLUNT WEAPONS. 
 
 been employed. A great variety in the nature of the wounds is 
 most commonly found after death, from repeated inhuman acts of 
 violence, and after murders committed by men of peculiarly ferocious 
 character, as several of the examples given in § 41 will abundantly 
 prove. As to the kinds of blunt weapons, and forms of violence 
 employed, these occur in every possible variety. Prom what I have 
 seen in the course of my own practice alone, I can enumerate, adzes, 
 axes, blunt sabres, every kind of hammer, paving stones, cudgels, 
 broken jugs, and large beer-glasses, beams, logs of wood, wooden 
 shoes, wheels, windmill sails, masts, the butt- end of guns, iron 
 hooks, waggons and railroad trains, the fists, teeth, feet, &c, since 
 every kind of blow or fall comes under this category. As already 
 remarked, one result, by no means rare, of the employment of such 
 blunt weapons or modes of injury, is the rupture of some internal 
 organ. Healthy organs, lungs, heart, &c, never rupture spontane- 
 ously, the ruptured lung of a pthisical person has been tuberculous 
 and cavernous, and a ruptured heart has also been either atrophied 
 or hypertrophied, &c. And even healthy organs are never ruptured, 
 but by the employment of very considerable violence. Therefore, 
 fissures in the basis cranii, rupture of the liver, lungs, &c, may 
 uniformly be taken as conclusive evidence of the previous application 
 of great violence. The following are the observations I have made 
 on each of these individually : — 
 
 Fissures of the base of the skull are always transverse. In 
 a very numerous series of cranial injuries, I have never once seen 
 a true longitudinal fissure. They are most generally found in the 
 anterior third of the cavity, and usually extend from the pars petrosa 
 of one temporal bone to the sella turcica, or across it to the pars 
 petrosa on the opposite side. We shall consider subsequently the 
 fractures of the rest of the cranial bones. 
 
 Rupture of the brain is uncommonly rare, at least I have only seen 
 it twice, once in the case of a man run over by a carriage (Fid. 
 Case XLIL), and another time, following a contusion (rid. Case 
 CCCXVIIL). Also— 
 
 Rupture of the lungs, is by no means frequent. It may occur in 
 any one of the lobes of either lung, and in every possible direction 
 and situation (Cases XXX., XL., and XCIIL). 
 
 Laceration of the trachea, and oesophagus, are extremely rare (Case 
 XCIL), and are produced only by contusions of the utmost violence. 
 I have already related cases of these great varieties. 
 
§ 36. BLUNT WEAPONS.— CASES LIII. AND LIV. 133 
 
 Rupture of the pericardium, and rupture of the heart (Cases 
 XXXIX. and XLIIL). In the one case the fall from a great 
 height, in the other, the being violently crushed against the stem of 
 a tree violently concussed the body, and death was of course all 
 the more instantaneous in each case, from the coetaneous occurrence 
 of other important injuries. 
 
 Rupture of the liver, is not only the most frequent of all organic 
 ruptures, but is indeed by no means of infrequent occurrence (Fi/I. 
 Cases XXXIV., XXXVII., XL., XLIIL— XLVL, and LIV., 
 XCIIL, and XCVL). In almost every case the rupture is longi- 
 tudinal, and either occurs in the right or left lobe, or between them, 
 or, as I have seen in a few instances, it may occur in the form of 
 several small longitudinal lacerations in both lobes. Transverse 
 lacerations of the liver are extremely rare, and when they do occur 
 it is not usually as one single laceration of considerable size, but 
 several small isolated ruptures are found near one another. But 
 
 Case LIII. — Rare Form of Rupture of the Liver. 
 
 I have once seen a peculiar form of rupture of the liver in the 
 case of a boy, aged two years and a-half, killed by being driven over, 
 who lived half-an-hour after the accident. A reddish-brown stripe 
 half-an-inch broad, cutting like parchment, extended from the mid- 
 dle of the abdomen to the third lumbar vertebra. In the abdominal 
 cavity there were four ounces of dark fluid blood effused, which had 
 escaped from a laceration of the liver, of so peculiar a character, that 
 the entire edge of the right lobe seemed as if it had been gnawed by 
 animals. The peritoneal folds in the pelvis were also much ecchy- 
 mosed, while the rest of the body was of course anaemic. The 
 vena cava was empty, the heart empty, the lungs, as in every case 
 of anaemia, of a greyish-white colour. The veins of the pia mater, 
 however, as usual, did not partake in the general want of blood. 
 
 The following is also an extremely rare case : — 
 
 Case LIV. — Complete separation of the Liver. 
 
 A girl, aged four, was run over by a vehicle, and died in a few 
 minutes. Externally there were no traces of any important injury 
 visible (page 109), a trifling ecchymosis on the left side of the fore- 
 head, on the right forearm, and a more strongly marked ecchymosed 
 
134 § 37. FIREARMS. 
 
 stripe on the left leg, nothing else. From the suddenness of the 
 death, therefore, and the circumstances in which it had occurred, a 
 rupture of the liver or spleen was to be expected. The liver was 
 found to be ruptured, in a manner I had never previously seen, not 
 only transversely, but so completely torn through that the anterior 
 portion lay loose in the abdominal cavity. The spleen had also two 
 transverse lacerations in its substance, but they did not pass beyond 
 its centre. In the abdominal cavity there was a pound of fluid 
 blood. With the exception of ruptures of the uterus during labour, 
 and ruptures of the spleen, which, when they do occur, are usually 
 transverse (Fid. Cases XXXTV., LIV., XCL, XCVIL, and CIIL), 
 ruptures of the other abdominal organs are almost never observed. 
 Amongst these we include lacerations of the stomach, of the intestinal 
 canal (Case XCVIL), of the omentum (Ibidem), of the kidneys, 
 of the large blood-vessels, and the urinary bladder, which seldom occur 
 except in cases of general crushing of the body. Devergie indeed 
 supposes, that ruptures of the urinary bladder are " tolerably fre- 
 quent," but in support of this remarkable opinion, he quotes not 
 one case from personal observation, but only gives in a few words 
 two cases observed by others, and these not minutely described. I 
 have never observed on the dead body a single case of rupture of the 
 bladder, whether full or empty, in the latter case, in truth, the 
 accident could not happen without complete destruction of the 
 pelvis. 
 
 § 37. Pieeahms. 
 
 To this category belong one- and two-barrelled pocket-pistols, 
 pistols, rifles, guns, and muskets (cannons and mortars, which 
 Devergie also reckons do not belong to the department of juridical 
 medicine !). Shots from such weapons destroy the continuity of the 
 parts, partly by perforating both hard and soft tissues, partly by 
 contusing and lacerating them, and are fatal either by thus destroy- 
 ing important organs, as the brain, or by haemorrhage. The fire- 
 arms themselves are very rarely required to be examined by the 
 medical jurist. For, on the one hand, the weapon is seldom found 
 by the body found shot, because the murderer does not leave it lying, 
 and the suicide may be robbed of it after death ; and, on the other hand, 
 cases (of gunshot) where the circumstances are, a priori, sufficient to 
 prove them suicidal, do not come under the cognizance of the medical 
 
§ 37. FIREARMS. 135 
 
 jurist ; and, finally, it is but rarely, in our experience, even in cases 
 of certain or suspected murder, that the inspection and examination 
 of the weapon, where it is found, is of any judicial importance. In 
 order to be able, if necessary, to answer the question, whether, and 
 when a weapon has been fired? M. Boutigny, an apothecary in 
 Evreux,* has experimented on the residuum of the powder left 
 adhering to the locks of firearms discharged at different periods ; his 
 results are mainly as follow : — First period. This lasts but two 
 hours after the discharge of the piece. The adhering residuum is of 
 a blackish-blue colour, without any crystalline constituent, and 
 without any red oxide or other salt of iron, sulphur is, however, 
 present, and the solution of this dirty residuum has the smell of 
 ambergris. The second period lasts twenty-four hours : — The colour 
 of the fouling is less dark, its solution is clear, no sulphur, no 
 crystals, and no red oxide of iron is present, but traces of a salt of 
 iron are found. Third period: — This lasts for ten days, and is 
 characterized by the presence of small crystals, in the priming pan, 
 and particularly under the hammer and flint. Towards the end of 
 this period the crystals become always larger. On the part of the 
 barrel opposite the pan, and in the pan itself, numerous spots of the 
 red oxide of iron are visible. Testing with Tincture of Galls, and 
 with Ferrocyanide of Potassium shows the presence of a salt of 
 iron. Fourth period : — This lasts till the fifteenth day, and differs 
 only from the third in that the quantity of the salt of iron on the 
 barrel gradually diminishes (!), while the red oxide increases. Orfila 
 does not hesitate to say respecting these experiments, " it is thus 
 possible to determine, within a few days, or even within a few hours, 
 how long it has been since any firearm has been discharged." I, 
 for my part, am far from sharing this opinion. For we dare not 
 attribute such importance and probative power, especially in such a 
 case as this, where the life of the accused may depend upon it, to 
 the isolated and unconfirmed experiments of a man unknown to 
 science. Moreover, the extreme distinctness with which Boutigny 
 lays down the results of his experiments, makes them look all the 
 more suspicious. For it is evident that a difference in the quality 
 of the powder must make a difference in the residuum adhering 
 to the weapon, since the amount of nitre varies from 62 to 76 per 
 cent., the amount of charcoal from 12 to 18 per cent., and the 
 sulphur from 10 to 20 per cent. The varying degree of humidity 
 * Journ. de Chim. Med., 1833, Septembre. 
 
136 § 37. FIREARMS. 
 
 of the atmosphere will also produce other variations ; and, moreover, 
 the discovery of percussion caps and gun-cotton has completely 
 altered the point of view from which this question must be examined, 
 and has introduced new elements into its consideration. But I 
 must further remark, that these questions belong not to the province 
 of the physician, as such — and if he be not, perchance, a skilful 
 sportsman and experienced in firearms, he cannot be considered a 
 competent expert in such matters, and it is his duty to refer them, if 
 the judge himself do not do so, to gunsmiths, foresters, game- 
 keepers, and the like. How often will it not happen that among 
 the twelve jurymen there are one or more experienced sports- 
 men, and how much better will the physician maintain his own 
 position in their eyes by at once declaring that he is no au- 
 thority in such matters, than, by retailing opinions obtained from 
 books, which one author has, without examination, copied from 
 another, thus displaying his own ignorance of the subject to those 
 who really understand it, and rendering the rest of his evidence 
 doubtful in the eyes of the jury \ The case is different in respect 
 to the action of firearms on the body ; here the physician is a 
 competent witness, for here we have to do with the observation of a 
 natural object within the compass of his science. Besides what we 
 have already said respecting the general action of firearms, there 
 yet remains to be considered the recent invention of conical bullets, 
 the condition of the edges of the wounds of entrance and of exit, 
 the course taken by the bullet, the action of double-barrelled 
 weapons, revolvers, &c. ; but these objects will be most appro- 
 priately treated when we come to speak of the mode of death follow- 
 ing gun-shot wounds (Spec. Div., § 10, &c). 
 
 § 38. Instruments capable of producing Strangulation. 
 
 There is no long, limber, and tough substance, which has not 
 been employed to produce strangulation; cord, rope, kerchiefs of 
 every form and stuff, girdles, leathern braces, twisted straw-bands, 
 venesection bandages, sleeves of jackets, and legs of trousers, &c. 
 Such instruments, act as is well-known, by closing the air-passages, 
 by constricting the important vessels of the neck and stopping the 
 circulation through them, or by paralysing important nerves by 
 compression. Their local action on the neck produces the mark 
 of the ligature, and as this is an important matter in determining 
 
§ 38. OF LIGATURES, ETC. 137 
 
 whether death has been caused by hanging, or whether the body has 
 only been suspended after death, we shall consider it more at large 
 under the head of Death by Hanging (Fid. Special Division, §§ 44, 
 &e). The inspection of the cord, &c, is frequently required of the 
 medical jurist, that he may determine whether such a ligature is 
 capable of producing the mark discovered. I can state with 
 certainty, as the result of a large number of observations, that 
 this determination may often be attended with the utmost difficulty, 
 if it be not steadily remembered that every possible variety of 
 ligature may produce every possible kind of mark, for experience 
 teaches us that this is the truth. In general, indeed, rough and 
 hard substances, as hempen cords, leave upon the neck a mark 
 exhibiting here and there trifling excoriations, and patches of 
 mummified (parchment-like) . skin, whilst the mark left by softer 
 substances, as silken or woollen kerchiefs, and similar articles, 
 exhibits this appearance much more rarely, but by no means never. 
 Experience also teaches that the breadth of the mark left generally 
 corresponds with the breadth (diameter) of the ligature, rope, &c, 
 employed. But there are numerous exceptions to these rules; 
 kerchiefs of silk, &c, are, no doubt, soft and elastic in themselves, 
 but they are often edged with hard substances, as lace fringes, 
 crochet borders, &c, and these hard edges may come to he directly 
 on the skin and so compress and ruffle it. On the other hand, 
 broad ligatures, as girdles and trouser suspenders, may produce 
 quite narrow marks, because in this respect much depends upon the 
 situation and position of the body during the hanging ; should the 
 body of the deceased, for instance, be only lying in the noose of a 
 broad ligature, it is evident that this may easily tilt over and come 
 to press with its narrow edge alone, and such cases are by no means 
 rare. Finally, the relation which the mark bears to the ligature, as 
 to depth, varies very much according to the degree of constriction 
 of the neck. I have often enough seen this so tight that it was 
 impossible to introduce a finger between the ligature and the neck, 
 while in most cases the ligature is loose, and is yet sufficiently 
 tight to produce death when the weight of the body is suspended in 
 it. Every case of this nature brought up for medico-legal exami- 
 nation must rest upon its own merits, and requires the most careful 
 consideration, lest an unfounded opinion may be incautiously given, 
 which may be fraught with important consequences for the accused. 
 We shall consider further the subject of the mark of the ligature, 
 
138 § 39. DOUBTFUL BLOOD-STAINS. 
 
 which is by no means exhausted, when we come to treat of Death 
 by Hanging! The examination of the ligature may, however, be of 
 importance in another respect, in cases, for instance, where it is 
 doubtful whether the case is one of murder or suicide ; the nature of 
 the knot tied may be very significant, as it may belong to one or 
 other of the numerous technical knots — such as the baker's knot, 
 with which they tie their sacks ; the miller's knot, which fastens 
 their sacks after a different fashion, and many other trades also, who 
 have each their own peculiar method of tying a knot. More than 
 once, I myself have been asked if the knot produced were a baker's 
 knot, or no, &c. The medical jurist is not omniscient, and he 
 cannot be expected to be conversant with all the various implements 
 and knacks of every trade, because his own peculiar science does not 
 supply the knowledge necessary for this. Therefore for the same 
 reasons that I have already given (page 136), when speaking of the 
 matter of firearms, I would also advise in the circumstance now in 
 consideration, a similar declaration of incompetence. The Judge must 
 then require the attendance of the respective tradesmen concerned, 
 examine them, and get their opinion on the matter. 
 
 § 39. Doubtful Blood-stains on Weapons. 
 
 In criminal investigations respecting murder, homicide, wounds, 
 violence, rape, &c, the medical jurist is often called upon to deter- 
 mine whether stains upon weapons, articles of furniture, doors, walls, 
 utensils, or upon articles of dress or cloth, which appear to be blood, 
 are really so or not. The accused denies everything, and these 
 suspicious-looking spots, of which he says he knows nothing, may 
 be, perhaps, the most important evidence against him. Or, he 
 may acknowledge that the stains are blood-stains, but he brings 
 forward reasons for their being produced by the blood of a beast. 
 Or, he may allow that the stains upon his trousers are indeed blood- 
 stains, but they do not arise from any wound inflicted by him, but 
 from the fact that on a given day, previous to his arrest, he had 
 connection with a menstruating woman. Or, in another case it may 
 be doubtful whether the stains have been really derived from the 
 injured person, or whether there may not be reason to suspect that 
 he may have made them himself with the blood of an animal, to 
 render his accusation of another party more seemingly probable. I 
 can quote cases in support of all these different pleas, but they by 
 
§ 39. DOUBTFUL BLOOD-STAINS. 139 
 
 no means exhaust all the possibilities of the case, and the very 
 difficulty of the subject, coupled with its frequent occurrence, has 
 very naturally given rise to a continuous search after more certain 
 methods of establishing a differential diagnosis in doubtful cases. 
 The attainment of this end has, however, been reserved for recent 
 times, for the numerous olden methods of investigation * have all 
 proved to be too complicated, and too uncertain to be practically 
 useful. 
 
 Should the objects of examination be polished metal instruments, 
 such as the usual tools of artizans, it is difficult to confound the 
 appearance of blood recently dried upon them, with that of stains of 
 any other kind, particularly with spots of rust. The blood-stains 
 are bright-red in colour, when there is only a thin layer of it ad- 
 hering to the iron, &c, and of a darker-red where the layer is 
 thicker. Such stains of blood and spots of rust are, however, 
 most easily distinguished by heating the implement strongly, when 
 the blood will scale off, leaving the metallic surface bright, while 
 spots of rust remain unchanged ; on the other hand, it is often 
 impossible to distinguish by sight stains of blood which have been 
 long dried upon iron from spots of rust. The method of investiga- 
 tion recommended in § 40, is a good one, and the discovery of 
 crystals of hsematine (§ 43) — which must always be sought for, — will 
 confirm the diagnosis. Eecent blood-stains upon light-coloured 
 doors, furniture, or carpets, &c, are quite unmistakeable. In de- 
 tecting recent blood-stains upon dark-coloured wooden implements, 
 on the brown-coloured handles of knives or axes, brown-coloured 
 doors, dark-coloured carpets, articles of furniture, &c, I have found 
 it extremely useful to proceed in the manner accidentally discovered 
 by Ollivier and Pillon, viz., to bring artificial light (as a candle) 
 close to the suspected spot, as, by this means of illumination, red- 
 dish-brown stains may be discovered amid the darker ground-colour, 
 which in the light of day may easily escape detection, particularly 
 
 * Vid. Orfila Traite de Med. Leg., 2nd Ed., II. p. 564. Lassaigne, Rev. 
 Med., Aug. 1821. Barruel, Annales d'Hygiene Publique, 1829. Chevalier, 
 inPoggendorfs Annalen, 1838, No. 9. Barruel and Lesueur, Archiv. de Med., 
 1833, I. 2 Serie. H. Kose, in Casper's Vtljschft. 1853, iv. s. 295; 
 C. Schmidt, die Diagnostik verdachtiger Flecke in Criminalfallen. 
 Mitau and Leipzig, 1848 ; and B. Bitter, ueber die Ermittelung von Blut, 
 Saamen, und Exerementenflecken in Criminalfallen. Eine gekronte Preis- 
 sohrift, 2 Aufl. Wiirzburg, 1854 (rich in Bibliography). Lassaigne, Annales 
 d'Hygiene Publique, 1857, Janv. s. 119, &c. Vid. also under § 43. 
 
140 § 39. DOUBTFUL BLOOD-STAINS. 
 
 when they are few in number, or of small size. Recent blood-stains 
 may be further easily distinguished in general by means of the mi- 
 croscope, inasmuch as the corpuscle peculiar to human blood can 
 usually be distinctly recognised, but this admirable means of dia- 
 gnosis often fails us, when the blood has been long effused, when it 
 has been wet and dried again, when it has been mixed with other 
 substances, when the stuff upon which the stain is, has been much 
 rubbed or washed, for in all these circumstances the blood corpuscles 
 are destroyed, and can no more be recognised as such, even by the 
 most expert microscopists. 
 
 Much attention has rightly been directed to Barruel's pretended 
 discovery of the power of distinguishing human blood from that of 
 animals by means of the peculiar odour evolved by the action of 
 pure sulphuric acid. But if it be hazardous in medico-legal cases to 
 admit proof depending on a nice distinction of colours, it is doubly 
 so to employ in such cases the sense of smelling as a criterion, for 
 there is no sense more liable to greater individual differences than 
 this is, and indeed Barruel's method has been found wanting when 
 tested by experiment ; omitting many earlier and similar experiments, 
 I may refer for proof of this, to those striking experiments instituted 
 by Chevalier.* He prepared according to Barruel's method the blood 
 of sheep, of oxen, and of different men, and submitted the various 
 specimens to the noses of a number of experts associated with him ; 
 these recorded their opinion of the various specimens, the exact 
 nature of which was unknown to them, and it was found, that 
 though sometimes they had guessed rightly, they had much more 
 often guessed wrong, having diagnosed human blood to be animal, 
 or the reverse ! BarrueFs method, or indeed any method of distin- 
 guishing the blood of one animal from that of another by the smell 
 is, therefore, far too uncertain, and too liable to dangerous mistakes 
 to be ever admitted as evidence, particularly in criminal prosecutions. 
 The following instructive case proves, however, that it is possible 
 even after a long time to distinguish microscopically the dried blood 
 of men from that of brutes, if it have been carefully preserved from 
 the injurious influences already detailed. This case was brought 
 before the Royal Scientific Commission for their opinion, and was 
 referred by them to Prof. Johannes Muller and the author. 
 
 * Annales d'Hyg. Publ. 1853, Avril. 
 
§ 39. DOUBTFUL BLOOD-STAINS.— CASE LV. 141 
 
 Case LV. — Diagnosis between Human and Bied's Blood. 
 
 A man was forcibly expelled from his home, and thereby injured. 
 He pretended to have fallen ill in consequence, but a suspicion arose 
 that the blood passed by him per anum during the course of his 
 illness was not human blood, but pigeon's-blood, purposely swallowed. 
 Two physicians had certified this. On a further examination two 
 other physicians had declared that the blood passed per anum 
 between the 30th of January and the 3rd of February had been 
 distinctly recognised by them as bird's blood when examined micro- 
 scopically on the 22nd of July (after nearly six months). The Royal 
 Medical College at X., when officially inquired at about the matter 
 in November, would give no decided opinion, because the nature of 
 the substance was said to be no longer recognisable; and when 
 further asked if this must have been the case on the 22nd of July ? 
 they could give no answer. The judicial investigator, therefore, 
 referred the matter to the decision of the Scientific Commission, and 
 laid before it the following queries : — (1.) Is the matter sent recog- 
 nisable as the blood of man or of a bird ? (2.) If not recognisable, 
 why not ? (3.) Might this impossibility of distinguishing the nature of 
 the substance have already existed on the 22nd of July, or since 
 when has it arisen ? 
 
 In the middle of February of the following year, thus more than an 
 entire year after it was passed, the blood was examined, and the 
 following opinion delivered : — 
 
 " In discharge of the duty imposed upon us, the suspected blood 
 (a dry powder sent in a box), was compared under the microscope : — 
 (1.) with recent and with dried blood from a human corpse, (2.) 
 with recent and with dried pigeon's blood. When sufficiently small 
 fragments of the suspected blood are prepared with a solution of 
 common salt or of sugar, and placed under the microscope, the 
 blood corpuscles can be distinctly recognised ; these are not elliptic, 
 but possess the form and size peculiar to the blood corpuscles of 
 man and the mammalia ; none have been found differing in size from 
 those of human blood corpuscles, and only a few somewhat differing 
 from the usual circular form, but neither more nor fewer of these 
 than are usually found in the blood of man and the mammalia. No 
 nuclei have been seen in these corpuscles, and in this they perfectly 
 resemble the corpuscles of man and the mammalia. The blood 
 
142 § 39. DOUBTFUL BLOOD-STAINS.— CASES LV. AND LVI. 
 
 corpuscles in question have not the slightest resemblance to the 
 blood corpuscles of pigeons or any other bird, and why they should 
 ever have been identified as such cannot be conceived. The blood 
 ' corpuscles of birds are, without exception, elliptical, they possess a 
 distinct oblong nucleus, and are moreover, twice as large as the 
 corpuscles in question. It follows then from what we have said, 
 that the blood sent us for examination is not pigeon's blood, nor the 
 blood of any bird, but can only be the blood of man or of one of the 
 mammalia. Which of these it is cannot be decided, inasmuch, as the 
 form and size of the blood corpuscles in man and in the other mam- 
 malia appear precisely similar under the microscope, and there are 
 no certain diagnostic marks, between the two kinds of blood. Ac- 
 cordingly we give it as our opinion that the substance sent us for 
 examination is not bird's blood, but the blood of man, or one of the 
 mammalia — and it is therefore unnecessary to make any remark 
 on the two other questions. Berlin, March 13th, 1850 — Eoyal 
 Scientific Commission for Medical Affairs." 
 
 It cannot be denied, that besides other favouring circumstances 
 already mentioned, the investigation was in this case rendered much 
 easier by having to distinguish between two forms of blood cor- 
 puscles, which are so decidedly different from one another. The 
 following cases will, however, show how much more difficult the 
 converse of this is, viz., to decide whether a stain has been made by 
 human or animal blood. 
 
 Case LYI. — Is it the Blood oe a Man oe of a Cow ? 
 
 On the 14th of January, 18 — , at N., a company were drinking 
 together in an alehouse, and among them S. and a man-servant 
 named W., the latter saw that S. had with him a purse containing 
 twenty-five thalers (£3 15s.), asked him which way he would go 
 home, and immediately went off. "While S. was returning homewards 
 during the night along the snow-clad highway, he was suddenly 
 struck, bleeding and senseless, to the ground. When he again came 
 to himself, he found he had been robbed of his purse. W. was 
 arrested, strongly suspected of the robbery, his boots exactly fitted 
 the footprints in the snow ; he had been formerly punished for theft, 
 and he was spending an unusal amount of money, &c. But the most 
 suspicious point of all was the existence of a bloody stain, the size of 
 the palm of the hand, on the front of his drill trousers ; this he ex- 
 
§ 39. DOUBTFUL BLOOD-STAINS.— CASE LVI. 143 
 
 plained away by saying, that during the Christmas just passed, he 
 had assisted at the slaughtering of a cow, and this statement being 
 found correct, the legal officials of that district sent me the trousers 
 with a request that I would determine microscopically, whether the 
 blood-stain arose, from human or animal (cow's) blood ? Several 
 experienced microscopists, amongst them Prof, du Bois-Reymond, 
 had the kindness to assist me in this difficult investigation. I sub- 
 join the more important parts of the report which we transmitted to 
 the court: — "Investigations of this nature are rendered rhore diffi- 
 cult by the blood not being perfectly recent, and also by the question 
 lying between the bloods of such animals as have their blood cor- 
 puscles of a similar form. The latter is particularly the case in 
 respect to the blood corpuscles of man, and those of most of the 
 mammalia, particularly of oxen, in so far as both are uniformly 
 circular, and the human blood corpuscles merely somewhat greater 
 in diameter than those of the oxen. At our first microscopic ex- 
 amination on the 8th of February, we once more completely satisfied 
 ourselves on these points, for recent human and oxen blood having 
 been compared together under a glass magnifying 180 times, the 
 difference could most distinctly be made out ; also after mixing both 
 kinds of blood together, the smaller blood corpuscles of the oxen 
 could be readily distinguished from the larger human ones. "We 
 then proceed to examine the corpus delicti, a few threads from the 
 blood-stain on the trousers were soaked in pure neat's-foot oil and 
 examined, but instantly the utmost variety and uncertainty of opinion 
 began to prevail among the observers present, because the form of 
 the blood corpuscles was indistinctly seen. The blood-stain in 
 question, moreover, at the time of examination might have been six, 
 and was at least three weeks old, and could, therefore, only present 
 to view perfectly shrivelled blood corpuscles, which always give an 
 uncertain result. In order to test the contrary opinion advanced by 
 a recent author (Schmidt) in this department, viz., that dried blood 
 corpuscles exhibit the same volume as recent ones, and also to give 
 our opinion the utmost possible certainty, we experimented by drop- 
 ping upon other parts of the same trousers recent human and recent 
 oxen blood, laying the pieces of cloth aside in precisely similar con- 
 ditions for eight days to dry. On the 15th of February we pro- 
 ceeded to our second microscopic investigation by soaking both of 
 these stains with bone-oil, and bringing them under the same micro- 
 scope, first examining each stain separately, and afterwards mixing 
 
141 §39. DOUBTFUL BLOOD-STAINS.— CASES LVI. AND LVII. 
 
 the two bloods together. The result was, that although the dried 
 human blood seemed to have more resemblance with that of the 
 corpus delicti than the dried oxen blood had, yet the form and 
 diameter of both kinds of blood were so much altered by the 
 shrivelling they had undergone, that it was perfectly impossible to 
 give a decided opinion in the matter* We must, therefore, give it 
 as our opinion, that it is impossible to state with certainty whether 
 the blood-stain on the trousers of the accused is caused by the blood 
 of a man" or a cow." 
 
 Case LYII. — Is it the Blood op a Sheep, a Cow, oe a Man ? 
 
 Several faint traces of blood were seen on the wrist ruffles of both 
 sleeves of the shirt of the murderer mentioned in Case CCLXXXIL, 
 which will be given further on. As the person strangled by him 
 had bled from the nose, these spots were extremely suspicious. He, 
 however, asserted, and his assertion was confirmed, that the day 
 after the deed was done he had assisted at the slaughter of an ox, 
 two wethers, and a calf, and that this was the source whence the 
 blood came. The question was referred to us for decision. The 
 traces of blood on the shirt, which reached us ten days after the 
 event, closely packed in a small parcel, were very trifling, and had 
 evidently been both rubbed and washed, so that a complete destruc- 
 tion of the blood corpuscles must, a priori, be expected. Never- 
 theless the best preserved blood-stain was cut out, and the linen 
 fibres soaked in spittle, previously examined microscopically, to make 
 sure that it was free from blood, and brought under the same 
 microscope as in the former case. In this case also I was assisted by 
 Prof, du Bois-Reymond, whose name is a sufficient guarantee for 
 the correctness of the results. Alas ! these were once more negative, 
 for we could not even recognise the form of a blood corpuscle, far 
 less distinguish whether the corpuscles belonged to human or 
 animal blood. A counter experiment with recent human blood was 
 of no avail in throwing light upon the object of our examination, 
 and we were obliged to explain to the judge that it was no longer 
 possible to make the diagnosis required. 
 
 * Briioke (Wiener med. "Woehensohr., 1857, No. 23) also adduces convinc- 
 ing proof of the utter untrustworthiness of the micrometrio measurements of 
 blood-corpuscles that have been dried. 
 
§ 40. CHEMICAL EXAMINATION OF BLOOD-STAINS. 145 
 
 § 40. Continuation. — Chemical Examination of Blood-stains. 
 
 In examining blood-stains chemically, the method usually employed 
 is that recommended by Heinrich Rose (op. cit.), and consists partly 
 of that recognised by him as the most convenient of the methods of 
 examination hitherto employed, and partly of the method peculiar to 
 himself. It is as follows : — the dried blood is treated with cold distilled 
 water, which is from time to time carefully poured off from the 
 undissolved fibrin, till the latter is left tolerably free from colouring- 
 matter. The fibrin may be readily recognised hy the microscope, 
 especially if it be compared with fibrin obtained from recent human 
 blood. The watery solution is then tested by reagents, but only the 
 solution first obtained is employed for this purpose, as the after- 
 washings contain too little colouring-matter. On the addition of 
 such an excess of chlorine water, that the fluid after being shaken 
 smells of it, it becomes decolourized, and white flakes are separated, 
 which usually rise to the top. If nitric acid be added to a third 
 part of the solution, a whitish grey precipitate occurs, and tincture 
 of galls produces a faintly violet deposit in a fourth part of the 
 solution. One portion of the fluid must be heated to the boiling 
 point, whereby a larger or smaller coagulum is produced in it, 
 according to the quantity of liquor sanguinis contained in it ; if the 
 amount of this be but small, a mere opalescence may result. The 
 colour of the coagulum is a dirty-reddish, it is readily soluble in a 
 hot solution of caustic potass, and the colour of this solution is 
 more or less greenish, but it has the peculiarity, when not too 
 diluted, of appearing greenish only by transmitted light, and red by 
 reflected light, and this, which is seen best in a white glass, has been 
 termed the Dichroism of the colouring-matter of the blood, to which 
 attention has been directed by Berzelius, Lehmann, and more 
 recently by Briicke.* When there is only a very small quantity of 
 the solution of the bquor sanguinis at one's disposal, where, for 
 instance, only a small blood-stain has been treated with water, all 
 these various reactions cannot, of course, be established. H. Rose 
 recommends in such a case that the small quantity of concentrated, 
 or not too dilute solution, be boiled, and thereafter treated with 
 liquor potassm. After the phenomena just described have been ob- 
 
 • Briicke, op. cit., recommends a still shorter method than the above, of 
 exhibiting the dichroism of the blood. 
 
 L 
 
146 § 40. CHEMICAL EXAMINATION OF BLOOD-STAINS. 
 
 served, this alkaline fluid may be decomposed by a concentrated 
 solution of chlorine, upon which white flakes will become separated; 
 or one half of the alkaline solution may be used for this purpose, 
 and the other saturated with nitric acid, to obtain the whitish grey 
 precipitate already mentioned. It is often extremely difficult to 
 determine the nature of stains made by blood dried upon iron 
 weapons, implements, &c. Vanquelin was the first to make the 
 observation that rust formed upon iron articles within an inhabited 
 house contains ammonia, and this observation has been confirmed 
 by Chevalier, Austin, and Boussingault. Rose from this rightly 
 deduces the conclusion, that the evolution of ammonia from spots of 
 rust scratched off and heated, is no proof of the actual presence of 
 blood in them, though that may have been suspected. If the 
 ammonia, however, be removed by gently heating the rust in a test- 
 tube, the application of a stronger heat must produce, if blood be 
 present, the well-known empyreumatic smell of charring albuminous 
 bodies, and a brown, stinking empyreumatic oil will become deposited 
 on the upper and cool portion of the tube. But our doubts may be 
 solved in a much more certain manner by taking the gently heated 
 iron rust and melting it in a very small test-tube with about the 
 same volume of potassium, or, better still, of sodium, subsequently 
 treating the melted mass with water, and adding to the filtered 
 solution a small quantity of a ferruginous solution, containing both 
 the oxide and sesqui-oxide, and finally, saturating it with nitric acid. 
 A larger or smaller quantity of Prussian blue remains undissolved 
 if blood have been present, and the colour of this compound is green 
 if too large a quantity of the iron solution have been used. Rose 
 assures us — and his testimony is perfectly trustworthy — that by this 
 novel method blood may with certainty be discovered in iron rust, 
 though only present in a very small quantity. But he also points 
 out, that this precipitate is not only produced by the presence of 
 blood, but also of every nitrogenous organic substance. Iron rust, 
 however, produced solely by atmospheric influences, is not capable of 
 producing similar phenomena.* For the other modes of investi- 
 gating blood-stains, particularly upon stuffs, vid. § 43. 
 
 * I must refer to the work itself for a description of Rose's important 
 experiments upon the combination of the colouring-matter of the blood with 
 the hydrated oxide of iron, and also for an aocount of the means of detecting 
 it when the blood has soaked into a soil of garden earth rich in humus. 
 
§ 41. OF THE NATURE OF THE WEAPON, ETC. 147 
 
 § 41. Of the nature of the weapon, and the mode in which 
 it has been employed by the accused. 
 
 According to the statutory directions already given at p. 84, 
 the experts must declare " whether the injuries could have been 
 inflicted by the weapons produced, and whether any conclusion 
 as to the mode in which the perpetrator had acted, and as to 
 his object and bodily strength, can be drawn from the position 
 and size of the wounds ? " In general but little difficulty need be 
 experienced in answering this question, if a little thought be exer- 
 cised as to the various modes of action of the different weapons, 
 sharp, blunt, stabbing, &c, which we have already related. The 
 first question put is, of course, "Could this wound have been 
 inflicted by this weapon ? " When the wound on the body is a 
 fractured skull, and the weapon produced an axe or large hammer, 
 there can be no difficulty in answering affirmatively. Sometimes, 
 however, the judge advances a step further, particularly when the 
 circumstances of the case, the obstinate denial of the accused, &c, 
 drive him to it, and demands, " Has the wound been inflicted by 
 the weapon produced ? " Of course, in very many cases, it is im- 
 possible to answer this positively in the affirmative, because a fatal 
 injury to the head might just as well have been produced by the 
 axe A, as with the axe B, or C, or a stab may have been given 
 with the pocket-knife A, if it be tolerably sharp-pointed, just as 
 well as with any other similar knife. In order, therefore, not to 
 become compromised at an early stage of the proceedings, when 
 other facts may still be expected to be discovered, prudence must 
 dictate, as the answer to any such question, that the injury might 
 have been inflicted by the weapon produced, but that any other 
 similar weapon could also produce a similar injury. A negative 
 decision is, of course, much easier, for in most of such cases the 
 physician can easily decide that the injury could not have been, 
 and, of course, has not been, inflicted by such a weapon ; and this 
 technical conclusion is often of the utmost practical importance, afford- 
 ing, as it does, incontrovertible evidence against the lying assertions 
 of the accused on the one hand, or on the other shielding him, when 
 unjustly denounced by others, as having injured or slain a man 
 after such and such a fashion, — an accusation which the medical 
 jurist may be in a position to disprove. Again, in the case of a 
 
 l 2 
 
148 5 41. OF THE NATURE OF THE WEAPON, ETC. 
 
 general fight, in which several are implicated, two or more may be 
 accused of wounding or killing; A has been armed with the 
 implement X, B with the weapon Z, &a, and the question is, 
 " Who has given the fatal blow ?" And, in obtaining an answer to 
 this, the Judge must chiefly, if not exclusively, rely upon the opinion 
 of the medical jurist, as to which of the weapons in question has 
 inflicted the fatal injury. I shall subjoin a few of the most instruc- 
 tive eases, out of a large number of others, bearing upon these and 
 similar points. 
 
 In general, it is most difficult to answer the latter part of the query : 
 " Whether any conclusion as to the mode in which the perpetrator 
 had acted, and as to his objeet and bodily strength, can be drawn 
 from the position and size of the wound V These questions are for 
 ever turning up in precisely the most important capital cases of 
 murder and homicide, for, in the most of these, the person accused 
 lies with the utmost obstinacy. He has not surprised his victim 
 asleep and in Led, he has not stood over, or lain over or under him, 
 he has not stabbed him, but the deceased himself has run upon the 
 knife, which was only presented in a threatening manner, &c. The 
 inspection of the direction of the wounds, their depth, breadth, 
 number, and comparison with the weapons produced, may give the 
 most decided contradiction to all these statements, and has done so 
 again and again in very many instances in our experience, some of 
 the more important of which we shall by-and-by relate. A little 
 practice and experience, with proper caution, will easily prevent any 
 mistake in such cases, while the absence of these indispensable 
 requirements often leads to the most extraordinary suppositions on 
 the part of medical men, as I have often observed in the case of 
 foreign jury trials. Caution is, however, all the more necessary, 
 that in such cases our opinion has to be given before a jury com- 
 posed of men who frequently, and not unjustly, form and put trust in 
 their own opinion, as to the probable manner in which the deed has 
 been perpetrated, — a matter respecting which, in truth, in not a few 
 instances, non-medical people are fully competent to judge. 
 
 We now proceed to relate the cases illustrative of what we have 
 been saying in this chapter. 
 
 Case LVEEL — Fatal ill-treatment, ostensibly, only a box 
 
 ON THE EAE. BuPTUBE OF THE LlVER. 
 
 On the 25th of October, 18—, at midday, the inhabitants of 
 
§ 41. OF THE NATURE OF THE WEAPON, ETC. 149 
 
 R.'s house heard an unusual noise, the loud voice of an angry woman, 
 then the wailing supplications of a child, — groanings and thumpings 
 
 — once distinctly the words, " There wash thee ! " then shrieks 
 
 again, followed by a sound of stertorous breathing. On forcing an 
 entrance, the housekeeper and her ten years'-old daughter (just 
 returned from school) were found alone, the housekeeper much 
 excited, and the child apparently lifeless, her face covered with 
 blood and her hair dishevelled, and she did indeed die almost 
 immediately. The murderess asserted (to the very last ! !) that she 
 had given the child only a couple of boxes on the ear, and these 
 over the straw-hat (!), just as she had returned from school ; upon 
 which the child, out of ill-nature, had flung herself on the floor, and 
 on being raised had again cast herself down, and she most obdu- 
 rately denied the occurrence of any other ill-treatment whatever. 
 Traces of blood were found on the floor and on the feet of the 
 furniture. At the autopsy we found, besides numerous slight 
 injuries to the skin, forty-six considerable ecchymoses and excoria- 
 tions, on the head, trunk, and extremities, and, besides these, both 
 eyes, the nose, the lips, and both ears were of a deep blood-red 
 colour, and much swollen, and the nates covered with blue marks. 
 Nothing anormal was seen upon the abdominal coverings. The brain 
 was much congested, and in the middle of the left hemisphere there 
 was an extravasation of blood to the amount of upwards of an 
 imperial drachm, and another of upwards of two (imperial) ounces 
 at the base of the brain. The cerebellum also, and all the sinuses 
 were much congested. The only thing remarkable in the thorax, 
 was the unusually bloodless condition of the heart and lungs, and 
 the presence of some dark-red bloody mucus in the trachea. On 
 the other hand, in the abdomen we unexpectedly discovered the 
 effusion of nearly a whole (imperial) pound of. dark fluid blood, 
 which had come from a laceration of the liver, three inches long, 
 which had divided longitudinally the whole substance of the liver 
 between the right and left lobes. The other organs were normal. 
 The death was of course to be ascribed to the rupture of the liver ; 
 but this laceration could not have occurred in a healthy liver such as 
 this one was, without the application of external violence; and 
 there were, moreover, only too many silent witnesses of violence 
 to be found upon the external surface of the body. The fact, that 
 no external mark betrayed the existence of this laceration, afforded 
 only fresh proof of the correctness of our views already given (page 
 
J 50 § 41. OF THE NATURE OF THE WEAPON, ETC. 
 
 109) as to the frequent occurrence of such cases. The kind of 
 violence employed could not, of course, be discovered from the 
 autopsy, only it could with perfect certainty be declared that a mere 
 box on the ear could not have killed the child in this manner. 
 Also, that the cerebral haemorrhage, which was of itself sufficient to 
 prove fatal without any rupture of the liver, could indubitably not 
 have arisen from internal causes under the circumstances — those of 
 a healthy child just returned from a walk a few minutes before her 
 death. It was also manifestly impossible that in (even repeatedly) 
 throwing herself on the ground the child could not have produced 
 the numerous external injuries visible on her body (in support of 
 this I may add that the ear-rings worn by the girl on the day of her 
 death, were afterwards found broken to pieces and scattered over the 
 room !). The guilty woman was only condemned to twenty years' 
 confinement in jail. 
 
 Case LIX. — A kick on the Abdomen the pretended cause 
 
 of Death. 
 
 While drinking in a brandy-shop, H. and R. had a violent quarrel 
 with each other. Afterwards they went together about a quarter of 
 a mile out of the city, where R., who was now quite drunk, was to 
 have entered upon service. According to a statement subsequently 
 emitted by R., he fell down here and was kicked by H. on the 
 abdomen; and this of course H. denied. About a quarter of an hour 
 later, the master saw R. going about " without observing anything 
 remarkable in his gait, or anything which might have led him to 
 suppose him drunk." R., however, soon began to complain of 
 violent pains in the abdomen, and spent the night in the hayloft of 
 a neighbouring house, the proprietor of which regarded him as 
 "very tipsy;" nevertheless, he was able at night to mount the 
 ladder, of six to eight steps, leading to the hayloft, without assist- 
 ance, and to descend the same in like manner the next morning. On 
 account of the continuance of the violent griping pains he was sent 
 to the Charite* Hospital, where he arrived about noon next day. 
 The sick reports of this Hospital state that he was found suffering 
 from " a considerable contusion of the abdominal coverings, and, 
 particularly, of the abdominal organs, as evidenced by intense pain in 
 the belly, accompanied by tympanitis, and great restlessness of the 
 patient. Towards evening all the symptoms were exacerbated, and, 
 
§ 41. OF THE NATURE OF THE WEAPON, ETC. 151 
 
 from the subsequent occurrence of vomiting, and the feeling of 
 fluctuation in the abdomen, it seemed to be distinctly (? ?) made 
 out that rupture of some organ had been occasioned by the violence 
 to which he had been subjected." Death occurred forty-eight hours 
 after the time at which the violence was said to have been inflicted. 
 At the autopsy the only thing visible on the abdomen of this fifty- 
 years old man was the mark of recent leech bites. The whole of 
 the peritoneum was, however, violently inflamed, thickened, and 
 covered with pus, and the abdominal cavity contained about twelve 
 ounces of purulent matter. The large omentum was also much 
 inflamed and covered with pus. The intestines and stomach seemed 
 only partially inflamed, and they were partly firmly adherent to the 
 posterior part of the abdomen by means of purulent exudation. In 
 the left pleural sac six fluid ounces of thin fluid blood were effused. 
 The lower lobe of the left lung, and also of the right one, were in- 
 flamed, the latter was also adherent to the pleura. The other details 
 of the autopsy we omit as unimportant. In this case, as in all 
 similar ones, it was extremely difficult to arrive at correct views of 
 its nature, and I hold it to be not irrelevant to give somewhat at 
 large the substance of our opinion. After enumerating the causes 
 which might produce a, peritonitis so violent and rapidly fatal, and 
 reckoning among these, of course, such acts of violence as stamping 
 on or kicking the abdomen, our report went on as follows : — " The 
 usual effect of kicks and similar acts of violence, is to produce, at 
 least, ecchymosis of the part injured, contusion, and a degree of para- 
 lysis, with laceration of the internal organs lying immediately be- 
 neath, such as the Charite report assumed to exist, erroneously, 
 however, iu this case, and these results will be all the more apparent 
 the more violent the assault has been. According to the statement 
 of the deceased, the accused is described not only as having kicked 
 him, but as having stamped upon him when lying, with the whole 
 weight of his body. Generally, though exceptions do often oc- 
 cur, such an act of violence would be followed by more or less 
 ecchymosis ; and this was all the more to be expected in this case, 
 inasmuch as the violence employed was so great as immediately to 
 produce an inflammation of the organs lying beneath, of so ex- 
 tensive a character, and which proved so rapidly fatal. But the 
 inspection of the body of the deceased brought to light no visible 
 evidence of such violence, since, as we have already said, the abdo- 
 men only displayed ' the marks of several leech bites, and no other 
 
152 § 41. OF THE NATURE OF THE WEAPON, ETC. 
 
 external trace of injury/ The fact also, that the steward, B., saw 
 the deceased, one quarter of an hour after the supposed receipt of 
 the injury, walk about unassisted, and in a manner that did not 
 strike him as remarkable, does, to say the least of it, presupposing 
 the reality of so important an injury, evince a most unusual ex- 
 ertion on the part of R., and this is also shown by the proven 
 fact of his having shortly thereafter ascended a ladder of from six to 
 eight steps. 
 
 When, thus, neither the results of the autopsy, nor the other facts 
 in evidence permit, with anything like certainty, the assumption 
 that the fatal peritonitis has arisen from external injury, so on the 
 other hand, reasons are not wanting for referring, with probability at 
 least, the origin of the said disease to very different causes. No- 
 thing at all is known of the state of health of the deceased previous 
 to the receipt of the injury ; but from this it evidently does not follow 
 that he had not been suffering from cutting pains in the abdomen, 
 diarrhoea, flying stitches through the body, or tenderness of the belly, 
 on pressure, — symptoms apparently trifling and often neglected by 
 men of his station, but which are not rarely the precursors or real 
 commencement of such an abdominal inflammation, and which, when 
 neglected, and still more when increased by exposure to injurious 
 influences, may readily pass into the more acute and important dis- 
 ease. The latter were not, however, wanting in the case of the 
 deceased, and the possible existence of precursory symptoms is far 
 from being required to show the probability of the disease in question 
 having arisen from these injurious influences. That R. had inflamed 
 his blood and excited his nervous system by drinking brandy and beer, 
 and quarrelling violently with the accused, is not only, a priori, to be 
 supposed, but has been fully proved, the landlord having deposed 
 that while with him the deceased was in a ' tolerably excited condi- 
 tion.' Whether he were now or afterwards really drunk, or only 
 very tipsy, is not proved, the witnesses varying as to this particular. 
 We lay no stress upon the unvarying statement of the accused, 
 that the deceased was very drunk; yet the witness Videnz also 
 states, that he was ' very tipsy and smelling strongly of brandy/ 
 and, at all events, and this is all we insist upon, we may assume with 
 certainty, that his blood and nervous system were much excited by 
 passion and by intoxicating drinks (in which he indulged again at 
 M.). In this condition the deceased walked a considerable distance 
 to M. It is not impossible, or having regard to what we have 
 
§ 41. OF THE NATURE OF THE WEAPON, ETC. 153 
 
 already said respecting the origin of the fatal disease from the pre- 
 tended injury, it is not improbable that the abdominal inflammation 
 may date its origin from this time, or that, already begun, it may 
 now have commenced to increase. The rough usage to which he 
 was now exposed, as the accused himself confesses, falling to the 
 earth, and being kicked to make him rise again, &c, could only act 
 prejudicially and injuriously. The deceased had by this time been 
 seized with pain in the bowels, and in this condition he spent the 
 night lying helpless in a hayloft, whilst, without doubt, an inflamma- 
 tion had commenced, and one of such a character, too, as to require 
 early and active medical treatment in order to give any hope of its 
 being conducted to a favourable termination, and whose course is so 
 rapid that neglect for more than a whole night could not but be 
 productive of the most detrimental influence. 
 
 While all that we have said goes to prove that a fatal peritonitis 
 might have arisen and run its course without the deceased having 
 been exposed to any unusual violence, our conclusions yet appear to 
 be contradicted by the sick report from the Charite Hospital. Ac- 
 cording to it, the examination of the patient evinced ' with respect 
 to the violence employed, a considerable contusion of the abdominal 
 coverings, and particularly of the abdominal organs.' The subscrib- 
 ing medical inspectors regret that so important a piece of evidence is 
 not given with greater distinctness. If by the word contusion an ecchy- 
 mosis is intended, then an exact description of the results of the ex- 
 amination of the abdominal coverings would have been desirable. The 
 inspectors, however, feel themselves at liberty to suppose that even 
 on admission into the Hospital no trace of such an ecchymosis was 
 externally visible, as it cannot be imagined that " a considerable " 
 ecchymosis could entirly disappear during the twenty-four hours 
 that the deceased remained in the Hospital, and^ certainly, none 
 such was found at the medico-legal examination of the body. They 
 are strengthened in their supposition, that the Hospital physician did 
 not mean ecchymosis by the word ' contusion/ because he has in 
 his report gone on to say, 'particularly of the abdominal organs/ 
 and their condition in this respect evidently could not be ascertained. 
 The rest of the report only gives the symptoms of a very acute 
 peritonitis, and there can be no doubt as to its existence. The 
 anormalities found in the thorax are of little importance, as, besides 
 the complete absence of any injury there, the correct assumption, 
 according to all medical experience, is, that the violent peritonitis 
 
154 § 41. OF THE NATURE OF THE WEAPON, ETC. 
 
 has induced an inflammation of the contiguous parts of the thorax/' 
 Accordingly, we found that, " Though it was not impossible, yet it 
 was improbable, that the fatal inflammation had been produced by 
 external violence," and judgment was given accordingly. Who, 
 with a clear conscience, could have gone further, and by so doing 
 have declared the accused the murderer of It. ? 
 
 Case LX. — Whip-cuts and Kicks, the Nominal Cause op 
 
 Death. 
 
 A case, precisely similar to the foregoing, occurred a few years 
 later in the outskirts of Charlottenburg. On the 17th of May, 
 18 — , when the temperature, at noon, was " above 20° B.. (77° P.)," 
 the railroad-labourer, Gl., well known to be a tippler, was seen very 
 tipsy and staggering across the field, in which he finally lay down ; 
 ten minutes later, he rose again and went into a neighbouring rye- 
 field, where he lay down again. An hour and a-half afterwards, P. 
 and A. passing-by, found him lying face upwards, and exposed to 
 the burning rays of the noontide sun ; his countenance seemed to 
 them " brownish black." They tried to raise him, half unconscious 
 as he was, but he always fell back again, sometimes tottering a pace 
 or two, but always falling at last; under these circumstances, P. gave 
 him a few blows with the handle of his whip, and a few kicks, 
 described by several witnesses as trifling, whilst one boy deposed to 
 six good sound blows, and several kicks in the side. They could 
 not, however, rouse the poor drunkard, and, at last, left him lying, 
 covering his face to protect him somewhat from the sun. Shortly 
 after this, a third person, Z., found him apparently senseless, at first 
 answering nothing, .only " granting to himself," and making a few 
 movements of his hand towards his stick, saying at last quite dis- 
 tinctly, "I shall come immediately." Meanwhile, Gl. was not 
 removed, and soon after he was found dead. 
 
 Had the violence used any share in producing this man's death ? 
 The face of the corpse was, at the autopsy, of a tolerably dark-red 
 colour, both ears and both cheeks were remarkably livid. On 
 the right arm there were several large and small ecchymoses, from 
 the size of a farthing to that of a pea, on the left arm some smaller 
 similar patches, also numerous livid stains on the left shoulder- 
 blade. For shortness' sake, I may at once state, that both at and 
 after the opening of the cranial cavity, an intense apoplectic con- 
 
§ 41. OF THE NATURE OF THE "WEAPON, ETC. 155 
 
 gestion of the brain (without effusion) was found to have been the 
 cause of death. The spinal marrow was normal. Both lungs were 
 strongly congested with dark treacly blood. The liver was steel- 
 grey, as it generally is in drunkards. The rest of the dissection is 
 omitted as unimportant. The report goes on to say how the results 
 of the autopsy explain the last words of the deceased, " the blackish- 
 brown countenance," the loss of consciousness, and the " internal 
 grunting," as symptoms of a fatal apoplectic seizure, produced by 
 the conjunct influence of the intoxication, the high temperature of 
 the air, and the direct action of the sun's rays upon the head. " It 
 is extremely probable that the fatal attack had already commenced 
 when the accused first meddled with the deceased, as he was 
 already senseless. The violence used was, however quite trifling, as 
 has been proved by the eye-witnesses, and, moreover, blows from a 
 whip-handle on the back, shoulders, and buttocks, as well as gentle 
 kicks in the side could have no influence whatever on the ultimate 
 result, and the appearances on the dissection confirm this, inasmuch, 
 as only very trifling ecchymoses were found to have resulted from 
 these blows." It was accordingly decided that the violence used 
 had no share in producing the death. 
 
 Case LXI. — Death from Violence, nominally only a few 
 
 SLAPS OF THE HAND. 
 
 We have already (Case LVIII.) given an instance of the daring 
 lies with which the accused come before the Judge, and the obstinacy 
 with which they adhere to them, and no more striking instance of 
 this could be given than the following case, in which it again 
 became the duty of the medical jurist alone to open the eyes of the 
 Jud^e, and to throw the light of scientific truth upon concealed and 
 lying villany : — On the 24th of September, 18 — , the dead body of 
 a child, with external traces of violence upon it, was found in a 
 basket in a thicket near a village, and speedily recognised as the 
 child of a journeyman-weaver, named Pohlmann. According to 
 the statements of all the witnesses, this man's wife had not only 
 never loved this, her lawful child (one year and three-quarters old 
 at its death), but had often starved it, so that it had been seen 
 to eat raw potato-parings greedily, and had very often beat and 
 tortured it in a most revolting manner. Many eye-witnesses deposed 
 that the parents, Pohlmann, had caught hundreds of wasps in the 
 
156 § 41. OF THE NATURE OF THE WEAPON, ETC. 
 
 same room with which they now and then shut up the child. The 
 following, is word for word, the evidence of the son of an acquaint- 
 ance, aged 15, before whom a beating was inflicted on the evening 
 of the 23rd September, i. e„ shortly before the death of the child : 
 " At eight o'clock in the evening, the woman P. came to our house 
 to fetch her child ; when she saw it had dirtied itself, she seized it by 
 the arm and commanded it to stand up. When the child would not 
 do this, she first hurled it from her about four feet towards the secre- 
 taire, and then kicked it so that it rolled into the middle of the room. 
 She then seized its head with both her hands, and knocked its 
 forehead at least five times on the floor; finally, she struck it 
 several severe blows with her fist in the neck, back, and buttocks. 
 The child was quite feeble and did not cry, but only groaned. She 
 then took the child by the hand and went out saying, If you won't 
 walk, I'll kill you outright." The accused, on the contrary, declared, 
 that she had only given the child " a few slaps on its bottom," and 
 had then gone home with it, carrying it part of the way, as it was 
 tired. Arrived at home the child refused to eat, wherefore she gave 
 it another slap, this time, from oversight, not on the bottom, but on 
 " the left side." " I gave the child," she said, " but one slap, yet 
 it immediately began to whimper and groan, so that I Lifted it from 
 the floor and carried it about for some time. It was very cold, so 
 I soon placed it in bed, where it got quieter and quieter, and finally 
 died in about an hour and a-half." She swathed the body, and 
 placed it under the bed, in which she slept quietly ( ! ! ) the whole 
 night, after telling her husband on his return home, that she had 
 left the child with the acquaintance already mentioned. Next 
 morning she placed the body in a basket, covered it with an apron, 
 and took it and a potato-grubber with her, to make the people 
 think she was going to dig potatoes, and deposited it in the place 
 where it was found. On her return homewards, she hid the grubber 
 in a strange house, where it was afterwards found. At the medico- 
 legal examination we found more than two-and-sixty larger or smaller 
 ecchymoses on the head, numerous blue patches on the extremities, 
 the right side of the body and the abdomen ; internally, we found a 
 star-shaped fracture of the occipital bone extending to the foramen 
 magnum, so that the two halves of the bone could be moved backwards 
 and forwards, a fissure of the right parietal bone, considerable 
 hyperemia of the brain, and an extravasation of upwards of twelve 
 drachms (imperial) of blood at the base of the brain. The medico-, 
 
§ 41. OF THE NATURE OF THE WEAPON, ETC. 157 
 
 legal report had, according to the then judicial practice, in the next 
 place, to determine in what degree the wounds were dangerous to 
 life. But it is of no consequence to recapitulate this here, or to explain 
 why we declared them to be necessarily and always fatal. Then 
 several questions were put respecting the nature of the injuries, and 
 how they had been produced, in relation to the statements of the 
 witnesses, and that of the woman Pohlmann, and the potato-grubber 
 found under such suspicious circumstances ; and in respect to these 
 queries the report goes on to say : — 
 
 Although the accused continues to persist in her statement, that 
 she gave the child only one slap on the side, yet this is wholly un- 
 deserving of credit, for it must be apparent even to non-medical 
 persons, that such a blow could not fracture the bones of the skull, 
 but rather that this fracture of necessity implies that some blunt 
 weapon has been brought forcibly into contact with the head of 
 the child. Any blunt body might produce such an injury, e. g., 
 either a thick stick, a wooden shoe, the back of an axe, &c, and, 
 of course, also the potato-grubber which has been taken possession of 
 by the authorities. The injuries to the skull might also be occa- 
 sioned by repeatedly knocking or hurling the head against the deal 
 floor of a room, against articles of furniture, &c. ; and we come thus 
 to the second question put before us, which deserves to be carefully 
 considered. According to the above-mentioned statement of the boy 
 Sellheim, the prisoner hurled her child about four feet along the 
 floor "towards the secretaire," about two hours before its death, 
 " rolled and shoved it about with her foot, knocked its forehead and 
 side at least five times against the floor, and gave it several violent 
 blows with her fist oh the neck, back and buttocks." 
 
 Although it cannot be denied, that such rough and violent usage 
 of so young a child might have killed it, by fracturing or Assuring the 
 thinner bones of the skull, as the parietal bone, or squamous portion 
 of the temporal bone, or by producing concussion of the brain or 
 extravasation of blood, yet, for the reasons already mentioned, we 
 cannot suppose it capable of producing such a fracture of the occi- 
 pital bone as we find here. Another important reason also tends to 
 support the view that the fatal injury was another and a later one, 
 than any of those witnessed by Sellheim; viz., the prisoner has con- 
 fessed that she partly carried the child home, and there set it on 
 the floor to go and cook potatoes in the kitchen. At first, the child 
 being " very discontented," would take none of the potatoes, took 
 
158 § 41. OF THE NATURE OF THE WEAPON, ETC. 
 
 them, however, afterwards, but flung them away immediately, laving 
 itself down on its side after its usual fashion. And only after its 
 fresh chastisement is it for the first time stated to have groaned, be- 
 come cold, and shortly thereafter died. According to the prisoner's 
 own statement, therefore, the child had walked home, and after 
 all the ill-usage it had received in the Sellheim's house, had 
 possessed strength enough to sit up in the room, and sense enough 
 to take a potato when told to do so, and afterwards to fling it away. 
 Such a condition of body and mind is incompatible with the suppo- 
 sition that the various injuries found at the autopsy had already been 
 inflicted, for after that the child could not have partly walked, partly 
 been carried home, but must have speedily become senseless and 
 unable to remain upright." Accordingly, therefore, we stated in our 
 report that the cranial injuries must be regarded as necessarily fatal, 
 that they might have been produced by the potato-grubber, and that 
 it was not probable that they were the result of the ill-usage the 
 child had received in the Sellheim's house. These views I delivered 
 verbally at the final hearing of the case, the prisoner still steadily 
 maintaining her plea of not guilty. At this time she was sentenced 
 to death, and to be drawn on a sledge to the place of execution. 
 She appealed, however, and made the absurd statement that she had 
 hitherto concealed an occurrence that might have been the cause of 
 the child's death ; that night, after she had brought the child home, 
 she put the potatoes before it on a table, and set the child upon a 
 footstool that it might reach them ; while she was in the adjoining 
 kitchen the child fell from the footstool and died in an hour and 
 a-half ! It was of no avail for the Judge to represent, that it was 
 most improbable that she should have purposely, and most injuriously 
 for herself, concealed till this time a fact of such importance, and one 
 which she must have known would at once have freed her from all 
 blame in respect to her child's death. I had also to maintain my 
 original views at the hearing of the appeal, and to reject this new 
 statement as inconsistent with the results of the autopsy. From 
 purely judicial considerations, however, the sentence of death was 
 commuted to twenty years' imprisonment in jail. 
 
§ 41. OF THE NATURE OF THE WEAPON, ETC. 159 
 
 Case LXII. — Fatal "Wound of the Head : was it caused by a 
 
 STICK, BY THE TOP OP A TABLE, OB, BY BEING DASHED AGAINST 
 THE FLOOE, ? 
 
 The following case, like those succeeding it, belongs to the 
 category of those already referred to, as important and extremely 
 difficult to decide, where a man in a quarrel or disturbance gets set 
 upon by several at once, armed with the most various weapons, and 
 dies from the injuries received. It becomes, then, a most important 
 question to decide which of all his assailants is to be looked upon 
 as the real author of liis death? In such a case the evidence of 
 eye-witnesses is seldom of any value, as all present are generally 
 more or less implicated, more or less drunk, every one lies, and 
 the medical jurist alone can clear up the case and prepare it for the 
 Judge's decision. And he, on his part, must act with the utmost 
 prudence, lest he cause the condemnation of an innocent person. 
 
 The host of a small tap-house had fallen out with his guests, 
 already excited with beer, spirits, and politics (in the spring of 
 1848!), and a general row set in, in a small room crowded with 
 a billiard-table, furniture, and many men, in the course of which 
 mine host was thrown down and beaten with sticks, billiard-cues, 
 &c. All I know of his subsequent illness is, that he died after four 
 days, and that he was sensible only on the first two of these. The 
 most important results of the autopsy in relation to the queries 
 afterwards propounded, were the following : — 
 
 S. was thirty-nine years old, and tolerably strongly-built ; both eyes, 
 but particularly the left, were intensely ecchymosed, immediately over 
 the left orbital arch there was a crescentic, tolerably sharp-edged 
 wound, one inch and a- quarter long and^half a line broad, already 
 begun to heal; under the left lachrymal bone there was a round 
 sharp-edged wound of the skin the size of a pea. The whole of the 
 left upper extremity was covered with ecchymoses. Internally, there 
 was considerable congestion of the pia mater ; the entire surface of 
 the brain, particularly that of the right hemisphere, was covered with 
 yellowish-green pus, a similar purulent layer was spread over the 
 under surface of the cerebellum. On the left orbital portion of the 
 frontal bone, there was a clot of blood weighing about two drachms 
 (imp.), and immediately beneath it a fissure in the bone half-an-inch 
 in length, through which a probe could reach the eyeball. The ex- 
 
160 § 41. OF THE NATURE OF THE WEAPON, ETC. 
 
 amination of the other cavities is omitted as unimportant. Besides 
 the then customary question as to the absolute and necessary fatality of 
 the wounds, we were likewise called upon to answer the following : — 
 
 (1.) Whether any of the injuries found on the deceased, particu- 
 larly whether the fracture of the pars orbitalis of the frontal bone has 
 been caused by blows with a stick, or by a table-top, or whether it 
 may not have been caused by the head being dashed against the floor 
 or wall of the room ? 
 
 (2.) Which of the injuries, considered in the provisional report 
 under theNos. 12, 16, and 18,* has been the efficient cause of death, 
 or whether each by itself might have been so, or whether they only 
 became so by their simultaneous coincidence ? In answer to the 
 latter of these queries, after explaining that the circumstances of the 
 illness and medical treatment of S. were wholly unknown to us, we 
 stated, that we could not ascribe an absolute and necessarily fatal 
 character to the traumatic meningitis which must have existed, but 
 that this necessarily fatal character must be attributed to the fracture 
 of the frontal bone, because its orbital portion forms part of the 
 base of the skull, all fissures and fractures of which are inevitably 
 fatal ; because on the one hand, the existence of such an injury pre- 
 supposes the application of such an amount of violence to the cra- 
 nium and its contents, as must be attended with concussion of the 
 brain, effusion of blood, or inflammation ; and, on the other hand, the 
 powers of nature, or of the medical art, are insufficient to neutralize 
 the consequences of such excessive violence. 
 
 In answer to the former query, our report states, " The medical 
 inspectors feel themselves necessitated to reply in detail to each 
 separate head of the question put to them in respect to the weapon 
 with which the injuries to the head might have been produced. The 
 ecchymoses on both eyes sod on the left arm, are the only injuries 
 which can be supposed to have been produced by the blows of a stick, 
 although all of these injuries might equally well have been caused by 
 other kinds of violence, as blows from the fist, knocks, &c. The small 
 round opening at the left side of the nose, on the other hand, is to 
 be referred, with the utmost probability, rather to a push with a stick, 
 particularly with the pointed ferrule of one, than to any of the other 
 weapons enumerated. Certainty on these points is, however, unat- 
 tainable, and does not seem requisite, since to none of these injuries 
 
 * i.e., suppuration of the cerebrum and of the cerebellum, and the fracture 
 of the frontal bone. 
 
§ 41. OF THE NATURE OF THE WEAPON, ETC. 161 
 
 do we impute any share in the production of the death of the 
 deceased. The wound over the left orbital arch exhibits " tolerably 
 sharp" edges, and must, therefore, have been produced by a tolerably 
 sharp body, and the angle of a table-top or the corner of a wall may 
 be regarded as such (certainly more so than a stick). This wound 
 might also have been produced by " dashing the head against the 
 floor," provided there were a projecting angle of a deal board at the 
 part of the floor on which the head was dashed, or it might be 
 produced by dashing the head against the corner of a wall, a sharp- 
 angled table-top, or foot of a billiard table or bench. The actually 
 and absolutely fatal injury is indubitably inseparably connected with 
 the wound over the left eye, and the statements as to the nature of 
 the weapon that may have produced this, apply equally well to 
 the production of the internal injury. Moreover, it would require 
 very considerable external violence to produce such a fracture of the 
 skull, and in this respect it is not likely to have been produced 
 merely by a blow of a stick, while blows from, or knocks against the 
 top of a table, or against the wall or the floor, especially if given 
 with considerable force, most certainly could produce such a fracture. 
 In accordance with the foregoing, we gave it as our opinion: — (1.) 
 that the fissure of- the orbital plate of the frontal bone might have 
 been caused by a blow from a stick, but that more probably it had 
 been occasioned by a table-top, or by dashing the head against the 
 floor or a corner of the wall; (2.) that the fissure mentioned had 
 been the actual cause of death, and finally (3.), that this injury 
 was of such a character that it " necessarily, and under all circum- 
 stances, must have caused the death of a person of the same age as 
 the deceased." 
 
 Case LXIII. — Fatal penetrating Wound of the Face and 
 Head : Whether has it been produced by an Infantry or 
 Cavalry sabre ? 
 
 We could not, in this most peculiar case, give so decided an 
 opinion as the Judge desired. During a riot, a man, aged 40, was 
 cut over the head by soldiers with their sabres, and five days there- 
 after died. On the left side of the face, stretching downwards from the 
 eyebrow for four inches, there existed a sword-cut, brought together 
 by stitches, which had already commenced to heal. This cut had not 
 only divided both eyelids, but had also laid open the antrum Highmori. 
 
 M 
 
162 § 41. OF THE NATURE OF THE WEAPON, ETC. 
 
 There was also a second sword-cut over the right parietal bone, 
 three inches long, which had cleanly and smoothly divided the bone 
 ' and the cerebral meninges ; there were also several zigzag fissures of 
 the inner table of the skull, one piece of which, the size of a half- 
 penny, was quite loose. The veins of the jaw? mater were empty, but 
 the entire surface, both upper and under, of the cerebrum and the 
 cerebellum was covered with a layer of pus, two lines in thickness. 
 
 " It is desirable," said the requisition from the court-martial, re- 
 quiring a reasoned report of the medico-legal examination, "that the 
 report should state, whether both of G/s wounds could have been 
 produced by one weapon, as, according to the testimony of eye- 
 witnesses, several persons, both infantry and cavalry, are implicated 
 in the wounding of G." After stating in our report, as was then 
 required, the absolutely fatal character, not of the face-wound, but of 
 the sabre-cut on the head, we went on to say, in respect to the cha- 
 racter of the lethal weapon as follows : — " When the court requires the 
 subscribing medical inspectors to state, whether both of the injuries 
 mentioned have been produced by the same weapon or not, they must 
 reply, that they cannot answer this question. The condition of both 
 wounds, the sharpness and smoothness of their edges, and their 
 length and depth, all testify with certainty to their being the results 
 of blows from some sharp cutting instrument, but whether one 
 or other of the wounds has been caused by an infantry or cavalry 
 sabre cannot be determined. And in giving this opinion, the 
 medical inspectors feel themselves called upon to state that, quite 
 recently, a very similar case of penetrating wound of the head had 
 come before them, in which they were able to state distinctly, that 
 the wound had been produced by the sabre of an infantry private." 
 The requisition sent us contained also the following statement: — 
 " Several witnesses have stated that L., one of the horse-guards, gave 
 G. several blows on the front of his chest and abdomen, after he lay 
 stretched on the pavement bleeding from the wound on his head, such 
 blows must have left at least ecchymotic marks, but the protocol of 
 the inspection says nothing about any such marks of injury upon the 
 body." To this we thus replied in our report : — " We have now to 
 remark upon that evidence, according to which the deceased was cut 
 upon the breast or belly by a soldier, after he was stretched on the 
 ground. If the court means, that from such cuts ecchymotic marks 
 must at least have arisen, the medical inspectors cannot confirm this 
 supposition, as experience teaches that much more important injuries 
 
§ 41. OF THE NATURE OF THE WEAPON, ETC. 163 
 
 than these hypothetical blows — which must have heen given with 
 the flat of the sabre, as its sharp edge would at least have divided 
 the skin — may be inflicted without leaving any trace visible on the 
 dead body. Therefore, because such traces were not observed upon 
 the body, the protocol of the inspection truly and expressly stating 
 under No. 11, that besides the correctly described wounds on the 
 head, " no other injuries/ 5 consequently, no ecchymoses, &c, were 
 visible on the breast or belly, the medical inspectors cannot, from 
 their point of view, either support or contradict the evidence above 
 quoted." Our opinion must, therefore, be as follows : — " (1.) The 
 deceased has been killed by the cranial (and not by the face) wound 
 above described ; (2.) that all the other injuries found on the body 
 and mentioned in the protocol (unimportant bruises, scratches, &c), 
 had no share in producing the death ; (3.) that the results of the 
 medico-legal examination afford no data for deciding whether dif- 
 ferent weapons have produced the different wounds, nor (4.) whether 
 after the deceased had received the wound on his head, and had 
 fallen to the ground, he was again assailed by blows upon his thorax 
 and abdomen. 
 
 Case LXIV. — Fatal Wotjnd of the Brain : Has it been pro- 
 duced BY A SABRE OR HATCHET? 
 
 One summer night, a scuffle arose in a dancing-room, which re- 
 sulted in the forcible expulsion of a bricklayer named D. ; but the 
 fight being renewed in the street, and the blows flying thicker, a 
 party of police hurried to the spot ; and one of them was said to have 
 cut down D. with a blow on the head from his sharp sabre. So 
 much at least was certain, viz., that D. exclaiming " My head I" fell 
 down, bleeding copiously, and was carried to the Charitfe Hospital, 
 where he died in about sixty hours. Three days after his death, a 
 judicial examination of the body took place, at which there was 
 found externally, exactly in the centre of the forehead, a wound one 
 inch and a-half long, united by surgical sutures. This wound had a 
 vertical direction ; its edges were sharp, smooth, and with no trace of 
 ecchymosis, and between them the injury to the bone could also be 
 easily perceived. On the right shoulder-joint there was also a wound 
 that had been stitched, one inch and three-quarters long, running 
 horizontally from before backwards, with sharp edges ecchymosed to 
 the extent of one line's breadth. The wound in the bone com- 
 
 M 2 
 
16i § 41. OF THE NATURE OF THE WEAPON, ETC. 
 
 menced at the coronal suture, and for the length of about one inch 
 and a-half it gaped to the extent of one-third of an inch, coursing 
 onwards subsequently, as a fissure of a line's breadth, to the right 
 orbit. Prom the coronal suture another similar fracture, at right 
 angles to the first, extended through the right parietal bone; the 
 edges of the fracture were sharp and not stained externally with ex- 
 travasated blood; internally, however, for half-an-inch in breadth 
 they were infiltrated with blood, and the internal table was exten- 
 sively split, five pieces of it lying loose upon the dura mater. The 
 cranial bones were of the usual thickness. All the cerebral meninges 
 were cleanly divided opposite the external wound, and the brain 
 itself protruded, brown and bloody, from between their edges. A 
 more minute examination discovered a wound of the brain itself (its 
 cortical substance only) one inch and a-half long. Both the upper 
 and under surfaces of the brain were covered with a layer of sangui- 
 nolo-purulent ichor. The fissure of the frontal bone extended one 
 inch internally along its orbital plate. In such a case it was of 
 course easy to determine the facts connected with the death. As to 
 the weapons employed in producing such a wound, the legal docu- 
 ments mentioned both the side-arms of the police and also an axe. 
 We stated, that a sharp axe could indeed cleanly and sharply 
 divide the cranial bones, but that, generally, many more co- 
 existing fissures and even fractures would be found than in this 
 case, whilst universal experience proved that a cut with a sharp 
 sabre could divide the skull cleanly and sharply into the very 
 brain, and often did so ; wherefore, we affirmed, that " it was 
 much more probable that this wound had been occasioned by a 
 sabre than by an axe." 
 
 Case LXV. — Fatal Wotjnd of the Thorax from a blow with 
 
 A SCYTHE. 
 
 This case presented no judicial difficulties, at least according to the 
 present state of our criminal code, but was rare and interesting from 
 the peculiar nature of the lethal weapon. A quarrel had arisen 
 between some relatives — field-labourers — who were drunk, and it 
 ended by A. seizing a scythe lying on the ground, and giving B. a 
 cut on the right side with it. What happened immediately after the 
 receipt of this frightful injury, or how long the wounded person 
 survived it is to us quite unknown. A very considerable bed-sore, 
 
§ 41. OF THE NATURE OF THE WEAPON, ETC. 165 
 
 however, found upon the body betokened an illness of considerable 
 duration. A wound eight inches long, with clean cut edges, began at 
 the lowest false ribs on the right side, and extended upwards towards 
 the vertebral spinous processes ; its edges had been brought together 
 by sutures and were partly adherent and united between the eleventh 
 and twelfth ribs to the extent of about three inches only ; it had cut 
 through the intercostal muscles, and apparently opened the thorax ; 
 and this was found to be the case on inspecting the interior of that 
 cavity subsequently. The lung was uninjured, but death had been 
 the result of traumatic pneumonia. The right lung was for one line 
 in depth covered with a layer of thick pus, and in its middle lobe 
 there was a purulent cavity (abscess) nearly the size of a child's 
 head ; all the rest of its tissue was in a state of grey hepatization. 
 The left lung exhibited red hepatization, but no suppuration. The 
 little blood left in the (right) heart, and in the vena cava was dirty- 
 red, decomposed, half fluid, half grumous. The rest of the dissection 
 was rendered all the less important by the advanced state of decom- 
 position (from the heat of summer) which the body had already 
 attained. The connection of the fatal pneumonia with the pene- 
 trating wound of the thorax, and the consequent lethality of * this 
 wound, was of course easily demonstrated. At the trial I had, 
 in answer to a query, to make the simple deduction that the existence 
 of the wound on the right side proved that the perpetrator had stood 
 behind the deceased when he struck him. (The culprit, on account 
 of the mitigating circumstance of having been drunk at the time of 
 the perpetration of the deed, was only sentenced to two years' im- 
 prisonment.) 
 
 CaseLXVI. — Fatal Cerebral Hemorrhage: Has it been caused 
 by a pall, or by kicks and other acts op violence ? 
 
 This most interesting case could not be with any certainty decided 
 by the results of the autopsy. One January, two very drunken men — 
 K. and a coachman M. — fell a-quarrelling ; very shortly after M., ac- 
 cording to the statement of the accused, K., had fallen upon the 
 kerbstone and hurt his head severely, in fact, his head was seen to be 
 bleeding. Immediately after this, the quarrel arose in which K. 
 belaboured M. on the head with his fists, as two witnesses declared 
 on oath, and also pitched him down-stairs so violently that the noise of 
 his fall was distinctly heard; and on his again coming up,. flung him 
 
166 § 41. OF THE NATURE OF THE WEAPON, ETC. 
 
 down again, kicked him with the heel of his boot upon the head and 
 loins, and finally, struck him with a boot-tree in the loins or side ! 
 The subject of this ill-treatment very soon fell apparently fast asleep, 
 was carried to the Charite Hospital, and died there on the tenth day 
 after the receipt of the injuries. The body had an icteric hue. On 
 the left parietal bone there was a healing wound, half-an-inch long 
 and with dry sharp edges ; beneath each eye there was a crescentic 
 ecchymosed spot three-quarters of an inch long ; no other external 
 mark of injury. The cranial bones were uninjured, but on removing 
 them three or four ounces of dark fluid blood flowed out. The dura 
 mater over the whole left side of the head was of a bluish-red colour, 
 thereby evincing that there was an extravasation beneath it, which, in 
 fact, as a dark clot of about two ounces (imp.) in weight covered the 
 whole of the left cerebral hemisphere. In the substance of the 
 pons Varolii there was a second extravasation the size of a bean, and 
 a third one "was spread as a clot, one line thick, over the whole of the 
 base of the brain. The cerebellum and the veins of the _pia mater 
 were much congested. The other results of the investigation were un- 
 important. It was evidently easy from the results of such an autopsy to 
 establish incontrovertibly the fact of the homicide, "but," as we 
 stated in our report, " it is not so easy to determine incontrovertibly 
 the weapon with which the injuries have been inflicted. The blows 
 from the fist testified to by the witnesses explain the ecchymosed 
 eyes in the most simple manner. The small external wounds, and the 
 internal cranial injuries could not be referred simply to blows 
 from the fists ; the first, because such blows do not divide the skin 
 with "clean-cut edges," the second, because such blows are not 
 competent of themselves to produce rupture of intra-cranial vessels. 
 One or more kicks, such as a very drunken person might give with a 
 strong boot-heel to one lying beneath him, might have produced 
 both of these injuries, particularly if the heel were shod with iron or 
 nails. But these injuries might have been equally readily produced 
 by a drunken man, such as M. unquestionably was at the time, being 
 repeatedly thrown down, such a man always falling heavily upon his 
 head, and these injuries might still more easily have arisen if he had 
 been actually thrown down a stair, and had in falling struck his head 
 upon it; but in respect to the truth of this latter supposition, no cer- 
 tainty can be attained." The circumstances of the case did not 
 permit of any more decisive opinion being given. 
 
§ 41. OF THE NATURE OF THE WEAPON, ETC. 167 
 
 Case LXVII. — Fatal "Wound op the Liver — by a sabre or 
 
 BAYONET ? 
 
 This case was not doubtful. In a conflict between the armed 
 corps of working engineers and the city militia in front of the then 
 "National Assembly" Hall on the night of the 31st October, 1848, 
 one of the former corps had been wounded by one of the latter, and 
 died in a short time. In the hepatic region we found a wound three 
 inches long by two wide, with clean-cut ecchymosed edges, out of 
 which a loop of the ileum protruded. Coagula of blood to the 
 amount of one pound covered the omentum and mesentery, and eight 
 ounces of fluid blood were effused into the cavity of the abdomen. 
 At the edge of the right lobe of the liver there was a sharp-edged 
 wound two inches deep. A doubt arose as to which side had given 
 the wound. On the one hand it was alleged that the deceased had met 
 his death by a chance bayonet wound from his own comrades, whilst 
 the latter asserted, that the leader of the city militia had cut him 
 down with his sabre. The state of the wound was so decidedly in 
 favour of its having been inflicted by a sabre, and against its having 
 been a bayonet-thrust, that there could be no hesitation as to the 
 opinion to be given. 
 
 Case LXVIII. — Fatal Injury to the Abdomen, apparently 
 
 FROM A BAYONET-THRUST. 
 
 Here also the question was about a bayonet-thrust. But in this 
 case, we had to decide according to the statutory definition, whether 
 the weapon produced could have occasioned the injury ? and this we 
 were obliged to deny, though appearances were much in favour of it. 
 The case was a rare one, arid quite peculiar. In a cold winter night, 
 a drunken vagabond was arrested by two grenadiers. On the way 
 he escaped from them and ran off, but soon fell upon the slippery 
 street with such violence, that his fall was heard some distance off; 
 he quickly picked himself up, however, and was just about to make 
 off again, when one of the soldiers flung his musket at him bayonet 
 first; this struck the runaway and stopped his career. He was 
 caught, but speedily became unable to stand upright, or walk a step 
 farther, so that he had to be carried to the station-house, which was 
 not far off, and there he expired immediately after his admission. The 
 
168 § 41. OF THE NATURE OF THE WEAPON, ETC. 
 
 most important results of the autopsy were the following : between 
 the eleventh and twelfth ribs on the left side, five inches from the 
 vertebral column there was a triangular wound, each side of which 
 was three-quarters of an inch long; it had clean-cut, feebly ecchy- 
 mosed edges, and was filled with dried blood. The abdominal cover- 
 ings were uncommonly fat. The posterior wall of the peritoneum 
 was entirely, and its duplicatures partly, infiltrated with dark half- 
 coagulated blood, whose source could not be discovered. In the 
 abdominal cavity there were fully three ounces of bloody serum. 
 The bayonet-wound externally had not, however, penetrated the 
 abdomen, but had terminated, in the fat of the abominal coverings, 
 in which for about half-an-inch around the wcund there was an 
 infiltration of black blood, partly fluid, partly coagulaied. Nothing 
 else was found in any way remarkable, or bearing upon the cause of 
 death, if we except a considerable congestion of the cerebral veins, 
 and the vessels of the plexus choroidalis (and the pathologically 
 interesting discovery of a complete adhesion of the heart with the 
 pericardium, so that at no part could they be separated). The 
 deceased had consequently died from haemorrhage into the abdomen ; 
 but this had not been caused by the bayonet-stab, since it had not 
 penetrated the abdomen, nor touched any vascular internal organ, 
 nor any blood-vessel. On the contrary, the cause, of the haemorrhage 
 must rather be sought for in the fall which L. had sustained on the 
 street pavement, just shortly before the receipt of the wound. That the 
 drunken man had had a most violent fall was sufficiently proved by 
 the evidence, and the concussion of this violent fall must be regarded 
 as the canse of the rupture of a blood-vessel, from which the haemor- 
 rhage, we added, must have taken place slowly, as it had time to 
 infiltrate so large an amount of muscular and cellular tissue, whilst 
 in a case of rapid internal haemorrhage, the results of the autopsy 
 would have been quite different, and therefore the deceased might 
 very probably have been able, immediately after the fall which had 
 ruptured the vessel, to spring up and run a few steps further, till the 
 blow and the impediment to his motions from the gun hanging in 
 his clothes brought him to a stand still ; now, however, the continu- 
 ance of the internal haemorrhage caused him to fall down, and its 
 fatal effects became visible. " However probable, therefore, it may 
 appear upon a superficial view of the matter, and precisely because 
 the man very soon after receiving the wound fell down and died, that 
 there is a causal connection of the injury with the death, yet this 
 
§ 41. OF THE NATURE OF THE WEAPON, ETC. 169 
 
 has been by no means the case, but a man already death-struck from 
 another cause, has received an inconsiderable wound, one which 
 under other circumstances might have been, as similar wounds very 
 often are, productive of no injury to life." 
 
 Case LXIX. — Fatal Wound of the Inter-osseous Artery : Has 
 it been produced by a piece op zinc plate, or by a knife ? 
 Examination of the knife for blood-stains. 
 
 In this case, which was alike interesting in a surgical and in a 
 forensic point of view, it was important, for the judicial investigation 
 of the intention of the accused, to ascertain with what weapon the 
 injury had been inflicted. "We did not hesitate to deliver a negative 
 but certain opinion, not being able to give as certain a positive one. 
 The difficulties offered by the case, from the need there then was of 
 correctly answering the judicial questions regarding the lethal cha- 
 racter of the wound, &c, would not exist to complicate the case in 
 the present state of the criminal code. On the evening of the 20th 
 of December, two bedfellows had a scuffle together, and one of them, 
 a strong healthy man, aged 33, was so severely wounded that the 
 blood instantly streamed from his left arm. After the lapse of an 
 hour a physician came, who sent him to the Charite Hospital, where 
 he arrived in a very feeble condition, and complaining of cold and 
 anxiety; after applying a tourniquet, the following particulars were re- 
 marked : On the upper part of the arm there was a longitudinal wound 
 three-quarters of an inch long, four lines broad, and a quarter of an 
 inch deep, from which only venous blood came. (2.) Beneath this a 
 superficial skin-wound. (3.) In the flexure of the elbow-joint at the 
 point of insertion of the biceps muscle, there was a triangular wound 
 with its edges turned inwards, and which penetrated to the depth of 
 about one inch ; on slackening the tourniquet, arterial blood flowed 
 from this wound. (4.) On the external side of the upper part of the 
 arm a trifling skin -wound. (5.) In the cardiac region two slight 
 scratches, probably caused by the slipping of the instrument from 
 the arm. Eetaining the tourniquet, the edges of the wound were 
 brought together (by a bandage) and a bladder of ice laid over it. 
 On the 23rd, the patient complained of violent pain in the arm. The 
 whole of the bandage, &c, was removed, arterial haemorrhage imme- 
 diately recurred, and, — the clinical report states — "as the artery 
 could not be successfully tied, from the depth of the wound, the only 
 
170 § 41. OF THE NATURE OF THE WEAPON, ETC. 
 
 means left of saving the patient was to tie the brachial artery," which 
 was successfully and "comparatively rapidly" carried out at the 
 middle of the arm, at the internal edge of the biceps. The patient re- 
 ceived phosphoric acid internally, and a bladder of ice was laid over the 
 operation wound. During the two next days there was no unpleasant 
 symptoms. On the 26th, when the bandage was taken off, arterial 
 haemorrhage to a small amount again recurred from the lower wound, 
 but it was easily arrested by compresssion. " The wounds themselves 
 were ill-coloured, their secretion thin and ichorous, the patient felt 
 feeble and depressed, his intellect was somewhat confused, and his 
 pulse very frequent, the edges of the operation wound had assumed 
 a bluish colour, and this rapidly spread, till the neighbouring skin 
 to about the size of the palm of the hand was gangrenous." The 
 wound was now dressed with pyroligneous acid, lotions of aromatic 
 herbs and vinegar were employed, and aromatic fomentations laid 
 over the arm. " The patient's condition remained very precarious, 
 his strength had rapidly diminished, his countenance was collapsed, 
 his pulse very frequent, 110 in the morning, and 128 in the 
 evening." In the beginning of January his condition improved till 
 the 10th, when he began to complain of abdominal pain (opiate 
 friction, poultices, and Dover's powder were prescribed). During the 
 night a violent diarrhoea set in, which rapidly increased in spite of 
 the use of opium (1 scruple to 6 oz. of decoction of althaea). The fever 
 increased, the patient's strength decreased, and a bed-sore began to 
 form. "On the 11th of January, a short dry cough set in, which 
 did not, however, trouble the patient much." The feet became 
 cedematous, the cough and diarrhoea persisted. On the 14th, the 
 patient became unconscious, and on the 15th of January he died 
 (just twenty-six days after the receipt of the wound). 
 
 The following were the more important results of the autopsy : — 
 The body was much wasted, its inferior extremities cedematous, there 
 was a bed-sore upon it, and the entire inner side of the left arm was 
 bared of its skin, so that muscles and tendons were distinctly seen 
 bathed in unhealthy pus. AH the earlier wounds were healed with 
 smooth edges, except that at the bend of the left elbow there still 
 remained a wound one-third of an inch wide with obtuse edges, 
 which had been originally clean-cut. (The condition of the edges was 
 important, as we shall by-and-by see.) "Within the cranium, the 
 absence of blood was the only thing remarkable. The left lung was 
 cedematous, the right in a state of grey hepatization, and its pleura was 
 
§ 41. OF THE NATURE OF THE WEAPON, ETC. 171 
 
 covered with purulent exudation ; in the left pleural cavity there was 
 a cupful of bloody serum ; in the right one, about as much sangui- 
 nolo-purulent fluid. The flabby heart, as well as all the great venous 
 trunks of the thorax, and of the abdomen, and all the abdominal 
 organs exhibited a remarkable bloodlessness, and this was the only 
 thing anormal in the contents of the abdominal cavity. The blood- 
 vessel wounded was found to be the inter-osseous artery, as had been 
 correctly supposed in the Charite, while the patient was yet alive. 
 The perpetrator of the deed had asserted, that he had only " stuck " 
 K. with a piece of zinc plate ; but the condition of the cicatrices, 
 and the whole history of the case, did not permit the truth of this 
 to be assumed, and we held to our opinion delivered at the begin- 
 ning of the case, that some sharp-pointed cutting instrument must 
 have been employed. Later in the course of the investigation, a 
 table-knife was found beneath the bed of the accused, covered with 
 suspicious-looking spots; and this instrument was laid before us with 
 the query : — " Whether the rust spots on the knife had been pro- 
 duced by blood ? " We undertook the investigation of this matter, 
 in conjunction with the skilful judicial expert Apothecary Schacht, 
 and in respect to it I may mention, that Eose's new mode of pro- 
 cedure in such cases ( Vid. p. 145) was not then known. 
 
 The appearance of the knife indubitably betokened that, if the 
 stains upon it had been produced by blood, a considerable time must 
 have already elapsed (two months and a-half had passed), since (1.) 
 the whole surface of the blade of the knife was rusted, and (2.) in the 
 cleft between the blade and the horn-handle a brown mass, partly 
 covered with mould, was sticking. With a hair-pencil, a few drops 
 of water were placed upon the blade of the knife, and so washed 
 over it as to dissolve as much as possible of any soluble stain ; then 
 one drop of the fluid was put under the microscope, and the rest of 
 it evaporated upon the knife-blade with the aid of a gentle heat, with 
 the following results : — (1.) Under the microscope, red globules 
 could be seen swimming about resembling the blood globules. 
 (2.) After the fluid had been evaporated on the blade of the knife, 
 it was examined with a magnifying-glass, by which it was quite 
 evident, that a red layer had been deposited upon the rusty surface, 
 this deposit being due to the red solution formed upon the rusty 
 blade, and deposited on the evaporation of the water. The following 
 counterproof was instituted. — A few drops of blood were put upon a 
 bright knife-blade, allowed to dry, and the stains gently heated, the 
 
172 §41. OF THE NATURE OF THE WEAPON, ETC. 
 
 blood then scaled off, leaving the metallic surface quite bright and 
 clean; a greater degree of heat caused the blood to carbonise, and 
 produced the peculiar smell of burning animal-matter. But the 
 stains upon the suspected knife did not scale off on being heated, 
 but on the application of a greater heat became carbonised, with 
 exactly similar attendant phenomena. From this it was seen to be 
 probable, that there was no recent blood upon the blade, but that an 
 animal substance was mingled with the rust, which might be putre- 
 fied blood. The knife was now placed in a narrow cylinder of glass 
 filled with distilled water. No sanguineous coloration of the water 
 took place, but after twenty-four hours, a reddish-brown powder had 
 been deposited, and this was separated by nitration. The filtered 
 fluid gave no trace of iron nor of animal albumen. The reddish- 
 brown powder was recognised as rust of iron by being dissolved in 
 muriatic acid and the solution tested by ammonia, ferrocyanide of 
 potassium and tincture of galls. The appearance of the knife 
 was not materially altered by its being put into the water, and the 
 stains were not visibly diminished. After the knife was dry, a 
 little pure muriatic acid was poured upon one side of it, the stains 
 immediately disappeared, and the bright surface of the metal became 
 at once visible, the solution formed was one of oxide of iron in muri- 
 atic acid. In accordance with these experiments we decided, that 
 the knife had probably been stained with blood, but that certainty 
 on this point was unattainable after the lapse of so long a time. 
 All our views on this case were adopted in both the judicial courts, 
 and the accused was sentenced to eighteen months' imprisonment 
 with hard labour. 
 
 Having given the foregoing cases in illustration of the judicial 
 query : — Whether certain weapons could have produced certain in- 
 juries ? we shall now proceed to lay before the reader the few 
 following cases, — selected important capital cases of murder and 
 homicide, — in illustration of the much more important judicial query 
 respecting the mode in which the perpetrator had acted, the position 
 in which he, or the murdered person, must have been at the time the 
 injury was committed, &c. It will then become apparent how im- 
 portant in such cases, how momentous for the accused, how instruc- 
 tive for the Judge, the opinion of the medical jurist may be, and 
 how much, therefore, he must strive to give the most careful con- 
 sideration to every circumstance that may become explanatory, 
 however trifling it may appear. 
 
§41. MODE IN WHICH WEAPON HAS BEEN EMPLOYED. 173 
 
 Case LXX. — Fatal smashing of the Skull with repeated 
 
 BLOWS OF A HAMMER. In WHAT MANNER HAS THE MURDER 
 BEEN COMMITTED? 
 
 On the 23rd of March, 18 — , the tinsmith Bontoux, who kept an 
 open shop for tin goods, was found lying murdered on the floor of the 
 kitchen of his own house which adjoined his shop, and was on the 
 groundfloor. Like all such scenes, it was a horrible sight. The mur-, 
 dered man had apparently heard as it were the sound of thieves break- 
 ing into his dwelling during the (bright moonlight) night, and sprung 
 hastily out of bed, for the chair in front of it lay overturned, and run 
 into the front room in his night-dress. What followed, as well as who 
 was the murderer, was of course wholly unknown on the morning of 
 the discovery of the body. The murderer, however, was, by means of a 
 most skilful investigation, detected on the following day, in the person 
 of one Liicke, a journeyman smith ; and I may at once mention, that 
 he had set up a most consistent plea in defence of himself, inasmuch 
 as he confessed the burglary, but asserted, that he had been attacked 
 by the person robbed, and had killed him in self-defence. The body 
 was when found clad in a night-jacket, shirt, drawers, and stockings, 
 all of which articles of clothing, except the soles of the stockings, 
 were soiled with blood. Beneath the head of the body there was a 
 very large pool of blood, and about two feet from it a second, and 
 between these no connection, not even of the faintest character 
 could be traced. In the kitchen, the walls, utensils and door, &c, 
 were much besprinkled with blood. It was both kitchen and work- 
 shop, and the walls were hung with many implements of a tinsmith's 
 art; at the feet of the corpse there were two iron hammers, on the 
 threshold of the kitchen a third, and in the shop a fourth all 
 more or less soiled with recent blood. At the autopsy, twenty 
 wounds were found, on the head, face, and neck, and besides these, 
 sixty-four ecchymoses, abrasions of the skin, &c, were found on the 
 trunk and extremities ! The most important discoveries internally, 
 were : complete smashing into many pieces of the left temporal bone, 
 and of the great wing of the sphenoid bone ; comminuted fracture of 
 the right orbital plate of the frontal bone ; the lambdoidal suture on 
 the left side was opened up, four wounds penetrated the brain and 
 its membranes on the left side, accompanied by an effusion of dark, 
 coagulated blood; the base of the skull was fissured across from the 
 
3 74 §41. MODE IN WHICH WEAPON HAS BEEN EMPLOYED. 
 
 fractured wing of the sphenoid to the sella turcica, and the generally 
 ansemic state of the body was most remarkable. The medical in- 
 spectors were required to answer in their report, ten questions pro- 
 pounded with the view of discovering the mode in which the murder 
 had been committed, taking into consideration both the results of 
 the autopsy and the declaration of the perpetrator, — a task verily, as 
 we shall see, not without its difficulties. In our report we stated : 
 " There lie before us at present the minutes of two precognitions. 
 At the first precognition the accused deponed, ' After I had stepped 
 into the kitchen, I removed a small desk from the shop adjoining, 
 placed it on the floor of the kitchen, and broke it up, without finding 
 any money in it. I now went into his bedroom, in which Bontoux 
 was lying snoring in his bed, and there took money both out of a 
 table-drawer, and also out of a pocket-book (£2. 5s. in all), and then 
 left the bedroom, B. seeming still to be asleep ; but I had scarcely 
 reached the shop, when B. following me, seized me by the. shoulders 
 and threw me down, struggling with me for some time on the floor. 
 At last, I tore myself away and fled to the kitchen, intending thus to 
 leave the house, but B. followed me, and seized me by the neck. 
 Betwixt the kitchen-door, the fireplace, and the desk, we struggled 
 for some time and fell at last together on the floor, sometimes B. and 
 sometimes I was uppermost ; once, when I got above him, I seized a 
 hammer lying near the window, and with it struck Bontoux five or 
 six times on the head, who thereupon began to shriek and to call for 
 help, still seeking to detain me. After a struggle of about half-an- 
 hoitr I tore myself away from B., threw the hammer away in the 
 kitchen, and rushed into the bedroom, to strike a light and see how 
 I could get out of the house. I wiped my bloody hands on a towel 
 in the bedroom, struck a light and went with it into the front room. 
 As I passed the kitchen, I looked in, and observed that B. had got 
 up and was standing close to the kitchen-door, his face was very 
 bloody, and he was calling for help/ " After this, the accused states, 
 that he went into the front room and escaped out at the window — 
 on which distinct stains of blood were found. Of the four blood- 
 stained hammers produced he recognised only one as that used by 
 him, asserting, " I have not used any other weapon in my struggle 
 with B., I have struck with only one hammer." 
 
 "At the second precognition of Liicke, his statements deviated 
 very materially from those just related as having been made at first. 
 It is particularly important for us that he now states, after relating 
 
§ 41. MODE IN WHICH WEAPON HAS BEEN EMPLOYED. 175 
 
 the struggle in the kitchen, that he seized the hammer from the 
 window whilst lying ' under B., who held me fast by the neck, I took 
 it in my right hand and struck upwards, perhaps twice, on B.'s head, 
 who then loosed his hold and stood upright, saying, ' I'll catch you 
 again immediately.' I then sprang up and fled, but was again 
 seized and held fast by B., who stood with Ins back against the door. 
 Whilst standing here, I gave B. four or six blows on the head, and 
 the blows fell with a thump. I did not count the blows, there 
 may have been more than six. I now tore myself away, and I do 
 not know whether B. remained standing or fell.' " The deposition 
 now proceeds exactly as at the first precognition, deviating only in 
 so far as he now states, that on passing the kitchen he saw B. stand- 
 ing upright, but he did not cry ; whilst in the course of the same 
 precognition he again asserted the contrary, and replied to the repre- 
 sentation that this could not have been possible, that it was not very 
 loud, but in a kind of whisper. On being accused of having taken 
 two pocket-handkerchiefs besides the money, a fact he had concealed, 
 he confessed the robbery, and repeated, that his sole object was to get 
 away from B., and that he did not intend to kill him. Having now, 
 first of all, to determine the cause of Bontoux's death, we may state, 
 that it is so evident that the cranial injuries have been the cause, 
 that even the most ignorant person cannot for one instant doubt it. 
 Since not only was there no other cause found in the body, not even, 
 as we have expressly stated, the signs of an accidental strangulation, 
 as the extremely bloodless state of the lungs, heart, and large blood- 
 vessels, and the normal condition of the larynx and trachea suf- 
 ficiently testified, but the protocol of the autopsy enumerates no 
 fewer than twenty wounds of the head and neck, some of which, as 
 the dissection proved, were connected with the most important inter- 
 nal injuries. In particular, the whole left of the cranial bones was 
 completely shattered, so that the bones forming the base of the 
 cranium were fractured and fissured by the smashing, and finally, the 
 suture connecting the occipital bone with the others (the lambdoidal), 
 was broken up. Such a shattering of the cranial bones must of 
 necessity, and under every possible circumstance, produce so violent a 
 concussion of the brain and disturbance of its organic life as to be of 
 necessity followed by death, and that so rapidly, that its advent must 
 be reckoned by minutes, or at the latest, by hours. Giving due con- 
 sideration, therefore, to the numerous other injuries of the head, we 
 assumed in our summary opinion, and this view we hereby repeat 
 
176 § 41. MODE IN WHICH WEAPON HAS BEEN EMPLOYED. 
 
 and ratify, viz., (1.) "that Bontoux's death was inevitably due to the 
 cranial injuries; (2.) that he" (and this we were expressly asked) 
 " could scarcely have lived above an hour after receiving the most 
 important injuries." In our summary opinion we also stated, that the 
 injuries to the head, face, and neck, might very probably have been 
 produced by the heavy hammers therein described. Now, the ac- 
 cused, in his so-called " open confession," in which, however, he has, 
 as we shall show, deviated widely from the truth, has- acknowledged 
 having made use of one of these hammers, whilst he has in reality 
 made use of several of them repeatedly, and in notorious contradic- 
 tion with the pretended self-defence in which he alleges the murder 
 to have been committed. The appearance of both the hammers and 
 of the body speaks against him. On several of the hammers we 
 find not only a sprinkling of blood as Liicke states, but large and 
 true blood-stains, particularly round the edges, which could not have 
 arisen from a chance sprinkling, whilst the edges of the wounds on 
 the body are partly sharp and partly rounded, thereby evidently de- 
 noting the previous use of more than one weapon, a supposition 
 further supported by the fact which we shall prove, that these various 
 wounds must have been produced at different times. The accused 
 says, that he flung the hammer away after having struck with it. 
 Certainly, there was one blood-stained hammer found on the thres- 
 hold of the kitchen, another also, blood-stained, still further from the 
 body on the shop-table, and two other bloody ones were found lying 
 at the feet of the corpse. This also tells against the accused, and in 
 favour of our supposition, for it is not to be supposed that these 
 hammers — independent of their blood-stains already mentioned — 
 should be by chance lying in all these various spots, while all the 
 other tools hung in proper order on the wall. "Whilst, if we sup- 
 pose the position and appearance of the hammers to have been 
 caused by the murdered man making use of them against the 
 accused, as the latter gives to understand, by stating that Bontoux 
 had, whilst wrestling with him, something hard and heavy in his hand, 
 with which L. particularly states he was struck on the shoulder, this 
 supposition is completely disproved by the examination of Liicke's 
 body, which took place on the 24th of March, the day following 
 the commission of the deed, when I, Casper, one of the subscribers 
 of this report, found no trace of hammer blows upon it. The 
 statement made by Liicke at the second precognition in regard 
 to this, viz., that the mark of the blow upon the shoulder was 
 
§ 41. MODE IN WHICH WEAPON HAS BEEN EMPLOYED. 177 
 
 no longer visible, because he had been clothed at the time of its 
 receipt, is untenable, since his clothes could not have so lessened 
 the effects of a blow from a heavy hammer — no light blow certainly, 
 but given with all the despair of a man struggling for his life — so 
 much as to make it perfectly invisible after the lapse of only about 
 thirty hours. Moreover, supposing L/s statement true, there must 
 have existed a difficulty of moving the whole left upper extremity ; 
 but this was not observed at the examination on the 24th, the 
 accused having clothed himself without assistance, never having 
 mentioned its existence, and not even simulated it. Prom all that 
 we have just recited we conclude : (3.) That Lucke has made use 
 of several hammers to complete the deed." 
 
 " After we had shown with what the wounds had been inflicted, 
 the next and most important point was to discover in what order of 
 time they had been produced. According to the statement of the 
 accused, the fight lasted for half an hour ; it is, however, quite im- 
 possible either to deny or confirm this statement, but this is unim- 
 portant, as it can with certainty be proved that the struggle did last 
 a considerable time. For the innumerable injuries on the body are 
 divided into three classes— slight, serious and of themselves danger- 
 ous to life, and absolutely lethal. To the first class belong those 
 numerous marks described in the protocol of the autopsy as blue, 
 brownish-blue ecchymosed patches over the whole of the limbs, which 
 have indubitably been caused by blows, falls, and knocks against hard 
 bodies; these injuries may not have been received first in the order 
 of time, but they were certainly not last, these being much more pro- 
 bably the absolutely fatal injuries already detailed ; and we must re- 
 peat, what we have already stated in answer to queries put to us, that 
 the deceased after the receipt of such injuries could no longer have been 
 able to stand upright, to stand or walk, could not therefore anymore have 
 fallen or been knocked down, &c, but must have lain death-struck. 
 On the other hand, this cannot be asserted with the same incontrover- 
 tible certainty of those injuries termed by us severe and dangerous to 
 life, in respect to which experience teaches us that they are not incom- 
 patible with the duration of life for some time, nor with the continu- 
 ance of consciousness, though that may be somewhat obscured. 
 Amongst these injuries we include those existing . over the frontal 
 bone, about the root of the nose, upon the lower jaw and the left eye, 
 these injuries, and these alone, displayed ecchymoses, affording thereby 
 a certain proof that life must have been prolonged for some time 
 
 N 
 
178 §41. MODE IN WHICH WEAPON HAS BEEN EMPLOYED. 
 
 after their receipt. By these details we are forced to believe (5.) that 
 Bontoux was probably at first repeatedly struck, knocked about and 
 thrown down; (6.) that he was then struck with a hammer in the fore- 
 head and face, and last of all, while he .yet lived and had again raised 
 himself to his feet (7.), that the worst and most fatal blows were then 
 struck upon the posterior part of the left side of the head. The 
 very remarkable discovery of two separate pools of blood in the 
 kitchen in which the body was found is completely in unison with 
 this supposition, but this point we do not now require to enter upon. 
 If we now inquire as to the manner in which the struggle has been 
 carried out, we shall find that the accused, instead of making an " open 
 confesssion," has only fabricated a lie. And this is proved by the 
 complete contradiction between his first and second statements, which 
 only agree in differing from the results of the autopsy, and in no 
 other point. According to his second statement, he lay under Bon- 
 toux when he gave him the first (two) blows on the head. It is 
 evident these could not have been the blows upon the forehead and 
 face ! Previous to the autopsy it would have been difficult for any 
 one to understand how one person lying beneath another could strike 
 that other on the back of the head, where one of the fatal injuries 
 was found. After the autopsy such a supposition was perfectly inad- 
 missible. For, besides that even a strong man, a journeyman smith, 
 accustomed to use the hammer, could not in such a position possess 
 the power to inflict so violent a blow as would break open the lamb- 
 doidal suture, a feat which requires the exertion of considerable power 
 and a full swing of the hammer ; the accused proceeds in his further 
 statement to give himself the he when he deposes, that Bontoux 
 after these first blows (which could not have been those inflicted on the 
 forehead and face), said these words — " I shall catch you again im- 
 mediately," stood upright, and, still standing, seized him again by 
 the breast and held him fast. It is impossible for any one to have so 
 acted, whose skull had been fractured as his had been, because the 
 force necessary to produce this fracture must have occasioned such a 
 concussion of the brain as must have instantaneously deprived the 
 wounded man alike of consciousness and of the power of moving. 
 We must therefore conclude (8.) that Liicke could not have been lying 
 under Bontoux when he gave him the first blows on the head. The 
 accused, however, confesses at his second precognition, that after B. 
 had risen from the first blows and seized him afresh, he struck him 
 four — six blows upon the head. " Bontoux" says he, " stood with 
 
§ 41. MODE IN WHICH WEAPON HAS BEEN EMPLOYED. 179 
 
 Ms back close to the door of egress ;" and he has no suspicion that in 
 this deposition he makes a statement aggravating to the utmost his 
 crime, the importance of which in a criminal point of view it is not our 
 part to show ; we have only to point out that even this " open con- 
 fession " is entirely contradicted by the results of the autopsy. At the 
 autopsy we found three external wounds corresponding to the import- 
 ant fracture through the lambdoidal suture we have already described. 
 We have already pointed out that this wound at the back of the head 
 could not have been produced during the first struggle, whilst the accused 
 lay beneath the murdered man, as he says he did. It is perfectly self- 
 evident also, even to a non-medical person, that Liicke could not 
 have given such blows with a hammer on the back of the head 
 of a person " standing with Ms back close to a door." At the 
 same time we agree that all the other injuries to the face and head 
 must have been produced whilst both were in the erect posture. 
 • Bontoux, at the instant that he received the blows on the back of the 
 head must of necessity have presented the back of his head to his 
 assailant, i.e., Liicke must have stood behind Bontoux, either because 
 B., already sore wounded, sought to flee, or he had been hurled from 
 him by Liicke, and so had his position reversed, or lying on the 
 floor he had sought again to rise, and so exposed the back of his 
 head; but these minutiae we cannot ascertain from our point of 
 view, it is sufficient to say that for the reasons given we must con- 
 clude (9.) that Liicke stood behind Bontoux when he dealt him the 
 fatal blows upon the back of the head. Finally, what was the posi- 
 tion of the deceased when he received those blows by which the left 
 side of the skull was smashed, cannot with certainty be determined. 
 It is quite likely that the deceased at that moment stood or sat 
 before Liicke, who struck him a powerful side-blow with the hammer, 
 and it is just as likely that he lay on the floor and that the blow was 
 struck from above downwards. When, however, we reflect that 
 the blow on the back of the head must have been given when 
 the deceased was in the position already mentioned, that this 
 blow could not have been given after that which shattered the 
 left side of the head, because after it the deceased must have at once 
 fallen to the ground, and could only have exposed the back of 
 his head by falling on his face, which had evidently not been the 
 case; when we reflect, then, that the blow on the back of the head 
 must have preceded the fatal blow on the left side of the head, it 
 does seem to us in the highest degree probable (10.) that Bontoux, 
 
 N2 
 
180 § 41. MODE IN WHICH WEAPON HAS BEEN EMPLOYED. 
 
 already lying death-struck on the ground, received in this position the 
 final and fatal blow referred to. After the explicit statement we have 
 just made, we consider it quite unnecessary to pay any attention to 
 the further statement made by the prisoner, that, as he fled he saw 
 Bontoux standing in the kitchen, or to inquire whether B. called for 
 help or did not call for help, or called only in a low voice — for in 
 this way he contradicts himself ; for we fear no contradiction to 
 our positive assertion, that it is utterly impossible for any man, having 
 received such injuries of the skull and brain, and having lost so much 
 blood as the deceased was found to have done, within a short time 
 thereafter to be able to stand upright, or call for help, and conse- 
 quently to possess complete consciousness." 
 
 On the other hand, we feel bound to make the following state- 
 ment : — 
 
 The foregoing narrative, particularly in regard to the bruise marks, 
 &c, on the body, fully prove that a struggle has taken place. 
 
 That Bontoux defended himself is proved by the marks found by 
 me, Casper, on the body of Liicke on the 24-th of March — viz., nail 
 marks behind both ears, a few scratches on the left eye, injury of all 
 the knuckles on the right hand and of the right thumb, according to 
 the allegations of Liicke ; but these are only so far probable, the 
 injury to the knuckles is certainly to be referred to some former 
 scuffle ; L. alleges, however, that all the other trifling injuries were 
 given him by Bontoux, and he states that the injury to the right 
 thumb was caused from a bite by B., but the wound has no such 
 appearance. We assent, however, to the fact that there was a 
 struggle. But I, Casper, have not found any proof that during that 
 struggle, Liicke has ever been thrown to the ground, not even one 
 ecchymosis, &c, on the face, head and rest of the body, such as was 
 to be expected after repeated falls and throws, and such as did, in- 
 deed, exist in countless numbers on the body of Bontoux, and ought 
 to have been visible on the body of Liicke, examined as he was so 
 shortly after the commission of the deed. Prom this we are justified 
 in concluding that Lucke, powerful, prepared, and wide awake, has 
 always maintained the upper hand in his struggle with Bontoux, less 
 powerful, unprepared, and just awakened out of deep sleep." 
 
 Liicke steadfastly maintained his plea, and I my opinion, at his 
 trial. He was condemned to death, and executed. 
 
§ 41. MODE IN WHICH WEAPON HAS BEEN EMPLOYED. 181 
 
 Case LXXI. — Comminuted Peactuee of the Squamous and 
 Peteous Poetions of the Eight Tempoeal Bone, and of the 
 Lowee Jaw. What has been the position of the muedeeed 
 
 MAN? 
 
 The following case of robbery and murder was not less important 
 than the preceding, and attracted universal attention at Berlin, not 
 more from the horrible atrocity of the crime, than from the very 
 remarkable verdict of the jury. On Sunday, the 16th November, 
 18 — , Wilhelm Haube, aged 18, apprentice to the tailor Nolte, 
 having spent the afternoon and evening in amusement abroad, and 
 having overstayed his leave of absence, was admitted on his return by 
 his masters housekeeper, with threats that he would be well beaten 
 next morning ; the other members of the family, viz., the master, now 
 murdered, and his daughter, were already in bed. The accused began 
 to reflect on his position ; his debts came also into his remembrance ; 
 he did not He down, but made up his mind to carry out a resolution 
 formerly entertained, of emigrating to America, equally suddenly 
 resolving to get the money necessary for this by robbing his master, 
 with whom he had hitherto been on a most friendly footing, and who 
 had always treated him most kindly. "With this intent, towards 
 midnight, he slipped quietly into the room in which his master slept 
 upon a sofa-bed, and in which also stood the secretaire ; he took the 
 key of this out of his master's morning-coat, which lay over his 
 couch, and commenced to rob, when his master made a movement. 
 He shrunk back terrified to his bedroom, and sat down upon his 
 bed, to await his master's sounder sleep. About half-past two in 
 the morning he stopped the pendulum of the wall clock in his room, 
 and again went into the bedroom, but this time armed with an axe, 
 taken from the adjoining kitchen, "to defend himself against his 
 master," in case this should be necessary. Again, at the commence- 
 ment of his robbery, he was startled by the voice of his waking 
 master, calling, " Who 's there ?" " Now," says he, at the precog- 
 nition on the 20th November, with which the others agree tolerably, 
 " now I went rapidly up to the head of the sofa-bed, and struck, 
 rapidly, one after the other, two or three blows with the axe in the 
 dark towards the white figure that sat upright in the lei. My 
 master called out aloud, ' Oh, God ! oh, God !' and then with a 
 louder voice, ' Lord Jesus ! Lord Jesus !' After the blows from the 
 
182 § 41. MODE IN WHICH WEAPON HAS BEEN EMPLOYED. 
 
 axe he had fallen down, and had again raised himself; and as he 
 called 'Lord Jesus!' so loud, I believed he might get up, and I 
 should be lost." He, therefore, quickly brought an ordinary table- 
 knife, and commenced to stab his master, the latter meanwhile, 
 endeavouring, as stated at the time of the examination, to wrest the 
 knife from him. " With both hands he seized my left hand" — we 
 may here mention that the accused is left-handed — " drew me towards 
 himself on the bed, and scratched my band with his nails," the 
 traces of which were quite visible on the back of Haube's band at 
 his examination. After his fatally-wounded master had sunk down 
 and become quiet, the accused proceeded to perpetrate the robbery, 
 and to this end he now lighted a candle, and then put into his pocket 
 about £10 10*. in bank-notes, an opera-glass, a pair of spectacles, 
 &c. He then washed the blood off his hands, took off his blood- 
 stained linen, and departed about four in the morning. He went 
 to his brother, who lived some distance off, told him he was going to 
 America, and had stolen the money needful from his master ; then, 
 as it was yet too early, he wandered about the streets ; in the morning 
 he bought bon-bons, to eat " on shipboard," and breakfasted at the 
 railway station, and went by the first train to Hamburg, whither, 
 however, the telegraph preceded him. He was at once apprehended 
 upon his arrival, precognosed, and subsequently sent back to 
 us. From the first he acknowledged the deed, with all its circum- 
 stantialities, and remained firm to his confession. On the 19th we 
 made the medico-legal .examination of the body, and found the fol- 
 lowing important particulars : — The shirt and the whole body was 
 soiled with blood, the features were remarkably distorted; there 
 were forty-two injuries upon the head, face, neck, shoulder, superior 
 extremities, and the fingers, which were much cut ; these were partly 
 only ecchymotic marks, partly clean cuts, partly .bloody scratches 
 (with a knife), and lastly, marks of two violent blows. One of 
 these had comminuted the squamous and petrous portions of the 
 right temporal bone, and from this fracture a fissure extended right 
 across the sella turcica; the second blow had smashed the lower 
 jaw on the right side, torn across its artery, and cut across cleanly 
 the superior thyroid artery. The whole body. was anaemic. The 
 following special questions were laid before us to be answered in our 
 report : — (1.) Could the wounds upon the deceased have been in- 
 flicted with the axe and knife produced? (2) Which of these 
 wounds are to be referred to the axe ? (3.) Whether the deceased 
 
§ 41. MODE IN WHICH WEAPON HAS BEEN EMPLOYED. 183 
 
 when struck by the axe must have lain upon his left side, or whether 
 he might have been sitting up ? (4.) How long might the deceased have 
 lived after the receipt of his wounds ? After pointing out in our 
 report, that the comminuted fracture of the skull must have been 
 the cause of death, which from the self-evidence of the matter we 
 here omit, we continued : — " You ask us how long the deceased 
 might have lived after receiving his wounds ? The facts mentioned 
 in the legal reports, coupled with our medical experience, enable us 
 to answer this query. The accused asserts it to have been about 
 half-past two a.m., when he for the second time entered the bedroom, 
 i.e., commenced the murder. He asserts further in all his examina- 
 tions, that at his departure about four in the morning, his master, 
 though fatally wounded, still breathed, and the housekeeper Estrich 
 depones, that she found her master quite dead on entering his room 
 in the morning after eight o'clock ; therefore, he must have lived at 
 the shortest one hour and a-half, and at the longest six hours and a- 
 half ; and here, for completeness-sake we may state, that the remark of 
 Drs. X. and Z., who were called in, that those parts of the body 
 under the bedclothes were still warm at three-quarters past eight 
 a.m., is quite unimportant, as, under such circumstances, the body 
 may retain its heat for many hours, frequently even till the next day. 
 Experience, however, teaches us, that we may reasonably suppose the 
 deceased to have lived two or three hours after the receipt of the 
 injuries; for, although the haemorrhage from the many wounded 
 blood-vessels, many of them important, must certainly have been 
 very considerable, as is proved not only by the linen of the deceased, 
 which seemed as if soaked in blood, but also by the general anaemia 
 of the body found at the autopsy, yet we must not forget, that the 
 concussion of the brain, caused by the two blows on the head, must 
 have necessarily so far lowered the powers of life as to prevent any 
 rapidly fatal arterial haemorrhage, while experience teaches us, that 
 persons affected with a similar concussion of the brain proceeding 
 from similar causes, even to the extent of fracturing the base of the 
 skull, have often lived much longer than we have in this case sup- 
 posed. Considering all the circumstances, however, the haemorrhage 
 from the many wounds, the great number of these, and the injuries to 
 the head, we believe ourselves justified in fixing the period of death 
 as we have done." "Further, we can answer with perfect certainty 
 the question : ' Whether the injuries of the deceased could have been 
 inflicted with the axe and knife produced ? confirming our affirma- 
 
184 § 41. MODE IN WHICH WEAPON HAS BEEN EMPLOYED. 
 
 tive answer to this question given in our summary report at the time 
 of the autopsy. Independent of the fact, that the weapons shown 
 were covered with blood, the character of the injuries were evidently 
 to be referred to a sharp-cutting weapon, and to a blunt-cutting one 
 wielded with considerable force, as is plainly shown by their partly 
 sharp and smooth, partly irregular edges, and the comminution of 
 both soft and hard bodies ; and as the point • of the table-knife 
 was found broken off, the accused confessing, and the autopsy testi- 
 fying, that he struck with it against hard parts (the skull-bones), so 
 this circumstance adds to the great probability, that these weapons not 
 only might have been used, but that they actually were employed." 
 
 "No greater difficulties surround the question laid before us — 
 ' Which of the injuries are to be referred to the axe ? ' Indubitably 
 those which have produced comminution of the hard bones and 
 laceration of the soft parts, i. e., the two severe blows on the head, 
 that upon the right lower jaw, and that upon the right temporal 
 bone, which presuppose the employment of a heavier and blunter 
 weapon than a table-knife and yet a bluntly-cutting one that can 
 separate and lacerate the soft parts, consequently just such a weapon 
 as an axe." 
 
 " We have now finally to reply to the fourth question — ' Whether 
 the deceased when struck by the axe must have lain upon bis left 
 side, or whether he might have been sitting up ? " 
 
 The housekeeper Estrich, from long-continued personal observation, 
 and the foreman Ratzsch, from having frequently heard Nolte say so, 
 have both testified that the deceased was in the habit of " always" lying 
 in bed upon his left side with his face to the wall. We may, there- 
 fore, suppose that, as usual, on the night between the 16th and 17th 
 of this month, when the accused fell upon him, N. was sleeping on 
 his left side; and the situation of the fatal wounds of the jaw and 
 skull upon the right side is in favour of this supposition. In con- 
 sidering this question, however, it is of importance to reflect how the 
 body was found in the morning. As we ourselves have seen, the 
 deceased lay with the upper part of his body upon the right side, 
 whilst the lower part of the body, particularly the hips and upper 
 part of the thighs, lay with their foreparts on the bed, the hands lay 
 together in a bent position, &c. It is evidently impossible that the 
 deceased could have been lying in this position when he received those 
 injuries, which were not even visible until the body had been turned 
 round, because he lay upon them • he must therefore have got into 
 
§ 41. MODE IN WHICH WEAPON HAS BEEN EMPLOYED. 185 
 
 this position subsequently. Nothing is less likely than that the 
 accused, after committing the deed, placed him in this position ; first, 
 because in his open confession of all the particulars of his crime, he 
 has made no allusion to this, and second, because he repeatedly and 
 very credibly states, that he did indeed hear the dying man still 
 breathe, but that from fear he dared not look at him, and he was 
 much less likely to turn his body round without any imaginable 
 reason. If, therefore, the deceased could not have received the in- 
 jury when lying on the right side, and yet has been found as a corpse 
 lying upon this side, it follows that he must have been in some other 
 posture between the times of quiet sleep, being wounded and being- 
 found a corpse. The statements of the accused contradict each other 
 repeatedly in regard to this. In Hamburg he stated, " The master 
 did not defend himself, nor seize hold of me," on the contrary, at 
 the time of the autopsy, and at the subsequent precognitions, he 
 repeatedly declared the opposite of this, and, judging from his 
 scratched hand, probably with truth. At the precognition on the 
 22nd of this month he states that, with the axe held perpendicularly 
 above him, he struck purposely at the head of the white figure sitting 
 in the bed. Subsequently, when he for the first time stabbed his 
 master, he says, he attempted to get up, but again during the same 
 examination he states, that immediately after the first stab his master 
 fell down, and he did not observe him again attempt to rise. Just 
 so does his statement at the precognition on the 2nd of this month 
 vary from his earlier ones, when he says, " Judging from the voice, 
 my master appeared to have turned himself to me (that is, towards 
 the right side), but I do not know this with certainty, and I 
 only struck at the white figure which appeared to be sitting in the 
 bed.'' We must, therefore, appeal for conclusive information to the 
 condition of the wounds. Though we cannot deny the possibility of 
 the wound over the jaw of the deceased having been given from above 
 downwards, and while he was in a sitting posture, yet the perfect 
 comminution of the bone is much more favourable to the view that 
 the axe must have descended upon it at right angles to its surface, 
 i. e,, that the deceased must have lain upon his left side when he re- 
 ceived this blow. That he now sat up is extremely probable, as, 
 after the receipt of such a wound, when awake, he might have done 
 much more, and might even have walked. It is also much more 
 reasonable to assume the possibility of the cranial wound having been 
 received in a sitting posture, as the vaulting of the skull causes the 
 
186 § 41. MODE IN WHICH WEAPON HAS BEEN EMPLOYED. 
 
 temporal bone to protrude beyond the lower jaw, and its thin squa- 
 mous portion is much more easily broken and comminuted than the 
 hard and strong lower jawbone. We are, therefore, inclined to 
 assume, that Nolte received the first blow upon the right cheek 
 whilst lying on his left side, that he then sat up, and received the 
 second blow upon the head, and that in the struggle indubitably now 
 begun, the numerous cuts with the knife followed, till Nolte, death- 
 struck and exhausted, fell down, as he was found, and as we have 
 already described. Finally, therefore, we answer the questions put 
 to us as follows : — " (1.) The injuries of the deceased may have 
 been inflicted with the axe and knife produced at the time of the 
 autopsy; (2.) The oft-mentioned wounds upon the skull and jaw have 
 been produced by the axe; (3.) The deceased when struck with 
 the axe may have been in a sitting posture; (4.) The deceased 
 may have lived two or three hours after the receipt of the in- 
 juries." 
 
 I may add, though not in place here, that the jury gave it as their 
 verdict : that Haube perpetrated the deed " wilfully, but not with 
 deliberation" (!), and he was consequently (according to § 176 of 
 the Penal Code) condemned to imprisoment for life, and this punish- 
 ment he is now suffering in the prison here. 
 
 In the following case of robbery, with murder, the decision of the 
 question we are now illustrating was much more easy than in either 
 of the two already related. 
 
 Case LXXII. — Comminuted Fracture op the Right Parietal 
 
 AND OF THE SPHENOID BoNES. How DID THE MURDERED MAN 
 
 LIE, AND WHERE DID THE MURDERER STAND ? 
 
 On the morning of the 14th of March, 18 — , the merchant 
 Schultz was missed, and his murdered body was subsequently found 
 tolerably closely packed in the box of his sofa-bed. On the same 
 day, and almost immediately after the finding of the body, Fried- 
 rich Holland, the house-servant of the murdered man, was arrested, 
 for want of a passport, at the station of the Hamburg Railway, 
 on the wing for America via Hamburg ; and he immediately con- 
 fessed that, to obtain money for the support of his sweetheart and 
 his child by her, he had murdered his master as he lay in bed sleeping, 
 about 8 o'clock on the previous morning. At the precognition, 
 which took place that evening, he gave the following more detailed 
 
§ 41. MODE IN WHICH WEAPON HAS BEEN EMPLOYED. 187 
 
 account of the mode in which the deed was committed. " After I 
 had satisfied myself that my master, who lay upon his left side with 
 his face to the wall, was still fast asleep, I took from under my coat 
 the kitchen axe, which I had taken out of the kitchen, seized it 
 by the lower part of its handle, and struck with the back of it from 
 above downwards upon my master's head, hitting him upon the 
 temple. Immediately on receiving the blow, my master, uttering no 
 sound, raised up his head, which I then struck at twice, and this 
 time more on the top of the head, and the head again sunk down, 
 still without a sound. As my master still breathed stertorously, 
 rattling in his throat, I rushed to the kitchen to fetch a strong cord 
 with which to strangle him, for I feared that the rattling would get 
 louder and would be heard by others. I took the cord to the head 
 of the bed, drew. the body, covered only with a shirt, so far out of bed 
 that the head hung down. I then held the one end of the cord 
 firm, and wound the other three or four times round the neck, so 
 that it should press first upon the larynx, and then brought the end 
 of the cord round to the front of the neck, where I made a knot so 
 that it should hold firmly." He then went on to state how that 
 not to leave the body lying openly and visibly in the bed, he took 
 it out of it, packed it in the box of the sofa-bed, and nailed down 
 the lid, how he now completed the robbery, and how he had lived 
 up to the time of his arrest. 
 
 On the following day the autopsy took place, and it was pecu- 
 liarly interesting from the fact that here a dying man had been 
 strangled. In the first place, we found a quarter of an inch thick 
 hempen cord, wound fivefold round the neck, and that so tightly 
 that the finger could not be inserted beneath it. After removal of 
 the cord, there was seen a furrow one quarter of an inch broad and 
 two lines deep, running from four to five times round the neck, 
 chiefly of a white colour, but here and there stained with patches of 
 blue and of dark red ; this depression was quite soft to cut and dis- 
 played no ecchymosis. The whole of the right parietal bone was 
 broken into many fragments, and the coronal suture separated through- 
 out its entire extent. The right orbital plate of the frontal bone was 
 fissured. A piece was broken off the right great wing of the sphenoid, 
 and a piece three inches long from off the squamous portion of the 
 right temporal bone. A fissure extended through the base of the 
 skull right across the sella turcica. The lungs were anaemic ; the 
 large thoracic blood-vessels, and the cardiac cavities, almost empty of 
 
188 § 41. MODE IN WHICH WEAPON HAS BEEN EMPLOYED. 
 
 blood; the larynx and trachea were uninjured, pale and empty; 
 every other organ was normal but anaemic. 
 
 Now, as respects the questions to be answered in our report, we 
 had here the direct opposite of the case of Liicke already given, for 
 in this case the results of the autopsy completely agreed with the 
 open confession of the culprit. In the first place, as to the direct 
 cause of death, it was evidently easy to prove that the death was 
 caused by the cranial injuries, and not by the strangulation, for no 
 single sign of death by strangulation was found, and consequently the 
 deceased, if not already dead, and in opposition to this the deposition 
 states, that he still breathed with a rhonchus (tracheal rale), yet he 
 must have been already in ag,one mortis when the prisoner wound the 
 cord round his neck, for doing which he gave a very credible reason, 
 and one confirmed by the experience of similar cases. " Next, as to 
 the- weapon," we continued, " with which these injuries have been 
 inflicted, independent of the prisoner's confession, or should he sub- 
 sequently retract it, we must conclude, that a heavy blunt-edged 
 weapon provided with at least one four-sided surface — such as an 
 axe or hammer — must have been the lethal weapon. Only contusions 
 produce such injuries as here exist, and the regular four-sided 
 ecchymosis over the zygomatic arch proves that a four-sided weapon 
 has been employed. The common kitchen axe produced has, how- 
 ever, an indented blunt-cutting edge, and the usual four-sided back, 
 its edges being almost sharper than the proper edge itself. From 
 this condition of the axe it is evident, that only the last-mentioned 
 injury, the ecchymosis on the cheek, has been certainly caused by 
 the back of the axe, whilst the other external injuries might have 
 been produced just as well by the front or edge of the axe, as by its 
 back. The further statement of Holland, that his master lay upon 
 his left side when he struck him, has been confirmed by the autopsy, 
 as all the injuries have been found upon the right side of the head, 
 whilst the top of the head and the left side are quite uninjured. But 
 it is also evident, from the nature of the internal injuries, that the 
 deceased must have been lying when he received the fatal blow. For, 
 besides that, daily experience teaches us, that when the victim stands 
 or sits before his foe, the blow is much more likely to strike the left 
 than the right side, in this case the force employed has been so great 
 as to separate an entire suture, and has, therefore, more probably re- 
 sulted from a blow directly downwards, than from a side-blow. As 
 to the position of the murderer, we must suppose that he stood be- 
 
§ 41. MODE IN WHICH WEAPON HAS BEEN EMPLOYED. 189 
 
 hind, and, as it were, above the head of the bed, for only in this 
 position, and not if he had stood in front of, and as it were, below 
 the head of the bed, could the four-sided ecchymosis on the cheek be 
 produced, which was caused by the back of the axe when delivering 
 a blow which fractured the bones lying beneath. In accordance 
 with the foregoing, we delivered our opinions in regard to the ques- 
 tions laid before us : — (1.) That strangulation had not been the cause 
 of SchuhVs death; (2.) That the cranial injuries had been the inevi- 
 table cause of his death; (3.) That these injuries evidently point to 
 the employment of a partly blunt and partly sharp weapon, which 
 must have been used with considerable force; (4.) That the kitchen 
 axe produced, or some similar weapon has been employed to inflict 
 these injuries; (5.) That the four-sided ecchymosis mentioned, has 
 been caused by the back of this weapon, whilst the other external 
 injuries may have been caused partly by the sharp edge, and partly 
 by the blunt back of the weapon ; (6.) That the deceased must have 
 been wounded and killed while lying on his left side; (7.) That from 
 the nature of the ecchymosis mentioned, we may conclude that the 
 murderer must have stood above, and as it were, behind the head of 
 the bed ; (8.) That from the high state of preservation of the body, 
 coupled with the mild temperature then prevailing, the death of the 
 deceased, must have preceded the autopsy but a few days, and it is 
 very possible that the exact time may have been about fifty hours 
 (this was in answer to a direct query)." 
 
 Holland was executed. 
 
 The following case of a charge of murder presented no difficulties, 
 though it afforded a most striking example how futile the most obsti- 
 nate lying is, when placed in opposition to a medico-legal opinion 
 deduced from the results of the autopsy. 
 
 Case LXXIII. — Murder by injuries of the Head. — In what 
 
 POSITION HAS THE DECEASED BEEN? 
 
 A joiner struck dead (with a heavy file weighing about one pound 
 fourteen ounces, imp.) his wife, aged 55, with whom he had led a 
 quarrelsome life. The thinness of all the skull-bones in this case 
 was more remarkable than I have ever seen either before or since, 
 and was rendered especially so by occurring in a case of cranial 
 injury. The surface of the skull-bones where they were sawn 
 through all round, were nowhere above a line in thickness ; fortu- 
 nately, the case occurred under the new Penal Code, and therefore 
 
190 § 41. MODE IN WHICH WEAPON HAS BEEN EMPLOYED. 
 
 gave rise to no unprofitable discussions with the defender, as to the 
 absolute or individual lethality of the injuries ; it would verily have 
 been difficult for him to maintain the latter view of the case ; but he 
 might have succeeded in protracting a very simple matter through 
 the various courts. The whole of the left half of the skull was 
 broken to pieces ; ten fragments of bone taken out of this wound lay 
 before us at the medico-legal examination of the body ; the base of 
 the wound was formed by the reddish-blue dura mater, which was 
 lacerated, and from beneath which the cerebral substance protruded 
 through the wound. The left hemisphere of the cerebrum was com- 
 pletely crushed, and both it and the left side of the cerebellum were 
 thickly beset with dark coagula. A horizontal fracture passed to the 
 right across the frontal bone into the right orbital process, where it 
 ended. The whole of the brain was covered by a thin layer of treacly 
 blood. The plexus choroidales were very pale, all the sinuses almost 
 empty of blood. In determining the position and posture of the 
 wounded person at the time the deed was done a second wound 
 proved a great help ; this was about an inch and a-quarter long, but 
 slightly patulous, its edges obtusely sharp and slightly ecchymosedj 
 it ran immediately over the left ear from behind forwards, and from 
 above downwards diagonally. The rest of the autopsy was of no 
 consequence, affording only, as was to be expected, additional evidence 
 of the general anaemia. We gave it as our decided opinion, that the 
 injury to the head had been inevitably the cause of death, that it 
 might very readily have been inflicted by the heavy file produced ; 
 that the deceased at the moment of its receipt had not been in a 
 horizontal position (against which the wound above the ear testified), 
 but might have been either standing or sitting, and the murderer 
 might have stood either before or behind her. The husband was 
 brought forward at the time of the examination, and stated, that his 
 wife was sitting knitting on a bench when the quarrel arose, and that 
 he, standing before her, seized the file and struck her. 
 
 Case LXXIV. — Fatal comminuted fbacture of the Skull 
 
 WITH AN AXE. Has IT BEEN DONE WITH THE EDGE ALONE, 
 OR ALSO WITH THE BACK? 
 
 The following case, that of a father, the weaver D., who struck 
 dead his son, aged 14, while sleeping quietly, was still more horrible 
 than any of the preceding cases, and resembled them much in the 
 
§ 41. MODE IN WHICH WEAPON HAS BEEN EMPLOYED. 191 
 
 results of the autopsy. The blow was given with the axe produced, 
 as was proved by the other members of the family, who being in an 
 adjoining room heard the sound of the falling axe, and immediately 
 hurrying in, were almost eye-witnesses of the deed; the blow had 
 cut through the epicranial aponeurosis and skull-bones with a clean 
 sharp-edged cut, and penetrated the brain deeply, and appeared on 
 the body as a wound on the left side, three inches and a-half long 
 and one inch wide, from whose edges, and from amongst the crushed 
 brain at its bottom, several loose pieces of bone were taken out. The 
 face, shirt, and upper extremities were much covered with blood. 
 The body was of a waxy-white, affording thereby, along with the size 
 of the wound, certain evidence of the complete anaemia, which was 
 subsequently most strikingly displayed in the almost greyish-white 
 and bloodless lungs ; in the perfectly bloodless heart and pulmonary 
 artery ; in the pale and bloodless liver, and in the almost empty vena 
 cava inferior, &c. Nevertheless, even in this case, the usual post- 
 mortem staining was not absent {Vicl. § 8, page 19), but covered 
 the whole of the back. I may also add, that from the right angle of 
 the cranial wound a zigzag fissure extended horizontally across to 
 the right temporal bone, and there was also a fissure in the base of 
 the cranium across the sella turcica, not, as usual, right across and 
 through the bone, but winding angularly beneath the sella, and 
 separating the pars petrosa of the right temporal bone. Upon the 
 corpus callosum there lay dark lumps of coagulated blood, and similar 
 clots were scattered here and there through the brain. The boy had 
 died instantaneously without awaking. In this case also, therefore, 
 the blood had coagulated after death (Fid. § 11, page 23). The 
 decision as to the nature of this case was extremely simple. It was 
 not so easy, however, to answer the question: — "Did the murderer 
 strike only with the edge, or also with the back of the axe ? " On 
 the latter there were not only blood-stains like those on the rest of 
 the blade, but there were adherent also fair hairs from off the corpse. 
 Though, however, the nature of the wound permitted us to assume 
 with something like certainty, that the sharp edge of the axe had 
 been used to produce it, blood and hair on its back could not justify 
 a similar conclusion. We rather supposed that the hair cut off had 
 been washed out by the streaming blood, and this supposition was 
 confirmed and made certain, after we had ordered the production of 
 the pillow on which the boy's head lay when he was struck, for upon 
 it we found not only large blood-stains, but two large pieces of cere- 
 
192 § 41. MODE IN WHICH WEAPON HAS BEEN EMPLOYED. 
 
 bral substance, and a tolerable heap of fair bair matted with blood ! It 
 further came out that the murderer was labouring under melancholia ; 
 the preliminary investigation was therefore cancelled, and the poor 
 man sent to an Asylum for the insane, where he subsequently died. 
 
 Case LXXV. — Penetrating Wound op the Heart. — Was the 
 
 DECEASED STABBED, OB, DID HE HIMSELF RUN UPON THE KNIFE ? 
 
 During a quarrel among some woodcutters, on the 25th of August, 
 18 — , S. was thrice stabbed by Helm, and immediately fell dead. 
 We quote the following description of these wounds from the pro- 
 tocol of the autopsy : — " About the middle of the left arm, on its 
 inner side, there was a crescent-shaped wound one inch . and three- 
 quarters long, three-quarters of an inch wide, through the skin 
 alone, with sharp, dry edges, not ecchymosed, — on the left breast 
 near the axilla, and one inch and a-half diagonally above the nipple, 
 there was a crescent-shaped wound two inches and a-half long, one 
 inch and a-quarter wide at the centre, and from the bottom of which 
 a bundle of muscular fibres protruded. On the same side of the 
 breast between the fifth and sixth ribs, and about one inch and a- 
 half from the nipple, there was a wound with similar edges, slightly 
 crescentic in form, one inch long, and one inch and a-quarter wide, 
 running from above downwards and from within outwards." After 
 opening the thorax, it was found that both wounds had penetrated, 
 and approached each other, so that "there was only half-an-inch 
 between them. The, lower wound was of a crescentic form, three- 
 quarters of a inch long, and with sharp unecchymosed edges ; the 
 other wound was more like a simple hole, one-quarter of an inch in 
 diameter, and had similar edges. In the left pleural cavity there 
 were twenty ounces of dark and perfectly fluid blood. At the base 
 of the pericardium, close to the diaphragm, there was a crescent- 
 shaped wound half-an-inch long and three-quarters of an inch broad, 
 with sharp edges, deeply ecchymosed to the extent of half-an-inch all 
 round. In the pericardium there were also four ounces of blood similar 
 to that already mentioned. At the part of the heart corresponding 
 to the wound of the pericardium, we found a feebly crescentic wound 
 half-an-inch long and two inches broad, with sharp unecchymosed 
 edges, and which penetrated the left ventricle." The rest of the 
 autopsy was of no consequence. The body was generally anEemic, 
 excepting only (as usual) the cerebral veins. Nothing could be more 
 
§ 41. MODE IN WHICH WEAPON HAS BEEN EMPLOYED. 193 
 
 easy than to determine the inevitable fatality of such a wound, and to 
 confirm the supposition that it might have been made by the pocket- 
 knife produced, the blade of which was four inches long, and three- 
 quarters of an inch broad in the middle, very pointed and very sharp. 
 But at his trial the accused for the first time asserted, that he had 
 not wounded the deceased, but that, as S. threatened him with an 
 uplifted log of wood, in self-defence he held the knife before him, 
 and S. himself ran upon it; this plea was eagerly seized by the 
 advocate for the defence, but it was only too readily swept away by 
 confronting it with the result of the autopsy. The wounded man 
 had been thrice stabbed, once on the arm and twice on the breast : 
 this of itself seemed more in favour of some active procedure, than 
 of a mere passive running upon the weapon ; moreover, the direction 
 of the wounds was from above downwards, and converged in the chest 
 at their lower ends. Eepeated stabbings with an uplifted arm, ex- 
 plained the origin and direction of these wounds, just as easily and 
 naturally as it was difficult to conoeive how the deceased could have 
 received three, and three such wounds, by simply running upon the 
 knife. Our opinions prevailed with the Jury, and Helm was 
 condemned. 
 
 Case LXXVI. — Fatal Stab in the Thigh. — Was it inten- 
 tional OR CAUSED BY FALLING ON THE KNIFE ? 
 
 The following case was very similar to that just related. An 
 extremely passionate and very drunken man, who had often ill-used 
 his wife, fell a-quarrelling with her as he ate, and held a bread-knife 
 in Ms hand. According to his statement, his wife "upon this 
 stumbled over a stool that stood behind her, and fell forwards, but 
 somewhat to the one side," and he, seeking to prevent her fall, acci- 
 dentally stabbed her with the knife he had in his hand. The wound 
 was in the back part of the left thigh, and had penetrated about two 
 inches obliquely from without inwards, after passing through a dress, 
 two wadded petticoats, and a pair of drawers. According to the 
 woman, however, " her husband had repeatedly struck her, and kicked 
 her on the side in front," and then, as she turned to the door to flee, 
 he stabbed her from behind. A diversity of statement, obviously 
 of much importance for the public prosecutor ! The woman was im- 
 mediately removed to the Hospital, where an ecchymosed mark was 
 found in the left groin, besides the stab in the left thigh. In three 
 
 o 
 
194 § 41. MODE IN WHICH WEAPON HAS BEEN EMPLOYED. 
 
 days' time the glands of the groin were much swollen, in five days 
 the case had assumed a serious aspect, the suppuration became 
 ichorous, and the glandular inflammation likewise ended in unhealthy 
 suppuration, and on the twentieth day the woman died from pyaemia. 
 The body was emaciated, worn out with disease, and anaemic, and in 
 both of the situations mentioned deep unhealthy ulceration existed. It 
 was, therefore, easy to determine the facts relative to the homicide. 
 In regard to the question put to us : — " Whether the stab might 
 have been produced in the manner alleged by the accused ? " we 
 answered it negatively, and for these reasons : " His assertions are 
 unworthy of credit : in the first place, because they contradict each 
 other, and are indistinct, or rather indeed incomprehensible ; and in 
 the next place, because they do not explain the condition of the 
 body either before or after death. It is manifestly incomprehensible, 
 how a woman could do what M. says his wife did, viz., iaR forwards, 
 and over a stool which stood behind her. But the stab itself contra- 
 dicts any such assumption : it must, as the deceased has correctly 
 stated, have been given with considerable force, since it penetrated 
 two inches deep into the body, after passing through so many elastic 
 articles of dress. If a body were to fall with its entire weight upon a 
 knife fixed beneath it, a similar stab might be the result ; but, as the 
 accused himself testifies, that he caught his wife to prevent her from 
 falling, so such a half fall cannot be accepted as sufficient to produce 
 such a wound, and this all the more, that, had it been the cause the 
 direction would have been different, viz., direct from behind forwards, 
 and not as it really is, oblique. On the contrary, the origin of the 
 stab is explained in the easiest and simplest manner, by assuming 
 that the accused, holding the knife in his right hand, forcibly stabbed 
 his wife from behind, as she fled to the door with her back towards 
 him. Moreover, the injury in the inguinal region is not explained 
 by the statement of the accused ; while, if we accept as true the state- 
 ment of the deceased, that before being stabbed, she had been 
 "kicked on the side in front," the origin of this injury is explained 
 in the most natural manner. 
 
§ 42. ON THE INSPECTION OF ARTICLES OF CLOTHING. 195 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 ON THE INSPECTION OF ARTICLES OF CLOTHING- AND 
 OTHER MATTERS. 
 
 § 42. Genebal Statements. 
 
 The medical jurist is not generally required to inspect clothing, 
 shirts, boots, stockings, &c, and stuffs of every kind, as handker- 
 chiefs, rags, bast mats, &c, in which the bodies of new-born children 
 have been wrapped. The Judge presiding at the examination of the 
 body is generally satisfied with ordering such articles of clothing to 
 be properly registered, because they may assist in identifying un- 
 known bodies, and to this end they must also be correctly described 
 in the public advertisements ; and in Berlin, the clothes are, with the 
 same intention, hung up in the public deadhouse near the exposed 
 body (as in the Morgue at Paris) ; in cases of murder, they are at the 
 public trial laid upon the table along with the corpora delicti, and 
 produced to the accused for identification, &c. Prom time immemorial 
 it has been the custom at Berlin to deliver the body naked to the 
 medical inspectors for further investigation, which is in every way 
 more judicious than the opposite procedure common in other juris- 
 dictions, as may be gathered from the protocols of their autopsies, 
 which commence with a long description of the clothing of the body. 
 Por either this clothing presents nothing of importance in a medico- 
 legal point of view, and then, it is improper and vexatious to occupy 
 the time of the physician in describing coats, trousers, stockings, 
 &c. ; or these articles, as however, but very rarely happens, may be 
 able to throw light upon the case, because suspicious-looking spots, 
 &c, are found upon them, and then the Judge himself, without any 
 statutory compulsion, which does not exist with us, will be disposed 
 to advise with the medical jurist upon the matter. This will, of 
 course, be done in every case where the position of the clothes in 
 relation to the injuries discovered excites attention and scrutiny. 
 Thus, for example, in a doubtful case of suicide, it must have 
 attracted attention, that the silk-neckerchief over the wound in the 
 
 02 
 
196 § 43. ON THE INVESTIGATION OF BLOOD-STAINS. 
 
 throat was quite uninjured ; in two other similar cases, that all the 
 clothes as well as the shirt were uninjured, whilst beneath them lay 
 the fatal gun-shot wound; in another case again, one of rape and 
 murder, that the cap of the unfortunate woman lay between her 
 thighs, &c. The medical jurist must, however, wait until such 
 queries are put to him, and where this is the case, which I repeat is 
 but seldom, they usually refer to the investigation of the stains of 
 blood, ordure, semen, and poisons, particularly of sulphuric acid. 
 
 § 43. On the Investigation op Blood-stains.* 
 
 H. Hose (op. cit.) treats uncoloured linen or woollen cloths, ap- 
 parently stained with blood, with cold distilled water to extract the 
 hsematin, and this solution is then tested with a solution of chlorine, 
 with nitric acid, and with tincture of galls, in the manner already 
 described (page 145). It is much more difficult, however, to inves- 
 tigate stains of blood upon coloured cloths, particularly upon such as 
 are composed of some nitrogenous organic material, as wool or silk. 
 We must in such cases endeavour, in the first place, cautiously to 
 scratch off the dried blood from the cloth, — a procedure which, even 
 when performed with care, is but seldom successful ; we must in the 
 next place macerate the matter scratched off in cold water, and then 
 proceed to test the solution of hasmatin (should blood be present) in the 
 manner already described. Where the stains have already been washed 
 with boiling or soapy water, Morin, Professor of Chemistry in Rouen, 
 recommends the following mode of detection: the stains are first 
 treated with a weak solution of pure potash, the fluid thus obtained 
 gives a white precipitate with nitric or hydrochloric acid, thereby 
 evincing the presence of one or more of the constituents of the blood. 
 The alkaline treatment does not discharge the colouring-matter of the 
 blood, and it may be extracted by the use of pure hydrochloric acid, 
 testing this solution with ferrocyanide of potassium, when the pre- 
 sence of the iron of the blood is at once rendered visible. The 
 simultaneous discovery of the presence of iron along with a protein 
 substance is, according to Morin, a certain sign of the presence of 
 blood.f Wiehr employs a somewhat similar method for the detec- 
 tion of blood-stains upon coloured stuffs, where the colour of the 
 solution prevents the employment of reagents, viz., by the production 
 
 * Vid. also on the investigation of blood-stains on weapons, §§ 39 and 40. 
 t Archiv der Pharmaoie, LXXX. Hft. 2. Jahrg. 1854, s. 192. 
 
§ 43. ON THE INVESTIGATION OF BLOOD-STAINS. 197 
 
 of cyanide of potassium by means of the stains of blood upon the 
 stuff. After satisfying himself that the stuff to be examined con- 
 tains no wool, he roasts a red-stained portion of it in a porcelain 
 crucible till it can be rubbed to powder, this powder is then mixed 
 with carbonate of potash and the mixture exposed to a strong red- 
 heat. The fused mass is subsequently to be lixiviated with distilled 
 water and filtered, and to the filtered solution there is to be added a 
 small quantity of a solution of proto-salt, and also of a per-salt of 
 iron, upon which a precipitate of an undecided colour falls, consisting 
 of the surplus of the carbonate of potass employed, the reduced oxide 
 and peroxide of iron, and the newly-formed ferrosesquicyanide of 
 iron. The precipitate is now digested in dilute sulphuric acid, which 
 dissolves out the oxide and peroxide of iron, and thus renders visible 
 the bright-blue of the ferrosesquicyanide of iron, which is insoluble 
 in the dilute acid. Wiehr asserts, that he has obtained satisfac- 
 tory results by means of this method, even where the quantity of 
 blood was very minute. This method may be also success- 
 fully employed by boiling a piece of the blood-stained stuff in a 
 solution of caustic potass, evaporating the solution to dryness, 
 exposing the residue to a red-heat, and afterwards treating it with 
 the salts of iron and sulphuric acid as already described.* 
 
 Bryk commends the detection of the polychroism of the colouring- 
 matter of the blood as a most valuable test, particularly in the 
 diagnosis of such blood-stains as have been washed out, and appear 
 perfectly white on being merely looked at. When such stains are 
 treated under the microscope with concentrated sulphuric acid, in a 
 very few minutes a pale-green coloration of the linen threads may be 
 seen, which in a short time becomes pale-brown, and here and there, 
 where more of the pigment may by chance adhere, a brownish-red, 
 passing afterwards to brick or even to rose-red, this generally taking 
 place in from two to three hours, and the reaction closing by the 
 stain assuming a dirty-brown colour. The transition from green to 
 brown, violet, brick or rose-red, is to be observed in every pale- 
 yellowish stain, whether this faint coloration has existed ab origine 
 or been produced by attempts to wash it out; and of course, these 
 colours appear all the more splendid when the stain of blood is con- 
 centrated, and thereby afford a most important means of differential 
 diagnosis between such stains and those of pus, urine, or mucus, 
 which upon white cloths might be suspected to be washed-out blood- 
 * Archiv der Pharmacie, 1854, April. 
 
198 § 43. ON THE INVESTIGATION OF BLOOD-STAINS. 
 
 stains, but which when treated with sulphuric acid do not undergo 
 the change of colour described.* 
 
 Pinia, of Turing also describes this peculiar metamorphosis of the. 
 colour of visible, and particularly of washed-out blood-stains, when 
 treated with sulphuric acid. Our own experimental researches have 
 perfectly satisfied us of the correctness of this statement, and we 
 have had great pleasure in observing the beautiful changes of colour 
 produced by this treatment in recent as well as in washed-out stains, 
 unaided vision being perfectly sufficient for the purpose. But the 
 forensic value of this diagnostic measure is unfortunately much 
 lessened by the fact, that the very same polychroism is also observed 
 when stains of albumen, of the acids of the bile, or even of fat alone, 
 are treated with sulphuric acid dropped upon them, though these may 
 actually contain no blood, as is- proved by the failure of all the other 
 tests, which prove its existence in actual blood-stains. On the other 
 hand, Hoppe's mode of treating recent or washed-out blood-stains with 
 caustic soda seems much more trustworthy, this also produces a 
 rapid and very striking alteration in the colouring-matter of the 
 blood, as we ourselves can testify from personal observation. Caustic 
 soda, when dropped upon recent blood or blood-stains which still 
 contain traces of hsematin, produces in a few minutes a pale or dark 
 olive-green coloration, passing at once into the previous red, or 
 reddish, or yellowish-red colour when acetic acid is dropped upon it, 
 and again becoming green when treated afresh with soda. There is 
 no other colouring-matter that undergoes these changes when thus 
 treated, and this method is, therefore, to be preferred to that with 
 sulphuric acid. Both' tests are, moreover, easy of application, and 
 require no special apparatus. When the stains are very rigid, it is 
 better to soften them with a bttle distilled water previous to applying 
 the solution of soda. 
 
 Along with the employment of chemical means to detect blood- 
 stains, we must never neglect microscopical, and this all the more, 
 that a recent discovery permits us to hope to be able to detect blood 
 with certainty in this manner, even when the quantity is much too 
 small for its chemical detection. Erst of all, we must always ascer- 
 tain the existence of blood corpuscles, and in satisfying ourselves of 
 this we must not neglect the white corpuscles, since their detection, 
 
 * Wiener Medic. "Wochenschr. 1858, s. 779. 
 
 t Demaria, in Ms notes to the Italian translation of this Handbook. 
 p. 724. 
 
§ 43. ON THE INVESTIGATION OF BLOOD-STAINS. 199 
 
 along with the other characteristics, considerably strengthens the 
 credibility of the result. In treating dried stains of blood in the 
 usual manner with water, watery solutions of salt or iodine, <&c, very 
 distinct corpuscles are obtained. If many of these, however, are colour- 
 less, the probability is very great that it is purulent, muco-purulent 
 matter, or some other pathological product and not blood. If re- 
 latively, but few of the corpuscles are colourless, it is all the more 
 likely to be blood. The discovery of fibrine concludes the micro- 
 scopic examination. This is easily recognised as the material con- 
 necting the fragments of blood after they have been for some time 
 exposed to the action of water. A still more important test of 
 blood, however, is the discovery made by L. Teichmann,* that the 
 action of acetic acid upon blood causes the formation of crystals, 
 the constituents of which he recognised as being formed from the 
 colouring-matter of the blood, and he therefore described them 
 under the name of crystals of hsemin. This test is one specially 
 important for the medical jurist, since he has so often to deal with 
 stuffs already rubbed or washed, whereby the blood corpuscles have 
 been destroyed and rendered unrecognisable, whilst some colouring- 
 matter is almost sure to be left, and this will permit of the successful 
 application of. Teichmann' s test, which enables us successfully to 
 diagnose the presence of blood, whatever may be its condition, 
 recent, dried, accidently fouled, or even stinking and discoloured; 
 and to Biichner and Simon belongs the merit of having so simplified 
 the complicated method of investigation employed by Teichmann and 
 Briicke, that, as we ourselves can confirm, the demonstration of 
 crystals of hsemin is rendered jiow so simple that it can be done by 
 every medical jurist. Biichner and Simon have indeed proved the 
 existence of blood in a small rag cut from a butcher's slaughtering- 
 trousers which had been eight years in use, but had not been worn 
 for one year and a-half previously.! The following is substantially 
 their simplified process: — A. drop of blood or fluid containing its 
 colouring-matter is to be mixed in a watch-glass with an excess of 
 glacial acetic acid, it is then to be slowly evaporated over a spirit 
 lamp or gas jet, or in a sand-bath or oven (or spontaneously in the 
 
 * On the Crystallization of the Organic Constituents of the Blood, in 
 Henle and Pfeuffer's Zeitschr. fur rat. Medicin, iii. 3, s. 375. 
 
 t Biichner and Simon on the Investigation of Crystals of Haemin, and 
 their medico-legal signification, in the Archiv fur Pathol., Anatomie und 
 Physiologie. Neue Folge, Bd. V., 1 and 2 Hft. 1858, s. 50. 
 
200 § 43. ON THE INVESTIGATION OF BLOOD-STAINS. 
 
 air). When the dried mass is now brought under the microscope, 
 innumerable crystals of hsemin are at once seen, when the colouring- 
 matter of the blood has actually been present in the fluid employed, 
 sometimes these crystals are isolated, at others, and more usually, 
 they are present in thousands'. These crystals are rhomboidal in 
 form, tabular or otherwise ; their colour varies from a faint yellowish 
 to yellow or yellowish-red, or a dirty blood-red, or still deeper colour; 
 their size is various, and they are frequently found placed over one 
 another in a cruciform or stellate manner. When the amount of 
 blood is very small, it crystallizes in such thin tablets and cylinders 
 that they appear quite colourless, and these combine in a fine reti- 
 cular form, the meshes of which are extremely close. I obtained a 
 very perfect preparation of this nature from a completely faded stain 
 of menstrual blood the size of a cherry-stone, which for three months 
 had adhered to a much-handled piece of linen.* Stains of blood 
 dried upon wood, metal, or stuffs, are most rapidly tested by mace- 
 rating them in glacial acetic acid in a test tube, till the acid is 
 coloured, and then evaporating the fluid. When the blood-stains are 
 of old standing, it is better to boil them in the acid in a test tube 
 till the acid becomes reddish, and then to evaporate it. In regard to 
 Teichmann's statement respecting the necessity of adding a small 
 quantity of common salt to the acetic acid solution of the colouring- 
 matter of the blood, we can fully confirm the views of the investiga- 
 tors just mentioned, that the addition of salt to recent blood is 
 unnecessary, and is only requisite when the blood has been deprived 
 of its saline constituents by washing with water, by the action of rain, 
 or the ordinary moisture of the soil or atmosphere. We need 
 scarcely remind the reader, that cases of this nature are of fre- 
 quent occurrence in medico-legal practice, and since one cannot 
 always know whether such influences have been in action or no, so 
 B. and S. very properly recommend, when the first trial without the 
 addition of salt has been fruitless, to make a new one with this 
 addition. Since, however, we have found that the success of the 
 process is rendered much more certain by this addition of salt, so 
 we are disposed to recommend that it be made at once in every case, 
 and that a very small particle of salt be always added to the glacial 
 
 * Very good representations of both kinds of crystals are to be found in 
 Funke's Atlas der Physiol. Chemie, 2 Aufl. Leipzig, 1858, Taf. IX. Figs. 2 
 and 5. Vid. also a representation of one of our own preparations, in our 
 own Atlas, Taf. X. Fig. 2. 
 
§ 43. ON THE INVESTIGATION OF BLOOD-STAINS. 201 
 
 acetic acid before the maceration or boiling. In every case the 
 experiment is not always successful, and it must then be at once 
 repeated, which considering the simplicity of the process is no great 
 hardship ; and it is therefore better, even in the most minute object 
 of medico-legal investigation, to reserve, if possible, enough for a 
 second and third experiment. But even repeated experiments with 
 the same fluids, preparations of blood in every state, both recent and 
 dried upon linen, wood, &c, with garden-earth soaked in blood, &c, 
 has taught us, as well as other experienced microscopists, that such 
 experiments are, alas ! frequently unsuccessful. Hence it follows 
 that the obtaining of such crystals is a certain proof of the presence 
 of blood in the object examined, but that a negative result is by 
 no means a proof that there has been no blood upon the stuff 
 examined. 
 
 Case LXXVII. — Investigation of a piece of bkown cloth 
 
 APPARENTLY STAINED WITH BLOOD. 
 
 A foreign tribunal sent me a piece of brown cloth from the 
 clothing of a person accused of having inflicted severe corporal in- 
 jury, with the request that I would endeavour to ascertain whether 
 the red stains upon it were caused by blood, or by some other sub- 
 stance; and, if by the former, how long these blood-stains had 
 probably been upon the cloth ? After several famous experts here 
 had declined to co-operate with me on account of the difficulties 
 inherent in the matter, I obtained the assistance of our sworn expert, 
 Apothecary Schacht, and as the result of our conjoint labours we 
 drew up the following report : — " The investigation of blood-stains 
 upon uncoloured linen or woollen stuffs, and their diagnosis from 
 othe,r red stains present no peculiar difficulties ; but it is .far other- 
 wise when such stains are found upon coloured woollen stuffs, as in 
 the present case. We considered it judicious, in the first place, before 
 proceeding to the investigation proper, to make the following experi- 
 ment : we made use of a piece of brown woollen cloth upon which 
 two drops of blood were allowed to dry completely ; we then sus- 
 pended the bit of cloth in a little distilled water, so that its lower 
 edge was about three-quarters of an inch from the bottom of the glass 
 tube in which the experiment was made ; in a few minutes the hsematin 
 had already commenced to descend in stripes to the bottom of the 
 tube and there accumulated, the rest of the water being only stained 
 
202 § 43. ON THE INVESTIGATION OF BLOOD-STAINS. 
 
 of a yellowish hue ; in a few hours the piece of cloth was removed 
 and dried, and upon it there was no longer any trace of the stains of 
 blood to be found. The fluid was then shaken up and assumed a 
 uniform brownish-red colour, and the soluble constituents of the 
 blood were readily recognised by means of the usual reagents, nitric 
 acid, chlorine water, aqua potassa, and tincture of galls. We now 
 examined the piece of cloth sent us, by means of a microscope, but 
 without discovering any red colouring-matter upon the cloth, the 
 fibres of which seemed rather to be individually stained. We now 
 suspended the pieces marked 1 and 3 in water in the way just men- 
 tioned, but even after three times twenty-four hours, there was not 
 the smallest trace of colour apparent in the water, and all the re- 
 agents produced no effect. The pieces of cloth were taken out of 
 the water and dried ; the red stains upon them remained unchanged. 
 We have enclosed the pieces of cloth marked with their distinctive 
 numerals. Prom the strip of cloth marked No. 2, we scratched off 
 the stained part, to which we added a little water, this did not become 
 coloured in the slightest degree, and the reagents employed pro- 
 duced not the slightest effect. We therefore feel justified in giving 
 it as our opinion, that the red stains upon the pieces of cloth sent 
 us were most probably not caused by blood." 
 
 Case LXXVIII. — Spots of blood oe tab. upon a smockfeock. 
 
 Prom the Grand Duchy of Posen I received a blue smockfrock 
 upon which there were some suspicious-looking stains, which, in their 
 dark-red colour, the rigidity which they produced in the stuff, and 
 particularly in the distinct appearance of besprinkling which existed 
 in several parts, very much resembled the appearance of old stains of 
 Wood, whilst the accused declared that they were spots of tar. A 
 microscopical examination, with a power of 500, proved the total 
 absence of any blood corpuscles ; even in the case of those stains which 
 presented no particular appearance of having been rubbed or washed. 
 After this investigation had afforded no confirmation of the supposi- 
 tion that these stains were stains of blood, threads from the stained 
 parts of the cloth were burned, when they evolved a smell likened by 
 all the bystanders to that of burning resin, as pitch or sealing-wax, 
 which was of course in favour of the stains being spots of tar. The 
 further chemical investigation was now carried out in conjunction 
 with the. chemical expert already mentioned. Por this end several of 
 
§ 44. INVESTIGATION OF STAINS OF ORDURE. 203 
 
 the deepest-coloured parts of the arms were cut out. One part was 
 suspended in a small quantity of distilled water in a conical glass, so 
 that it did not touch either the bottom or the sides of the glass. 
 After standing two days, there were no stripes of colouring-matter 
 (of blood) seen sinking from the rag, the water was not coloured in 
 the very least, and neither the quantity nor quality of the colouring- 
 matter upon the cloth was in any way changed. Another part of the 
 cloth was heated in a dry glass tube, the vapour arising from it had 
 an acid reaction, and was not ammoniacal. For the sake of a 
 counterproof, we made use of a piece of cotton cloth with two drops 
 of blood upon it ; we dried this cloth, and cutting it in two, tested 
 these pieces in the manner just described. Prom that portion sus- 
 pended in fluid, the colouring-matter of the blood was dissolved with 
 the accompanying phenomena peculiar to it, and the nature of the 
 solution could then be proved by the application of the proper tests. 
 Prom that part submitted to the second test, the usual ammoniacal 
 fumes arose, which are significant of nitrogenous animal products. 
 The stains, therefore, which had been sent us for examination were 
 not stains of blood. In order to discover their true nature, that 
 portion formerlysoaked in water along with a fresh piece was macer- 
 ated in pure alcohol. The stains became paler and paler, but did 
 not perfectly vanish, and the spirituous solution left behind it, on 
 evaporation, a resinous substance. The same pieces of cloth were 
 then treated with rectified oil of turpentine, the stains completely 
 disappeared, and a greyish-black powder was immediately precipitated, 
 which, when heated on a platina plate, and the residue tested with 
 acids, &c, was found to be a mixture of charcoal, clay, and oxide of 
 iron. The results of these various experiments, therefore, made it 
 clear that the stains in question were not blood, but, that they 
 most probably arose from tar, or some such inflammable resinous 
 substance.* 
 
 § 44*. Investigation of Stains of Okdubjs. 
 
 The intestinal evacuations of adults, and the meconium of new- 
 born infants are readily recognised, both microscopically and chemi- 
 cally.f The medical jurist will, however, but seldom have occasion 
 
 * Both of these cases occurred previous to the discovery of the crystals of 
 Hfemin. 
 
 t Vid. Lassaigne, op. cit. s- 125, &c. Robin and Tardieu, in the Annales 
 d'Hygiene, 1857, s. 374. 
 
204 § 4,5. ON THE INVESTIGATION OF SEMINAL STAINS. 
 
 to undertake any such investigation, at least, I have never had a 
 single case of this kind during all my long and extensive experience, 
 and the literature of the subject contains the records of only a very 
 few such cases. And this is easily explicable, for stains of ordure 
 are, as everyone knows, so very obvious to the senses, and so little 
 apt to be confounded with stains originating from any other cause, 
 that the Judge, even should he have any interest in their diagnosis, 
 which but seldom happens, will be justified in drawing his own con- 
 clusions from a simple inspection without consulting the physician at 
 all. For example, in a horrible case which occurred in my practice some 
 years ago, in which a young woman was violated by four men, one of 
 whom finished by going to stool in the room, dipping a venesection 
 bandage in the filth, and stuffing it into the mouth of the girl as she 
 lay there half unconscious, I had indeed to determine the fact of the 
 rape on the body of the girl, but I never even saw the bandage, 
 much less investigated the stains upon it, which, would moreover have 
 been quite superfluous. 
 
 §45. Investigation of Stains oe Semen. 
 
 Although I — as well as every other medical jurist — have often had 
 to investigate stains upon the body, or bed-linen of living persons, 
 for the purpose of deciding whether the suspicious-looking stains 
 upon them were caused by the seminal fluid or not; yet I have 
 never in one single case had such a query brought before me in re- 
 lation to the linen of a dead person ; and I may also add here, as in 
 the previous section, that the entire literature of the subject com- 
 prises but a few isolated cases. I have, indeed, in two cases of rape, 
 with subsequent death, had to decide respecting the violation, but in 
 neither of these cases was it necessary to investigate the linen for 
 spermatic stains. In similar cases, however, such a necessity might 
 occur, and therefore the subject is here set down. I have already 
 in another place* fully explained how perfectly untrustworthy is every 
 analysis of a suspected seminal stain by the unaided senses, viz., by 
 the eye and (by rubbing) by the smell. The shirts handed to the 
 medical jurist for examination are not the fine, often changed, and 
 therefore, clean and white shirts of the higher classes, nor yet the 
 always clean shirts of the middle classes; but they are shirts long 
 worn, coarse, and dirty, more or less torn, stained with a sickening 
 * On Rape and Sodomy. Casper's Vierteljahrsehrift, I. s. 21, &o. 
 
§ 45. ON THE INVESTIGATION OF SEMINAL STAINS. 205 
 
 mixture of ordure, urine, mucus, menstrual blood, and that from 
 bug and flea-bites, as well as dirt of every kind ; so that the detection 
 of one or of several distinct stains by the senses alone is extremely 
 deceptive, and not seldom perfectly impossible. The chemical tests 
 proposed by Orfila and others are also perfectly untrustworthy and 
 far too diffuse ; on the contrary, Lassaigne's method* is certainly 
 somewhat recommended by its simplicity, and has proved successful 
 in our hands. Suspicious spots upon white linen, not upon wool 
 (which usually contains sulphur), are moistened with a few drops of 
 plombate de potass (a solution of oxide of lead in aqua potassa) and 
 dried at a temperature of + 20° C. (68° P.). In a few minutes 
 the stain assumes a dirty-yellow or even a sulphur-yellow hue, when 
 it has been produced by any albuminous compound (therefore con- 
 taining sulphur) ; but seminal stains, and every other kind of stain 
 not arising from an albuminous compound, as gum, amidine, dex- 
 trine, &c, are not altered in colour by this test. The yellow 
 coloration of a stain thus treated, therefore, proves that it is not a 
 seminal stain, but the reverse does not prove the contrary, and the 
 most important and indispensable means of confirming the diagnosis 
 is, therefore, the judicious employment of the microscope. It is, 
 however, very improper to take the piece of linen cut out and to 
 press or rub it strongly, as the whole process may be thereby 
 rendered useless by the destruction of the spermatozoa. Prom much 
 personal experience I can recommend the method proposed by 
 Koblankf as at once the best and simplest. A piece of the linen 
 containing the suspected spot is cut out and placed in a porcelain 
 saucer containing a few drops of cold distilled water, the linen is 
 then to be thoroughly moistened by gentle and careful pressure and 
 moving about with a glass rod, after a quarter of an hour a single 
 drop of the water is to be gently squeezed by the finger from the 
 linen upon a clean glass slide, and should the stain have been truly 
 seminal, the zoosperms will be at once readily recognised on bringing 
 the slide under the microscope. Inexperienced persons may no 
 doubt be deceived by the presence of epithelial cells, the fibres of the 
 linen, &c, but whoever has only once seen a single characteristic 
 spermatozoon, dead or alive, can never be deceived again. I have 
 recognised them even after the lapse of an entire year, and thereby 
 
 * Annates d'Hygiene publ. 1858, X. s. 406. 
 
 t On the Diagnosis of Seminal Stains. Casper's Vierteljschft. iii. s. 
 140. . 
 
206 § 46. ON SULPHURIC ACID STAINS ON STUFFS. 
 
 determined the existence of a seminal stain. Bayard* states that he 
 has recognised them after three years, and Eitterf even after four 
 years, which is perfectly credible, presupposing always that the linen 
 during that long time has not been much rubbed or handled, because 
 the forms of the zoosperms will be thereby destroyed. After a 
 considerable time, indeed, they fall to pieces of themselves, and then 
 nothing is commoner than to find only mutilated specimens, heads 
 and filaments separate, but one single perfect zoosperm gives complete 
 certainty as to the actual presence of a seminal stain. If the careful 
 examination of an experienced eye has failed in detecting a single 
 animalcule, after repeated examination, the medical jurist must 
 declare that whatever may be the probabilities, no evidence exists to 
 prove that the stain examined has been caused by semen.} 
 
 §46. Investigation of Stains of Sulphueic Acid on 
 
 STUFFS. 
 
 We have particularly mentioned sulphuric acid because it is the 
 poison made use of in an overwhelming majority of the cases of suicide, 
 and of the murder of new-born infants and young children by then- 
 unnatural mothers (occurring in Prussia). A complete host of 
 cases of the latter kind have come under my observation. Under 
 this head we must also reckon those cases in which the attempt has 
 failed, and those in which the child having only swallowed a few 
 drops, has vomited, and obtained speedy medical aid from absorbents, 
 &c, and either recovered or died after the lapse of a long time; 
 cases in which perpetrator stoutly denies her guilt, and in which the 
 only evidence against her is stains or holes in the child's clothing. 
 For in such cases as prove fatal only after a protracted illness, the 
 autopsy itself, inclusive of the chemical analysis of the contents of the 
 body, may fail in affording any evidence of the poisoning {Fid. § 34. 
 Special Division). Should the stains or holes really arise from the 
 action of sulphuric acid, this is in general very readily determined. 
 The stained or corroded spots are cut out and digested in cold 
 distilled water, we thus obtain a fluid whose reaction is strongly acid, 
 and by adding to it a solution of nitrate of baryta or of acetate of 
 lead, we obtain in either case white precipitate insoluble in nitric 
 
 * Annales d'Hygiene publique, 1839, Juli. 
 
 t Op. cit. p. 224. 
 
 % The subject will be further illustrated in the Biological Part, § 16. 
 
§ 46. ON SULPHURIC ACID STAINS ON STUFFS. 207 
 
 acid. If we add but a few drops of the acid solution thus obtained 
 to a dilute solution of sugar and evaporate the mixture in the water- 
 bath to dryness, a coal-black residuum results ; these tests, there- 
 fore, as simple as they are inexpensive, afford perfectly certain proof 
 of "the presence of sulphuric acid. 
 
308 INTERNAL INSPECTION. § 47. (a) CRANIAL CAVITY. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 INTERNAL INSPECTION.— (DISSECTION.) 
 
 Statutory Definitions. 
 
 {Fid. §§ 159, 163, 164, 165, 166, and 167 of the Code of 
 Criminal Procedure, and the "Regulations" already given 
 at p. 83, fyc.) 
 
 § 47. Practical part of the Dissection (a). Cranial Cavity. 
 
 When both the front and the back and every individual part of 
 the body has been carefully examined with due regard to those 
 points we have already considered, we proceed to dissect it. Proper 
 illumination is a most important requirement in this matter, artificial 
 light being a most unsatisfactory substitute for daylight, because 
 many things that we look for can only be recognised by their colour, 
 which is often materially altered in appearance by the nature of the 
 light it is viewed in. Nevertheless, in cases of necessity, artificial 
 light is always -to be preferred to an insufficient amount of daylight. 
 In every case that cavity is to be first opened in which there is the 
 greatest probability of finding the cause of death, whether that pro- 
 bability arise from any evident injury, or from general causes alone, 
 as for example, we must first open the chest in those supposed to be 
 suffocated, and the belly in those supposed to be poisoned, &c. In 
 the case of new-born children alone we must make this difference, that 
 in every such case the abdomen must be first opened in order that 
 the natural position of the diaphragm may be observed undisturbed. 
 In all other cases it is better to commence with opening the cranial 
 cavity, were it for no other reason than merely to postpone till 
 nearer the end of the examination those evil smells to which the 
 opening of the other cavities generally give rise. In § 12 of the 
 " Regulations " the best method of opening the cranial cavity is 
 described, and to this description I now refer, only remarking that 
 injuries, and even comminuted fractures of the skull, should make 
 no alteration in this method, as the internal operation and relation 
 
INTERNAL INSPECTION. § 48. (b) NECK AND THORAX. 209 
 
 of such injuries are best observed by opening the skull in the 
 ordinary manner by a circular cut of the saw. In two very horrible 
 cases of robbery and murder, the public prosecutor, who was present 
 at the dissection, was seized with the happy idea of ordering us to 
 prepare and preserve the comminuted skulls of the murdered men, 
 so that the injuries might be subsequently brought bodily before the 
 eyes of the jury, and a verdict of guilty made all the more certain. 
 The skulls were macerated, bleached and dried in the usual manner, 
 and placed at the time of the trial on the table along with the other 
 corpora delicti. The injuries done to them were pointed out to the 
 jury, and this procedure (most worthy of imitation !) did not fail in 
 producing a proper effect upon their minds. In examining the 
 skulls of new-born children, no circular cut is generally necessary, as 
 in such cases the blade of a pair of scissors may be passed through 
 the sutures not yet closed, without injury either to the brain or 
 its membranes — these may then be easily divided and the bones 
 pressed aside. In examining the base of the skull for any injuries 
 that may exist, we must not omit to remove the periosteum, as other- 
 wise small fissures may easily escape observation. An exact anato- 
 mical dissection of the brain is never requisite, and we must never 
 forget the specific (judicial) purpose of the dissection, in relation to 
 which bodies, such as the pineal gland, the olivary bodies, &c, are 
 of no consequence whatever. As the regulations prescribe, it is 
 quite sufficient to lay open and inspect both the cerebrum and the 
 cerebellum, the ventricles, particularly the lateral ventricles, with 
 their choroid plexuses, the pons Varolii and the medulla oblon- 
 gata, all the sinuses and the whole of the bones of the skull. 
 
 § 48. Continuation. — (b) Neck and Thorax. 
 
 § 13 of the Regulations prescribes that the examination of the chest 
 is to be preceded by that of the neck, in which the larynx, the trachea, 
 the oesophagus, the large blood-vessels and the cervical vertebrae 
 are the chief parts to be examined. In such cases, as it may appear 
 necessary, — e. g., in cases of presumed suffocation by some foreign 
 body, or of probable poisoning by corrosive poisons, the fauces, 
 the cavity of the mouth, and the tongue should now be carefully 
 examined. The method of opening the thorax prescribed in the 
 regulations is the simplest and most convenient (Fid. p. 90). I sub- 
 join a method of procedure which I have for a long time employed, 
 
 p 
 
210 § 48. (6) EXAMINATION OF THE THORAX. 
 
 and cannot sufficiently commend in cases of supposed death from 
 suffocation. It often happens, for instance, that in cases in which we 
 should from other circumstances expect to find watery or bloody 
 mucus mixed with air in the trachea, we find nothing at all, but the 
 tube quite empty. In such cases, then, I recommend pressure to be 
 made, carefully but somewhat forcibly, upon the upper part of both 
 lungs lying as yet untouched in the opened thorax, and very fre- 
 quently we thereby succeed in forcing frothy or bloody mucus out of the 
 bronchi into the trachea, and so enrich the results of the post-mortem 
 examination with this most important symptom. This-method of pro- 
 ceeding, as also the following method recommended by me for the pur- 
 pose of determining the amount of blood contained in the heart, form 
 now a part of the New "Regulations." It is perfectly impos- 
 sible to determine exactly the amount of blood contained in the 
 heart on the one hand, or in the lungs and large blood-vessels on the 
 other, without the use of such ligatures as are customarily employed 
 previous to the application of the hydrostatic test in new-born children, 
 because — especially where the blood is peculiarly fluid, as it usually is 
 in those cases in which it is of most importance to determine the 
 respective amount of blood contained in these organs, viz., in cases 
 of suffocation — every cut into one of these organs permits the escape 
 of blood out of the others. In order to prevent this, it is indispen- 
 sably necessary in such cases to examine the heart first, and in doing 
 so to leave it lying in its natural horizontal position and to open it 
 by mating a lateral longitudinal incision on both sides, thereby ob- 
 taining a distinct idea of the actual amount of blood in all the cardiac 
 cavities; the lungs are next to be cut into, and the large blood-vessels 
 opened last of all ; and by proceeding thus we shall best obviate the 
 difficulty described, where we do not wish to apply ligatures. In 
 the case of wounds that apparently penetrate the thorax, the wound 
 itself must of course be examined as far as possible first of all, 
 and before any of the organs are disturbed, because the manipulation 
 of the organs, and the tearing and opening up of the thorax may very 
 readily produce important alterations in the form and size of the 
 injury. 
 
 § 49. Continuation. — (c.) Abdominal Cavity. 
 
 I have nothing of consequence to add to §§ 14 and 15 of the re- 
 gulations which relate to the examination of this cavity. The order 
 
§ 49. (c) EXAMINATION OF THE ABDOMEN. 211 
 
 of succession in which the abdominal organs are to be examined, 
 arises naturally from their individual position. When putrefaction 
 is already considerably advanced, it is advisable to commence with 
 the stomach, lest otherwise, during the manipulation of other organs 
 it rupture, and its contents escape ; and in making this statement, of 
 course, I do not refer to any case of known or suspected poisoning, 
 because in these cases the procedure described in § 15 of the regula- 
 tions must never be omitted (Fid. p. 91). After the stomach, the liver 
 and omenta are to be examined, and then the other abdominal organs 
 in their order. In regard to the amount of blood in the venous 
 trunks, it is sufficient to examine only the main trunk, the vena cava 
 ascendens. Should it be more than usually important, as in cases of 
 suffocation, apoplexy, &c, to determine the amount of blood con- 
 tained in this vessel, the shoulders of the corpse are to be somewhat 
 elevated from the commencement, so as to prevent as far as possible 
 the escape or loss of any blood from the vena cava, should the 
 thorax and its vessels have been, as usual, first laid open. In such 
 cases, also, the vessel should not be opened, as it generally is after 
 the examination of the other organs, but first of all, so that its 
 contents may undergo as little change as possible. The regula- 
 tions not only require that the presence of any effusion into the 
 cavities of the thorax or abdomen should be carefully noted and 
 examined, but the necessity for this is self-evident. In the abdomen, 
 where such effusions are often found in very considerable quantity, it 
 is most convenient to ladle them out at once, on opening the cavity, 
 into any empty vessel, by means of a measuring-glass. The weight 
 of the effusion may be easily deduced from the contents of the 
 measuring-glass with quite sufficient accuracy for such cases. It is 
 only necessary to weigh such trifling effusions as cannot easily be 
 measured. The spinal canal is not usually opened, and it is only 
 necessary to do so in those cases in which something is expected to 
 be found in it, having an important bearing on the determination 
 of the case. 
 
 p2 
 
212 § 50. PROTOCOL OF THE DISSECTION. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 MINUTE OF THE EXAMINATION OF THE BODY 
 (OBDTJCTIONS PROTOKOL). 
 
 Statutory Definitions. 
 
 (Fid. §168 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (p. 85), and 
 §§ 19-21 inclusive of the Regulations annexed (pp. 92-93). 
 
 § 50. Form and Contents. 
 
 We have so often experienced the difficulty that neophytes in judicial 
 medicine find in understanding the difference between these perfectly 
 distinct documents, the minute of the examination (obductions- 
 protokol), and the report of the same (obductions-bericht), that we 
 hold it to be perfectly necessary to describe their nature somewhat 
 in detail.* The minute of the examination is the work of the pre- 
 siding legal official, the report of the examination, that of the medical 
 inspectors. The minute of the examination is written at the time of 
 dissection and during its progress, the report of the examination is 
 written by the physician in his study, often months after the dissec- 
 tion. In the minute of the examination, circumstances are often 
 included which have no connection with the scientific examination of 
 the object in question (the corpse), e.g., the recognition of the body; 
 the examination of those witnesses that have found the body; 
 the behaviour of the suspected murderer when first confronted with 
 the corpse ; the orders for the burial of the body given at the close 
 of the document, and many other circumstances of a similar nature. 
 The report of the examination is, on the contrary, a purely scientific 
 treatise upon the question at issue, the materials for which have been 
 furnished by the results of the examination. In one word, the 
 
 * In particular, it is one of the most common mistakes in the written 
 examinations of the candidates for the office of (district) physician, who are 
 all, without exception, required to draw up " a report of a medico-legal 
 examination according to the form prescribed," that they confound and mix 
 up minute and report with each other, &c, and thereby draw down upon 
 themselves the oensitre of the examiners (the Royal Scientific Commission). 
 
§ 50. PROTOCOL OF THE DISSECTION. 213 
 
 minute of the examination, lite every other judicial protocol, is a 
 mere " memorandum," in which is registered every occurrence at 
 the time appointed for the examination by the judicature, and which, 
 of course, also includes the report of the dissection ; and thence it 
 arises, that circumstances wholly unconnected with the object of the 
 judicial physician, as the evidence of witnesses, &c, are always given 
 at the commencement more or less in detail, and form as it were the 
 introduction to the minute (of the dissection) ; and only after the 
 presiding legal official has furnished these preliminaries does he call 
 upon the medical inspectors to proceed with their part of the work, 
 and to dictate the results. The mode in which this is to be done is 
 sufficiently accurately described in the (§§) sections of the Begula- 
 tion we have already quoted. Now, however, I would again {Fid. 
 § 23, page 56) most earnestly warn against the insertion into the 
 minute of any matter not pertinent to the subject, such as want of 
 knowledge, inexperience, over-anxiety, pedantry, and misapprehen- 
 sion of the object of the entire official proceeding, only too often 
 introduce. "We must always and without any exception ever re- 
 member,* that the dissection of the body is a judicial one, i.e., 
 undertaken for certain judicial objects. Whatever, therefore, has no 
 relation with these, even pathological products, if unconnected with 
 the judicial object in question, must be, if not entirely omitted, at 
 least only enumerated summarily. Where, for instance, a man has 
 died from being shot through his liver, or stabbed in the aorta, it is 
 not necessary to describe with pathologico-anatomical exactness a 
 tubercular condition of his lungs, or a cirrhosis of his liver, or such 
 like, which may possibly be present, but which, whether present or 
 not, can have no influence in the matter viewed from a judicial point 
 of view. The simple statement : — " The lungs were strewn with 
 tubercular masses," &c, will be perfectly sufficient in such a case. 
 The same remark holds good in respect to rare pathological-anatomi- 
 cal conditions, as the anormal position of internal organs or vessels 
 their complete absence, rare forms of tumours, &c, provided these 
 conditions have no connection either with the death of the deceased 
 or the judicial object of the dissection. The medical jurist may pre- 
 serve for his own private use, the most accurate descriptions and draw- 
 ings of any such object of interest ; but only a summary notice at 
 the most, and never any accurate description, is allowable within the 
 
 * Even in the Examination Papers in which these rules are so often sinned 
 against ! 
 
214 § 50. PROTOCOL OF THE DISSECTION. 
 
 judicial minute of the dissection. Such an accurate pathological 
 description is only then permissible, or rather requisite, when the 
 judicial object of any dissection is to obtain matter whereon to 
 ground an indictment for unscientific medical treatment ; in such a 
 case the stage of the tuberculosis, or the discovery of a tumour 
 whose diagnosis during life, must have been invested with difficulty, 
 may be of the utmost importance, and their accurate description in 
 the protocol is therefore necessary. But such cases are extremely 
 rare. Another species of what the regulations call undue " prolixity 
 of detail," is apt to arise from embarrassed and inexperienced medical 
 inspectors dictating for insertion in the protocol too minute a 
 description of the body, embracing things that have not the most 
 remote connection with the matter in hand. In Prussia the regula- 
 tions most judiciously no longer require, in the case of known bodies, 
 any description of the length of the body, the colour of the hair or 
 the eyes, or the estimation of the age ; and it is far more irrelevant, par- 
 ticularly for medical inspectors, to enter upon such matters as the form 
 and size of the whiskers, the shape of the nose, the length of the penis, 
 &c. Amid the waste of numerical paragraphs in the protocol of 
 such an examination, the actual results are wholly lost. Experience 
 teaches us, that in general every point of any judicial importance may 
 be fully and efficiently comprised under from thirty to forty numerals, 
 or in the case of new-born children some fifty may be required, in 
 order to embrace fully and comprehensively all those points having 
 relation to the hydrostatic test. Where many external injuries exist, 
 which must be separately described, as many as seventy or eighty 
 numerals may indeed be required, but protocols containing a hun- 
 dred and more numerical paragraphs, in all but the rarest cases 
 betray by that very circumstance their inaccuracy, because, they 
 thereby demonstrate that the medical inspectors must either have 
 transgressed the rules we have just laid down, or improperly divided 
 things naturally connected, such as enumerating under six or eight 
 different numerals the results of the dissection of one healthy and 
 uninjured organ. I have still one other frequent blunder to refer to. 
 The protocol of the dissection is intended to describe the actual re- 
 sults of the medico-legal dissection, to supply as it were a picture in 
 words of these results to the legal documents. A description, how- 
 ever, involves no opinion, and the protocol of the inspection ought 
 not, therefore, to contain any opinion. Very frequently, however, the 
 medical jurists make use of such expressions as imply not a descrip- 
 
§ 51. SUMMARY OPINION. 2V5 
 
 tion merely, but also an opinion, particularly in the case of existing 
 inflammations and their results. For instance, instead of dictating 
 that the peritoneum is of a cinnabar-red, and its finer vessels injected, 
 they dictate "the peritoneum appears to be inflamed" Such an 
 expression is all the more improper, that it precludes any control 
 from the other medical courts, inasmuch as they do not, and cannot 
 know what the inspectors have really seen, and upon what they have 
 founded their opinion, or conclusion as to the existence of "inflam- 
 mation." Might not, for example, the phenomena observed have 
 been those of internal hypostasis ? or of putrefaction ? It is worse 
 still when the inspectors, instead of giving a description of what they 
 have seen, dictate perfectly general opinions in their protocol: the 
 clerk may, for instance, have written most impartially to the dicta- 
 tion of the physician : — " (8.) Round the neck there was the mark of 
 a cord, which had quite the appearance usually found in those who 
 have been hanged." Such an opinion, with complete omission of 
 every description of what was found, must be at once seen to be 
 perfectly worthless by every one who reflects on the matter at all. 
 
 § 51. Continuation. — The Summary Opinion. 
 
 When the examination of the body is over, its dissection concluded, 
 and there remains nothing more to register under that head, the 
 medical jurists have at the end of the technical part of the protocol 
 to dictate their provisional or summary opinion; that is, to state 
 shortly, and without any scientific reasoning, their opinion as to the 
 results of the dissection, as it were in answer to the question, " What 
 is the present state of the case in the eye of the law ? " This pre- 
 liminary opinion is intended to guide the Judge in the proper 
 direction, and give him a clue in further conducting the preliminary 
 investigations. Frequently this opinion alone will suffice to quash 
 the case, as, for instance, when the suspicions at first entertained, 
 that the deceased had died a violent death, are set at rest by the 
 results of the dissection, while, on the contrary, the law is often 
 stirred up to a more energetic following out of the matter. The 
 provisional opinion, therefore, as well as every other medico-legal 
 decision, must be given as decidedly as possible, because any doubtful 
 or hesitating statement must naturally prove unsatisfactory to the 
 Judge. I say, as decidedly as possible, because cases not unfre- 
 quently occur in which it is impossible to give a perfectly decided 
 
216 § 51. SUMMARY OPINION. 
 
 opinion, particularly at that early stage of the proceedings at which 
 the dissection usually takes place, where, in most cases, many facts 
 having an explanatory bearing on the case have not yet been 
 brought forward. If, however, the objects of the medico-legal ex- 
 amination be only kept constantly"™ view, as they have been described 
 in the first three chapters of the first part of this book, a perfectly 
 unsatisfactory decision is not very likely to be the result. Of these 
 objects the determination of the cause of death ( § 23 and § 24) is 
 the most common, and is always the most important ; therefore, the 
 summary opinion must commence first of all by stating in what 
 manner the deceased has met his 'death, excepting only in the case of 
 the bodies of new-born children, in which the questions respecting 
 the uterine age of the child and its live birth must first be disposed of. 
 Inexperienced persons are now apt to be plunged at once into a 
 dilemma, inasmuch, as in not a few cases the special cause of death 
 is not discoverable by dissection. Slow fever, most chronic diseases, 
 convulsive diseases, &c, leave behind them no traces in the body, 
 whereby their pre-existence may be diagnosed. In such a case, how 
 can the medical jurist determine the cause of death ? In the simplest 
 manner, I repeat ( Fid. § 23), if he will only continually remember the 
 judicial object of his task : viz., by stating in the summary opinion re- 
 specting every such case, " that the dissection has brought to light no 
 trace of a violent death, and that the deceased must be assumed to have 
 died from internal disease;" the object of the investigation is there- 
 by fully realized, and the Judge satisfied, because he being only 
 interested in death from violence, is perfectly indifferent whether 
 death has arisen from fever, convulsions, or old age, &c, provided 
 only it has been from natural causes. Should, however, the medical 
 inspectors have reason to regard the death as having been produced 
 by violence, they must in their provisional opinion, summarily 
 describe the nature of that violence e. g., the death was caused by 
 asphyxia, which was produced by strangulation. It is not always pos- 
 sible to give such a decided opinion from the results of the dissection 
 alone, and this must then be stated as more or less probable, reserving 
 a more decided opinion till more correctly informed as to the nature of 
 the case, by chemical analysis of the contents of the intestines, by ex- 
 amination of the mother of the new-born child dissected, or by inspec- 
 tion of the documentary evidence, &c. In general it is better for the 
 medical jurist in his summary opinion, to content himself with giving 
 his views on the two points we have referred to, and to await farther 
 
§ 51. SUMMARY OPINION. 217 
 
 inquiries on the part of the legal official present. This procedure is 
 much more prudent than the opposite one of bringing forward a mul- 
 titude of questions which have either no interest at all for the Judge, 
 and are consequently irrelevant, or which only unnecessarily complicate 
 the matter. If the Judge be not sufficiently enlightened, he will 
 never fail to ask special queries of the medical inspectors, supple- 
 mentary of their summary opinion ; and we have often had six, eight, 
 or more of such queries to answer in important cases. The next 
 question in cases of fatal injury is one -which the Judge is bound by 
 law to ask (Criminal Code, § 162, p. 84), and respects the weapon 
 with which the injury has certainly or probably been inflicted. This 
 question we have already considered in §§ 34-41. But, according to 
 the manifold complications of the cases which occur, a hundred 
 separate questions may arise which the medical inspectors are ex- 
 pected to answer. Such questions respect the position of the deceased 
 at the time he received the injury ; the position of the culprit at the 
 time of its infliction ; the probable time of death; the question 
 whether the case is one of murder or suicide ; whether one or more 
 have laid hands on the deceased, &c, numerous examples of which 
 are detailed in the cases related in § 41. It happens very often in 
 such cases, that an answer can only be given with more or less 
 probability, and in many such cases it is advisable to give the 
 medico-legal answer a negative form, since this is not only founded 
 in truth and in accordance with science, but also leaves un- 
 fettered the further medical investigation of the case, I mean an 
 answer, such as this for example — "that the dissection has not 
 supplied any facts which exclude the supposition that, &c." In 
 other cases, and where such an answer is not possible, we must not 
 hesitate to declare our incompetence, and reply, that the dissection 
 has not afforded any information on the point in question, or that it 
 could not have given any. Such a procedure is every way more 
 conscientious, more honourable, and more prudent, than a reck- 
 less answer, which will by-and-by be found to be devoid of any 
 foundation in science or experience. 
 
 In not a few obscure and difficult cases an absolute declaration 
 of incompetence may still be averted, by the medical inspectors re- 
 questing from the presiding legal official all those particulars of the 
 case, which, even at that early stage of the proceedings, he may be in 
 a position to give. § 7 of the New " Eegulations " empower the 
 Prussian medical jurist to make this reasonable request, while the 
 
218 ,' § 51. SUMMARY OPINION. 
 
 Austrian regulations expressly enjoin the medical inspectors to make 
 •it, and no Judge will refuse to communicate all that is known to 
 him ; for example, regarding the place the body was found, the time 
 when this took place, the condition of the clothing, the statements of 
 those few witnesses who may have been already examined, &c. ; and 
 this information may often be sufficient to decide the medical jurists 
 in forming their opinion of the case. For, it is not the intention of 
 this important proceeding to propound riddles to the medical men, 
 the solutions of which the Judge already possesses, but both have the 
 same interest in clearing up an obscure or still imperfectly explained 
 case, and the time when medical men were strictly confined to the 
 results of the dissection, which, as we have said, are often enough 
 negative, and prohibited from making use of information obtained 
 •beyond the cognizance of their own peculiar sphere, lest they should 
 suffer themselves to be misled, lies far behind the present position of 
 medical jurisprudence and of legislation. In regard to this subject 
 we must not forget, that now most cases of medico-legal autopsies, 
 after the preliminary investigations are concluded, come to a public 
 and oral trial, during which the medical inspectors may hear the 
 whole matter gradually unfolded. The summary opinion is in every 
 case only a provisional one, and in subsequently giving their reasoned 
 opinion (§ 53), the medical inspectors are not to be bound by it. 
 But deviations and contradictions between these are for obvious 
 reasons as far as possible to be avoided ; and, in regard to this, I will 
 still point out two circumstances which may readily lead to a hasty 
 decision at the time of the autopsy, which must be retracted in sub- 
 sequent opinions when more accurate information has been obtained. 
 Subordinate police officials, &c, who have assisted at the removal of 
 the body, are frequently present as witnesses at the time of the 
 autopsy, and give their view of the case. Experience teaches that 
 such individuals are generally full of prejudice in their statements and 
 views, they say they have seen stains, marks of strangulation, blood, 
 wounds, &c, which are not to be found on the body; they have seen 
 the new-born child moving convulsively, &c. Such evidence must be 
 received by the medical men with the utmost caution, it rests upon 
 erroneous observation and preconceived opinions. In other cases, 
 the statements of the accused, present at the autopsy to identify the 
 body, occasion the experts to give an erroneous opinion. Once for all, 
 I would most urgently advise medical jurists always, and not only 
 at the dissecting-table, to use the statements of the accused with the 
 
CASE LXXIX.— SAMPLE OF PROTOCOL. 21S 
 
 utmost caution in giving their opinion, and never to base it exclu- 
 sively on them. The accused, as daily Happens in important cases, 
 varies his confession many ways in the course of the investigation ; 
 he retracts everything he has already confessed, and the medical 
 opinion based upon it falls with the retractation ! 
 
 After the reception of the summary (or provisional) opinion, at 
 the close of the record of the results of the dissection, the legal offi- 
 cial present causes the minute of the proceedings to be signed by 
 both the medical inspectors, he then closes the minute (of the in- 
 spection) in the manner customary in all legal proceedings, and 
 carries it off to be added to the other documentary evidence. 
 
 Case LXXIX. — Death prom Drowning. 
 
 In consequence of the frequent confounding together of the 
 minute of the examination with the report of the examination, which, 
 as we have already said, is of daily occurrence, it seems not injudicious 
 to give here as a sample the following complete minute of the exami- 
 nation of a case of death from drowning, which is also interesting for 
 its own sake. In the next chapter we shall give the report of 
 the examination of the same case (p. 231), so that the most 
 inexperienced may at once clearly perceive the difference between 
 the form and contents of the two documents. ^The minute of the 
 examination of the case noted down at the time funs as follows : — 
 
 Transacted at Charlottenburg, 26th March, 1852. 
 
 In the matter respecting the determination of the manner whereby 
 the male body found at the back of the Deppe property came by its 
 death; the following (medical men) having been duly summoned, 
 appeared for the purpose of conducting the medico-legal examination 
 in the Hospital here : — 
 
 (1.) Dr. Casper, &c, &c, &c. 
 
 (2.) The forensic surgeon, Herr Lutke. 
 And to them the body lying in the Hospital dead-house was given 
 over for dissection, and both these gentlemen having given ne- 
 gative replies to the questions of general evidence, dictated the 
 following minute as the result of the dissection. 
 
 a. External Inspection. 
 (1.) The body is five feet five inches in length, apparently about 
 
220 CASE LXXIX.— SAMPLE OF PROTOCOL. 
 
 forty years old, well-nourished ; has an abundance of light-brown hair, 
 the eyes are blue, and the tongue lies behind the teeth. The tongue 
 is covered with mud, particularly towards its point. 
 
 (2.) Rigor mortis does not exist. 
 
 (3.) The colour of the body is the usual corpse colour, only the 
 abdomen is green from putrefaction, and the whole countenance red 
 from post-mortem staining, proved to be such by incisions.* 
 
 (4.) About the middle of the forehead there are two spots situate 
 one above the other, of a reddish-brown colour inclining to yellow, 
 hard to cut, roundish in form, and about three-quarters of an inch 
 in diameter. Incision through these spots brought to light no ex- 
 travasation of blood. 
 
 (5.) The ridge of the nose displayed the same condition already 
 described under No. 4. 
 
 (6.) The posterior surface of the upper extremities, several parts 
 of the face, also the back of the body, are soiled with mud. 
 
 (7.) The hands and feet are bluish, and both, but particularly 
 the former, display longitudinal corrugations, especially on the fingers. 
 
 (8.) The skin on the inferior extremities, and on the right arm, 
 displayed the condition termed cutis anserina. 
 
 (9.) Wo foreign bodies are found in the natural cavities, with the 
 exception of some mud removed from the fauces. 
 
 (10.) At the external angle of the left eye, after removal of the 
 mud, a dark bluish-red coloration of the upper and under eyelids 
 became visible, which when incised, betrayed a trifling extravasation. 
 
 (1.1.) The neck and sexual parts are natural, and there appears 
 nothing else to remark on the external surface of the body. 
 
 b. Internal Inspection. 
 i. Opening of the Cranial Cavity. 
 
 (12.) The soft parts covering the cranium display nothing un- 
 usual. The skull-bones are uninjured, and are of the unusual 
 thickness of three lines. 
 
 (13.) The vascular meninges display a visible, but not extraordinary 
 degree of congestion. 
 
 (14.) The brain is firm but not much congested. 
 
 * The deceased was found dead, lying on his face, and with it half im- 
 mersed in a shallow, muddy puddle close to the bank. 
 
CASE LXXIX.— SAMPLE OF PROTOCOL. 221 
 
 (15.) The lateral ventricles are tolerably well filled with serum, the 
 choroid plexuses tolerably congested. 
 
 (16.) The cerebellum is quite normal. 
 
 (17.) This is also the case with the pons Varolii and the medulla 
 oblongata. 
 
 (18.) All the sinuses are much congested. 
 
 (19.) The basis cranii is uninjured, and there is nothing else to 
 remark in r%gard to the cranial cavity. 
 
 ii. Opening of the Thorax. 
 
 (20.) All the organs are in their natural position. The right lung 
 is partially connected to the ribs by means of old adhesions ; both 
 lungs are darker in colour than usual, completely fillin g the thoracic 
 cavity and are very full of blood, without being excessively so. 
 There is no water in the lungs. 
 
 (21.) The large blood-vessels are also not unusually congested. 
 
 (22.) In the pericardium there is the usual quantity of fluid. 
 The coronary vessels of the heart are very strongly congested, and 
 the right side of that organ is turgid with dark and perfectly fluid 
 blood, while the left is empty. 
 
 (23.) The trachea and larynx are empty and in no respect anor- 
 mal ; muddy mucus flows downwards from above during the exami- 
 nation. 
 
 (24.) The oesophagus is empty. 
 
 (25.) In the left pleural cavity there are about three ounces of 
 bloody fluid. 
 
 in. Opening of the Ahdominal Cavity. 
 
 (26.) All the organs occupy their natural positions. The stomach 
 is full of a greenish-yellow watery fluid, in which the remains of 
 food and some mud can be recognised, in other respects it is 
 normal. 
 
 (27.) The pancreas is normal. 
 
 (28.) The liver is strongly congested with dark fluid blood, the 
 gall-bladder is full. 
 
 (29.) There is nothing remarkable about the spleen. 
 
 (30.) The mesenteries and omenta are very fat. 
 
 (81.) The kidneys are much congested. 
 
222 CASE LXXIX.— SAMPLE OF PROTOCOL. 
 
 (32.) In regard to the intestines, we have only to remark, that 
 the large one is full of faecal matter. 
 (33.) The urinary bladder is empty. 
 
 (34.) The vena cava ascendens is tolerably distended, with dark 
 fluid blood. 
 
 At the close of the dissection, the medical inspectors gave it as 
 their opinion : — 
 
 (1.) That the deceased had died from apoplexy of tb* heart and 
 lungs. 
 
 (2.) That death had occurred in a muddy fluid. 
 (3.) That the deceased must, therefore, have been alive when he 
 fell into the water. 
 
 (4.) In answer to a question: the ecchymosis of the left eye 
 described under No. 10, is not to be regarded as a cause' of death. 
 r. a. s. * 
 
 (Signed) Casper. (Signed) Liitke. 
 
 a. u. s. t 
 
 Jordan. Bidault.f 
 
 * Bead over — approved — signed. The German letters are v. g. u.: — 
 Vorgelesen, genehmigt, unterschrieben. 
 
 f Actum ut supra. 
 
 % These are the signatures of the legal official present, and of the sworn 
 clerk who drew up the minute. 
 
REPORT OF THE DISSECTION. 223 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 THE REPORT OF THE EXAMINATION OF THE BODY 
 (OBDUCTIONS BERICHT). 
 
 Statutory Definitions. 
 
 (Fid. Code of Criminal Procedure, §§ 169-171, and "Regulations" 
 § %t, pp. 85-86 and 93.) 
 
 Code of Criminal Procedure, § 172. When the contents of the 
 report of the examination of the body differ materially from the con- 
 tents of the minute of the same, the experts must be required by the 
 Judge to explain, in writing or orally, the reasons for this difference. 
 
 § 173. Should the difference or contradiction not be satisfactorily 
 removed in this manner, the statements contained in the minute 
 (protocol) of the examination are to be assumed as the most correct 
 when the matter has reference to the statement of the facts. Should, 
 however, the difference between the report and the minute have 
 reference to any opinion founded upon these facts, and have an im- 
 portant bearing on the decision of the case, it must be referred to the 
 medical college of the province for their advice. 
 
 § 174. The advice of the college shall also be sought: — (1.) when 
 the medical inspectors do not feel competent to deliver a decided 
 opinion in the matter ; (2.) when they do not agree in their opinion, 
 and (3.) when in the report given in there are such obscurities and 
 contradictions, as they find themselves incapable of satisfactorily re- 
 moving, whereby there arises in the mind of the Judge a well- 
 founded doubt as to the correctness of the opinion given. 
 
 § 175. In such a case the Judge must lay before the medical 
 college distinct questions to be answered, and to enable them to under- 
 stand the whole matter, must therewith transmit to them all the 
 documentary reports of the investigation. 
 
 § 176. The medical college is enjoined to attend to such a requisi- 
 tion without loss of time, and to deliver -an opinion supported by 
 scientific reasons. 
 
224 § 52. FORM AND CONTENTS OF REPORT. 
 
 § 177. In important cases it is open to the Judge for his own satis- 
 faction to refer the matter to the Superior Medical College at Berlin,* 
 for their opinion. 
 
 Circular rescript of the minister for Ecclesiastical, Educational, 
 and Medical Affairs, of 30th May, 1850 : — 
 
 Complaint has been made by the courts of justice, that all district 
 physicians are not equally prompt in giving in their reports, but that 
 some are guilty of very serious procrastination, even in matters con- 
 nected with imprisonment. To prevent similar complaints in future, 
 I ordain that in matters connected with imprisonment, the report must 
 be given in at the latest four weeks after the copy of the minute of the 
 examination has been given out, where the court has not expressly fixed 
 a shorter time. This is to be communicated to all district physicians 
 for their observance. Where this time is not adhered to, the govern- 
 ment, on the court bringing it before their notice, must, after ascer- 
 taining the circumstances, proceed energetically to put in execution 
 the punishments ordained. 
 
 § 52. Fokm and Contents. 
 
 The Report of the medico-legal examination (visum repertum) 
 is, as we have already said, a purely scientific treatise upon the 
 question at issue, for which the dissection has supplied the 
 materials ; a detailed and practical application of the laws of judicial 
 medicine bearing upon the individual case in point. The Judge is 
 thereby placed in a position to see the case clearly in all its bearings, 
 and thence to gain a clue to guide his further interference in the 
 matter. The expression — Treatise — is not intended to signify a 
 voluminous extension of the report; the number of sheets never 
 indicates the worth and ability of any composition, even of a medico- 
 legal one. If the case be uncomplicated, a perfectly satisfactory 
 report may be comprised in a few pages ; and in truly complicated 
 eases, by setting aside everything not properly belonging to it, it is 
 easy to avoid sending in a complete volume to the court, which never 
 receives one of that character with pleasure ! Moreover, it is never 
 requisite to give in a report of the inspection, unless the medical 
 jurist (including both of the medical inspectors) has been specially 
 requested to do so by the judicature concerned, which request is 
 usually accompanied by the transmission of all the documentary 
 
 * At present the Royal Scientific Commission for Medical Affairs, forming 
 part of the Ministry of Ecclesiastical, Educational, and Medical Affairs. 
 
§ 52. FORM AND CONTENTS OF REPORT. 225 
 
 evidence pertaining to the case up to that time, or at least of a copy 
 of the protocol of the inspection. But for this regulation many a 
 perfectly useless composition would be produced, and the public 
 funds burdened with the payment of unnecessary costs, since there 
 are many cases in which the law officers, after examining the protocol 
 of the inspection and the provisional opinion appended thereto, de- 
 cline the further prosecution of the case, and repone the documents. 
 Written reports are in other cases also, frequently not required now, 
 because the judicature reserves to itself the right of taking the 
 opinion of the medical inspectors viva voce, in the course of their oral 
 examination upon the matters connected with the examination of the 
 body. 
 
 The written report of the inspection, like every other report, has 
 a certain formal mode of commencing ; as it is nothing but a simple 
 business report, it is perfectly sufficient to begin it thus : — " In the 
 matter regarding N. N., at present under investigation, the sub- 
 scribers, in conformity with a requisition, dated the inst., beg to 
 
 forward the following report of the medico-legal examination." The 
 
 ancient formula : — " Upon the requisition of the Court, dated 
 
 , the subscribers proceeded on the to in order to make 
 
 a medico-legal examination of the body of . They there met 
 
 with the legal officials," &c, &c, is an obsolete, heavy, legal form, 
 perfectly superfluous and therefore to he set aside.* 
 
 Next there follows a historical relation of the facts of the case, 
 embracing those points most important in a medical point of view 
 (historical narrative, species facti), extracted from the documentary 
 evidence, always provided, of course, that these documents have been 
 communicated to the medical inspectors. It is never in any case 
 incumbent on the medical jurist to supplement the documentary 
 evidence by interrogating the accused himself, or any of the witnesses 
 known to him, &c, unless he be in particular cases specially autho- 
 rized by the Judge to do so, which can scarcely happen in any case 
 of medico-legal inquiry involving a dissection — but may occur in 
 inquiries respecting the condition of the mind ; or in regard to women 
 recently delivered, in cases of child-murder. On the other hand, the 
 medical inspectors are permitted to direct the attention of the Judge 
 to the absence of any necessary information from the precognitions 
 up to that time, such as the want of a clinical report of the illness of 
 
 * This has been done in § 22 of the New Prussian Regulations since the 
 above was written. 
 
 Q 
 
226 § 53. THE REASONED OPINION. 
 
 the deceased, &c., and it is the business of the Judge t'o supply this 
 deficiency before the report is drawn up. The narrative must be as 
 short and concise as possible, all the more so, that it is already well 
 known to the Judge, and is only quoted by the medical inspectors 
 because they may have occasion to refer to it in the course of 
 delivering their opinion regarding the ease. 
 
 Then follows the anatomical part of the report, in the composition 
 of which the Regulations very properly direct that the protocol of 
 the examination is to be followed, as far as possible, word for word; 
 this of course refers only to that portion of its contents necessary 
 for the elucidation of the case (not in esetenso) ; and the numerals in 
 the report must correspond with those in the protocol, any deviation 
 from the latter being expressly pointed out. This correspondence is 
 easily attained; since the medical inspectors receive a copy of their 
 protocol, or may obtain it on request ; there is no legal reason for 
 refusing such a request, and the Judge will never decline to comply 
 with it, 
 
 § 53. Continuation. — The Written Reasoned Opinion. 
 
 The second and most important part of the report contains the 
 opinion upon the case. It is presupposed that both the medical 
 inspectors have come to an agreement respecting the contents of the 
 report, wherefore it is written throughout in the plural, and the 
 report is signed by both. Should they, however, not be agreed, 
 the second medical inspector, the district surgeon, or his me- 
 dical substitute, is not only not prevented from giving in his own 
 report, but it is his duty to give in his own opinion regarding the 
 case, separate from that of the physician. This opinion, in contra- 
 distinction to the provisional or summary opinion of the protocol, 
 must have all its most important propositions and assertions sup- 
 ported by scientific reasons. Medical jurists who have not yet had 
 opportunity to acquire the perfect confidence of their forum, will do 
 well to support their assertions by quotations from known authorities. 
 Scientific reasons must,however, never be confounded with scientific di- 
 gressions. Theoretical discussions, or the statement of scientific hypo- 
 theses, &c, which so frequently occur in medico-legal reports are wholly 
 improper, because they are confusing and unintelligible to the vulgar; 
 the proper mean cannot, however, be taught here ; the sound judg- 
 ment of the author of the report must teach him the bounds within 
 
* § 53. THE REASONED OPINION. 227 
 
 which he must in this respect confine himself. The following hints, 
 taken from my own long and considerable experience in the practice 
 of judicial medicine, confirmed and corrected by two-and-thirty years' 
 official inspection of innumerable medico-legal reports, coming before 
 the higher medical boards, can be heartily recommended to all authors 
 of such reports, as certain to secure for their labours the respect of 
 both legal and medical boards. 
 
 In general, certain distinct questions from the Judge are given as 
 the foundation of the medico-legal report. And it is most prudent 
 to answer no more than is asked ; for the physician must of course 
 suppose that the Judge has exhausted the case in the questions he 
 has put, and by further digression, the physician runs the risk of 
 putting weapons into the hands either of the defence or of the public 
 prosecutor, which are only too often directed against himself. It is 
 different, however, in those cases in which no questions are asked, 
 and in which a " medico-legal report " is simply demanded. In 
 such cases it is competent for the judical physician to review such 
 points as seem to him most important for the Judge in the actual 
 circumstances of the case, and for this his own experience (however 
 limited, and his (necessary) knowledge of the statutes concerned will 
 enable him to select the data. Eor example, in the report of the 
 dissection of new-born chddren, attention must be given to the ques- 
 tions regarding the maturity of the child, its live birth, the nature of 
 the death and its cause, &c. ; and in the case of many deaths the 
 question of murder or suicide must be duly considered, &c. Amongst 
 the questions put by the Judge to the physician some occasionally 
 occur which it is absolutely impossible to answer; I have already, in 
 §§ 35-38, given examples of such unanswerable questions in 
 regard to weapons; in such cases, I repeat, one must never be afraid 
 at once openly to acknowledge his incompetence. It is much more 
 conscientious and honourable to do so, and to explain that neither 
 jeneral medical knowledge nor your own individual experience has 
 any answer to give to the point at issue, than to give a perfectly 
 general and more or less hesitating reply, whose untenableness will 
 be, moreover, at once seen through. 
 
 Many cases occur in which, from the results of the dissection alone, 
 no positive opinion can be given as to the nature of the death; such 
 are, for example, many cases of drowning, of suspected poisoning, 
 not a few cases of doubtful suicide, and many others. In such 
 cases there mav exist so many points favouring an affirmative answer 
 
 a2 
 
 & 
 
228 § 53. THE REASONED OPINION. * 
 
 to the question propounded, that such could conscientiously be given, 
 were there not others wanting which would be required to supplement 
 the evidence, or were there not in truth others existing directly op- 
 posed to such an affirmative. In such cases, there are two ways of 
 deciding the question, either an affirmative is wholly withheld, and it 
 is assumed that there is a "probability," or a " great probability," or 
 "a probability almost amounting to certainty," that what would 
 under other circumstances have been distinctly affirmed has occurred, 
 e. g., that the deceased has been drowned. Or a negative opinion is 
 given, it being stated that the dissection has revealed no results in- 
 consistent with the opinion that so-and-so has happened, e. g., poison- 
 ing, or suicide. I frequently employ this latter form in cases of this 
 kind ; it recommends itself by its being perfectly practical ; by not 
 burdening the conscience of the physician, since he can always justify 
 whatever statements he makes in this manner, and it also in general 
 suffices, as I can testify, both Judge and prosecutor, who can supple- 
 ment the evidence thus declared defective, by other means which stand 
 at their behest — such as the testimony of witnesses, &c. — and thus 
 complete the proof. Moreover, when such cases are followed out 
 and brought to trial, the medical inspectors then learn a number of 
 facts, previously either unknown or seen in a different aspect, and 
 which enable them to give a more positive form to their previous 
 negative verdict, without contradicting its terms. To carry in doubt- 
 ful cases your negative assertions any further than what we have just 
 pointed out, is to yield to a spirit of undue scepticism fatal to the 
 practical utility of legal medicine. Experience teaches us that 
 judicial physicians, in delivering their opinions, only too often err 
 through excessive scepticism, an error which cannot be too carefully 
 avoided. Not only to the positive teaching of the schools, but also 
 to a healthy mind, must be conceded the honour of being the source 
 of successful and correct judgment, not only in ordinary medical, but 
 also in medico-legal practice ! Keeping to the instance of death by 
 drowning, it is certainly true, that under many circumstances — by no 
 means under all, as we shall show under §§ 53-55 of the Special 
 Division — its occurrence is only substantiated with difficulty. In such 
 a case, the physician, text-book in hand, is perfectly in the right when, 
 in his opinion, he lays down the reasons why it cannot be proved 
 that the man, whose body has been taken out of the water, has fallen 
 alive into it and been drowned, but that this must remain undeter- 
 mined. I will say nothing of the fact that such an opinion does not 
 
# § 53. THE REASONED OPINION. 229 
 
 aid the Judge, but leaves him helpless, since the physician need not 
 trouble himself about the consequences of his views, provided always 
 that these are in every respect tenable. But, is it justifiable to set 
 forth such a testimonium paupertatis as that given by the judicial 
 physician in thus wording his opinion, which is but another way of 
 saying, " I do not know how this man came by his death." Is this 
 declaration of incompetence warranted? Certainly not. In the 
 first place, it has been ascertained that the body was taken out 
 of the water ; but thousands of living people fall into the water and 
 are therein drowned, while in very rare cases only do bodies already 
 dead find their way thither. There is, therefore, a great degree of 
 probability that the deceased also fell into the water alive. Moreover, 
 at the dissection, one, two, or three symptoms always found in indu- 
 bitable cases of drowning were discovered, sundry other proofs of a 
 death of this nature being no doubt wanting. Finally, there was 
 nothing discovered that could justly lead to the supposition of death 
 from any other cause than from drowning. If we put all these things 
 together and add to them those innumerable accessory circumstances 
 which are found in connection with every similar case, it seems cer- 
 tainly pushing matters a little too far to join with a recent, and other- 
 wise excellent author, and votary of this undue scepticism (Engel), 
 in saying — tell me how a man has died, and I will then explain his 
 death from the results of the dissection ! When, on the contrary, 
 in similar doubtful cases, which often enough occur, we employ the 
 following form in delivering our opinion — " That the dissection has 
 not revealed anything inconsistent with the opinion that, e. g., the 
 deceased was alive when he fell into the water, and that he has 
 met his death therein," I think we shall thereby satisfy at once the 
 requirements of science as well as those of a sound understanding. 
 
 Cases, such as those we have just referred to, happen along with 
 others extremely simple, and permitting of the readiest decision. But 
 such extreme simplicity leads judicial physicians not infrequently into 
 erroneous judgments. They seek, where there is nothing to be 
 found, and suppose it is not possible at the conclusion of an official 
 and judicial dissection— which is always invested with a certain 
 amount of dignity— to state simply, e. g., the man has died from 
 apoplexy, from natural causes, nothing more and nothing less. 
 And so they enter upon suppositions and arbitrary conjectures which 
 lead them far astray, which confuse the Judge, and force him to 
 solicit the opinion of the higher courts, which is often attended bjr 
 
230 § 53. THE REASONED OPINION. 
 
 no other result than the restoring of the case to its primitive sim- 
 plicity. Our superior scientific medical boards have this task too 
 often to perform, for us to omit to warn against this fault in the 
 construction of medico-legal reports ; with such faults there is closely 
 connected another — a true mania, possessed by some judicial phy- 
 sicians, fortunately not many, which cannot be too strongly con- 
 demned, I mean the passion for discovering a crime. A scratch, a 
 yellowish-brown stain on the body, which they often doaiot suspect 
 to have arisen after death ; features in which their prejudiced eyes 
 read only " anguish and despair •" a mark upon the neck, which the 
 experienced practitioner ascribes to some simple cause, appears to such 
 as the mark of a ligature, &c, and gives them occasion to write, not 
 the report of a dissection merely, but — a veritable romance. In this 
 they not only clearly make out from apparently scientific reasons the 
 (non-existent) crime, but they also describe, often with considerable 
 acuteness, and as exactly as if they had been eye-witnesses, all 
 the particulars connected with it, and with the proceedings of 
 the " murderer ! " I have seen cases in which perfectly innocent 
 persons were by such fantastic medico-legal reports consigned to 
 imprisonment for months, and in which the severest reproofs of the 
 superior medical boards could afford no sufficient equivalent for the 
 injury done. 
 
 At the conclusion of the medico-legal report, the decisions come to 
 in its course are recapitulated in a short resume, which should give, 
 in a concise and summary form, a full and complete view of the 
 opinions of the medical inspectors respecting the case in hand. 
 
 Pinally, at the end of the document an ancient formula used to 
 be app'ended : — " In conclusion, we certify that we have drawn up 
 the foregoing report according to the best of our knowledge, con- 
 scientiously, and in accordance with the principles of judicial 
 medicine," &c. This lawyer-like appendix is to be set aside as a 
 perfectly superfluous and self-evident confirmation of the report, and, 
 like the obsolete introduction already referred to, has been wholly 
 disregarded in the Berlin Courts by us and our predecessors in 
 office for more than one generation. Such a certificatory appendix 
 is, moreover, nowhere prescribed by the statutes. This obsolete 
 superfluous formula, which the newest handbooks still teach, rests 
 upon tradition alone, like so many other more important points 
 in medical jurisprudence ! * On the other hand, of course, the 
 * It is now set aside by the Prussian Regulations. 
 
REPORT UPON CASE LXXIX. 231 
 
 signature of bath the medical inspectors and the impressions of 
 their official seals, must be appended to the report as the legally 
 prescribed mode of attesting its authenticity * 
 
 Report upon Case LXXIX. — Has the deceased fallen into 
 
 THE WATER ALIVE ? 
 
 As a sample of a medico-legal report drawn up in the form pre- 
 scribed, I have selected the following, which refers to the protocol 
 of the dissection at p. 219, because it is unusually short and concise, 
 and yet contains all that it was the object of the examination to 
 explain in that particular case, in regard to which it completely satis- 
 fied the legal authorities. 
 
 Medico-legal report in the matter of the inquiry respecting the mode 
 of death of H. 
 
 H. 3. 52.t 
 
 " In conformity with the directions of the Royal District Com- 
 mission of Charlottenburg, dated the 5th of this month, and referring 
 to the above-mentioned inquiry, we have the honour to transmit to 
 you the following document, constituting the medico-legal report 
 required/' 
 
 "According to report, J H., who had been for many years 
 afflicted with epilepsy, disappeared upon a certain day, his body being 
 soon thereafter found lying close to the bank of a turf-pit near Char- 
 lottenburg ; he was reported to have been robbed, and therefore a 
 medico-legal examination was rendered necessary. The dissection was 
 performed by the subscribing medical inspectors, on the 26th of 
 March, with the following results " : — 
 
 A. External Examination. 
 
 (Here follows, word for word, the report of the anatomical appear- 
 ances as given in the protocol of the dissection, printed at p. 219 from 
 
 * Compare with this section the Third Chapter in Part First, 
 t The reference numerals of the corresponding documents. 
 % In this case no documents were given us, only a copy of the minute of 
 the dissection. 
 
232 REPORT UPON CASE LXXIX. 
 
 No. 1 to 34 inclusive, which we need not here repeat, but 
 the addition of the provisional opinion given at the time of the dis- 
 section, which it is superfluous to repeat in this report.) 
 
 "In our provisional opinion we have assumed as probable that the 
 deceased had fallen into the water alive, and therein met his death, 
 that he consequently was drowned, and we must still maintain this 
 view. For not only were the signs of every other species of un- 
 natural death awanting, since the trifling ecchymosis described 
 under No. 10, being in no way connected with any important organ, 
 could have had no influence whatever in producing death, and the 
 marks upon the forehead and nose (mentioned under Nos. 4 and 5), 
 were very probably made after death, and were at any rate of no 
 importance whatever ; but the results of the dissection also revealed 
 the existence in the body of most of the appearances usually found 
 in those drowned. Amongst these, medico-legal experience enables 
 us to reckon the bluish coloration and wrinkled condition of the 
 skin upon the hands and feet (7) — which of themselves, however, 
 only prove that the body must have lain some time in the water — the 
 so-called cutis anserina, which was quite distinct in certain parts of 
 the body (8), the mud found in the fauces (9) ; and along with those 
 external appearances of the body, the corresponding internal ones, 
 which, taken together, are extremely demonstrative — viz., the visible 
 congestion of the cerebral membranes (13), and of all the cerebral 
 sinuses (18), the congestion of the lungs (20), of the coronary 
 vessels of the heart, and of the right side of the heart itself (22) ; the 
 remarkable distention of the lungs (20), the congestion of the liver 
 and kidneys (23 and 31), and the fluidity of the blood in the body 
 generally (22 and 34), which, as well as the appearances found in 
 the stomach, must be regarded as particularly important symptoms. 
 The stomach was distended with a watery fluid, in which were dis- 
 tinctly visible isolated particles of mud (26), precisely similar to that 
 which we found upon the tongue and in the fauces, from which it 
 incontestably follows that the deceased must have swallowed after 
 falling into this muddy fluid; must, therefore, have been alive, since 
 water cannot flow into the stomach after death; consequently, it cannot 
 possibly be supposed that the deceased was already dead when he fell 
 into the water ; and this view is also supported by the other existing 
 appearances symptomatic of death by drowning. The deceased has in 
 fact died from apoplexy of the heart (asphyxia), like a great many of 
 those that die in the water, has consequently been drowned. Had we 
 
§ 54. SEQUENCE OF PROFESSIONAL COURTS. 233 
 
 been asked whether the deceased had committed suicide, or met with 
 his death accidentally or by the fault of a third party, we must have 
 stated, that the dissection revealed neither proof nor probability of 
 there being any third party criminally concerned with the death (by 
 violently throwing the man, while still alive, into the puddle) ; while, 
 contrariwise, it is a most probable supposition that H. met with his 
 death in the water by suicide or accident, having been suddenly 
 seized with an epileptic fit, for instance, while standing by the edge 
 of the water, and so fallen in. and been drowned. Should it really 
 be found, which we know not, that the deceased has been found 
 robbed, and close to the bank, this would in no wise militate 
 against our view ; for it is self-evident that nothing could be more 
 likely than that a third party, seeing the body floating in the pool or 
 lying near its bank, should drag it ashore and plunder it* 
 
 "We accordingly declare it to be our opinion, that H. has fallen 
 into the water alive, and died in it from drowning. — Berlin, 19 th 
 April, 1852. 
 
 "Casper. "Liitke, cldr.for. 
 
 (Official seal.) (Official seal.)" 
 
 § 54. Eevision or the Opinion and Sequence of the Tech- 
 nical Couuts. 
 
 A copy of all the medico-legal transactions of all the medical 
 jurists in Prussia, both protocols and reports, without exception, is 
 sent by each respective local magistracy to the provincial govern- 
 ment, and through it, in quarterly budgets, to the Eoyal Medical 
 College of the province, for its revision. The same procedure is 
 followed in regard to all inquiries regarding lunacy or idiocy in civil 
 law. This board, on its part, transmits their transactions, along 
 with its remarks upon each, to the ministry appointed, in which both 
 transactions and revisals are submitted to a super-revisal by its 
 scientific commission, and the result is communicated both to 
 the revising medical college and also to the medical jurists concerned, 
 affording to the latter instruction or recognition and encouragement. 
 Here we have no doubt a cumbrous official apparatus set in motion, 
 
 * It afterwards appeared, that there was not the slightest trace of any 
 crime committed on the drowned man. What might not, however, have 
 heen made of this case in the medico-legal report, by means of a few judi- 
 cious doubts and forced interpretations ! 
 
234 § 54. SEQUENCE OF PROFESSIONAL COURTS. 
 
 but this arrangement is indubitably successful in its operation, inas- 
 much, as not only does it maintain the central courts constantly 
 acquainted with the doings of their medical jurists, but also indu- 
 bitably has its share in the elevation of the practice of legal medicine 
 in Prussia, to a perfection hitherto attained in no other country, a 
 fact which must be acknowledged, and which has quite recently been 
 recognised by a most competent authority.* 
 
 In § § 173-177 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, which we have 
 already quoted, the cases are described in which the reference of a medi- 
 co-legal report to the superior courts shall take place. The rule, and the 
 practice in most cases, is for this report to be sent, along with the other 
 documentary evidence, first, to the medical college of the province, 
 and should the opinion of this board be from any cause disputed, 
 they are then sent to the Royal Scientific Commission for scientific 
 affairs, to obtain its superarhitrium. This is, as in the medical 
 colleges, drawn up by two referees, who work each for himself; both 
 of their opinions are then brought before a meeting of the commis- 
 sion, discussed, and that one which is approved of by a majority of 
 the commission is accepted, signed, and issued.f 
 
 The question — how far the Judge is bound by the medical 
 opinion, particularly by the superarhitriwm of the highest and last 
 professional court ? is, as is well known, one that has been much 
 disputed. We, however, do not require to enter into it here, as it is 
 a purely legal question, and we only touch upon it to remark that in 
 recent times, particularly in jury trials, it has lost all its practical 
 importance, since the jury, after hearing the case fully in all its 
 particulars, and with all possible medical light thrown upon it, 
 bound by nothing but their own conscientious conviction, give their 
 verdict solely in accordance with that. That this is often enough most 
 remarkably and diametrically opposed to the medical opinion of the 
 case, is well enough known to every one accustomed to frequent 
 these courts ! 
 
 Written testimony, to which, in its widest sense, belong the written 
 opinions of individual medical men, or of the medical boards, is not 
 legally admissible at the viva voce trial, except in the most urgent 
 
 * Mittermaier in Goldtammer's Archiv fur Preuss. Strafrecht. Bd. i. hft. i. 
 s. 13. 
 
 f A precisely similar sequence of professional courts is found in most of 
 the German states. In some of the smaller ones, which possess no medioal 
 boards, the opinions of the inedical jurists is sent, along with the docu- 
 mentary evidence, to some faculty, either at home or abroad. 
 
§ 54. SEQUENCE OF PROFESSIONAL COURTS. 235 
 
 and unavoidable cases. Since the introduction of this procedure,* 
 therefore, it has often happened that the medical colleges and the 
 scientific commission have been requested, in cases in which they had 
 given their opinions, to depute the author of such written testimony, or 
 some other member of the college to attend the public trial, and orally 
 defend its views. Any such defence of a collegiate opinion by any one 
 member, even though he were the originator of the same, is, how- 
 ever, manifestly impracticable, because in the course of the trial new 
 questions turn up, which the delegate of the medical board can only 
 answer as an individual expert, and not as the representative of 
 colleagues who are not consulted. Moreover, this custom is phy- 
 sically impracticable, particularly for the central scientific board, 
 which comprises the whole monarchy in its district, and there are 
 many other reasons against it. Having duly considered all these cir- 
 cumstances, the highest board of administration have recently de- 
 cided, that the sending of deputies from the medical boards to 
 attend the trials is no longer to be required, and that any qualified 
 physician residing in the neighbourhood, having had the opinion 
 communicated to him, may be required to defend the same viva voce 
 at the trial. 
 
 * About 1849. Public oral trial by j ury is still in use in Prussia only in 
 the more serious criminal cases. — Tkansl. 
 
SPECIAL DIVISION. 
 
 PART FIRST. 
 
 FOBMS OE VIOLENT DEATH. 
 
 SECTION FIRST. 
 
 Mechanical Death. 
 Statutory Regulations. 
 
 Penal Code, § 185. In determining the fact of a death, it does 
 not fall to he considered whether the fatal issue of an injury might 
 have been prevented by timely and judicious aid; or, whether any 
 similar injury has been in other cases cured by the aid of art ; or, also, 
 whether the injury has only produced a fatal result by reason of any 
 peculiar bodily condition of the person killed, or by reason of any 
 accidental circumstances under which it was inflicted. 
 
 § 1. General, (a) Definition of an Injury. 
 
 The influence of criminal law and the erroneous views of medico- 
 legal authors has been more strongly felt in regard to no other point 
 in legal medicine than in respect of the questions regarding injuries. 
 This is at once apparent when we reflect upon the double meaning 
 which the customary usage of our language has attached to the word 
 " injury." A. has inflicted an injury upon B. ; B., by this act, has 
 received an injury : A. has been the active agent, B. has been the 
 passive one, — cause and effjtt. The act of stabbing, or cutting is an 
 injurious procedure, " an injury ; " the resulting stab, or cut, is also 
 
§ 1. DEFINITION OF AN INJURY. 237 
 
 an "injury." The science of penal law is obliged to make use of 
 the customary forms of speech, and to reform them scientifically to 
 its ends ; it must fix its eyes at once upon the injuring action and 
 its result. But how comes it that legal medicine, ever striving after 
 a correct and proper apprehension of her task, should go wandering 
 among definitions of the injuring action ? She, that has solely to do 
 with the natural object, in this case the body wounded by the injuring 
 actions ? Theoretical book-makers are far at sea, if they think that 
 the medical jurist in his official capacity can ever be placed in a 
 position to require, or even to dare to make use of, their discursive 
 essays on "objective and subjective injuries;" upon "dolus and 
 culpa" in relation to the injuring action, &c. The wounded man, 
 alive or dead, is given to the medical jurist by the law, as the object 
 of his investigation. It is no true rejoinder to the view we have 
 taken to say, that the physician may be asked such accessory ques- 
 tions as those relating to the nature of the implement employed, the 
 situation and position in which the wounded person or his antagonist 
 was placed at the time the deed was committed, and the probable 
 degree of force employed in inflicting the injury, since the answers 
 to all such questions lie within the sphere of medical knowledge and 
 experience. A professional examination of the wounded man is 
 necessarily required to determine, for instance, whether the shot has 
 come from below or not, whether the wound corresponds with the 
 blunt bread-knife stated to have been used, or perhaps rather with a 
 pointed dagger, the suspected weapon, &c. Thus, still the natural 
 object alone, and nothing but it, comes under the cognizance of 
 judicial medicine ! Hence, therefore, an " injury " may be simply 
 defined as : every alteration of the structure or function of 
 
 ANT PART OF THE BODY PRODUCED BY ANY EXTERNAL CAUSE. Under 
 
 the first head are included all solutions of continuity, such as wounds, 
 divisions of blood-vessels (haemorrhage and ecchymosis), burns, pro- 
 lapsus, fractures, and dislocations. Those injuries included under 
 the second head are by no means always accompanied with solution 
 of continuity, at least to any material extent ; most frequently they 
 consist only in concussion, contusion, and loss of power. 
 
 § 2. Continuation. — (b) Fatal Character of the Injury. 
 
 * 
 
 It was reserved for our own century to institute one of the most 
 useful reforms in the science of criminal law, and to give the quietus to 
 
238 § 2. FATAL CHARACTER OF THE INJURY. 
 
 a doctrine which has been rightly termed by a distinguished teacher 
 (Stiibel) a "blot" upon the science and "a refuge for murderers." 
 We have no desire ourselves to fall into the error we have so often 
 blamed, of encroaching on the province of the law, nor have we any 
 intention of writing a history of judicial medicine, to which, fortu- 
 nately, belongs now-a-days the old, untenable, absurd, deceitful, and 
 dangerous doctrine of degrees of lethality ; we have only to point 
 out in a few words, how, since the criminal law has set aside the 
 " absolutely fatal character of the injury" from being the criterion of 
 the fact of the homicide, every such minute subdivision of the cha- 
 racter of the injury into — not absolutely fatal, accidentally, or for the 
 most part fata], fatal from individual causes, &c, has also ceased to be 
 of any categorical importance. Every European legislative act relating 
 to such matters (so far as I know) is now founded upon the amended 
 doctrine of modern science, that every case of fatal injury must stand, 
 ■upon its own individual footing, and every colligation of cases under 
 general categories must ie rejected, that only takes cognizance of 
 " the fact that death has resulted from the injury in the individual 
 case, and cares not to know whether by a lucky chance, or com- 
 bination of favourable circumstances, whether intrinsic or extrinsic 
 to the injury, death might have been averted. It is surprising to 
 see how science and the legislation, and practice based upon it, have 
 taken two centuries to discover that the death of one man from an 
 injury given by another, is precisely the same as if he had been 
 strangled or drowned by him, and that suspension or drowning are 
 not of themselves " absolutely fatal," inasmuch as death may be 
 readily averted in the one case by instantly cutting the cord, and in 
 the other by speedy removal from the water ! 
 
 It is impossible for a statutory regulation founded upon the 
 modern views to be clearer or more distinct, than that most excellent 
 one to be found in § 185 of the Prussian penal code, which we have 
 already quoted. The "determination of the fact of the death" in 
 itself, can henceforth be the only task assigned by the law to the 
 medical jurist, that is, in other words, the answering of the query : — 
 Did the deceased die of and from the injury ? The answer to this 
 may be affirmative, although it is evident, "that timely or appro- 
 priate assistance might have averted the fatal result" (that the 
 injury, therefore, had been one fatal per se in the sense of the 
 ancients), or, that perhaps in another case, " an injury of this nature 
 has been cured by art" (an injury fatal ut plurimum), or, that the 
 
§ 2. FATAL CHARACTER OE THE INJURY. 239 
 
 injury, which meanwhile has killed the man, has done so " only be- 
 cause of some peculiar bodily condition of the deceased " (an injury 
 fatal individually) ; or, finally, that the injury would not have proved 
 fatal had it not been for the coincident influence of certain " acci- 
 dental circumstances under which the injury had been inflicted " (an 
 injury fatal per accidens). It betrays a complete misapprehension of 
 the actual state of matters, and of the true meaning of the statutory 
 paragraph referred to, to say, that by it the greatest injustice 
 may be brought about. Since, if for example, A. fires a bullet 
 through B/s head; or C. gives D. a blow with his fist upon his 
 breast, within which lay a heart already, from disease, disposed to 
 rupture, and which is actually ruptured by the concussion of the 
 blow, so in both instances, death has plainly been the result of the 
 injurious treatment, and " the fact of the death " (from the injury) 
 must be regarded by the physician as " proved," while it must be 
 apparent to the most unprejudiced, that in the eye of the law the 
 two criminals stand by no means on the same footing. Most certainly 
 not — and the legislator has fully recognised this, but in every case in 
 which he demands a medical opinion in answer to certain questions, 
 he expects not merely a simple Yes or ~No, but that the affirmative 
 or negative should be supported by scientific reasons, and adapted to 
 the case in point. In the first place, then, a reasoned consilium 
 medicum is given in ; in such a case as that mentioned, the Judge will 
 receive in this report every information respecting rupture of the heart, 
 and concussions of important internal organs, &c, and having done 
 this, the medical jurist has done all that his experience and his 
 knowledge entitle him to do, whilst so soon as he goes beyond this, 
 and, according to the olden dogma, enters upon the topic of the 
 degree of lethality and general categories, he loses himself at once in 
 hypotheses, or in purely personal opinions. We can assure the medical 
 jurist that both Judge and jury will certainly award the perpetrator 
 of the death his due meed of punishment in accordance with his 
 reasoned opinion. T?or the words "does not fall to be con- 
 sidered," occurring in the part of the statute quoted, and relating 
 to every accessory circumstance, have no reference to any decision 
 as to the culpability of the perpetrator, but evidently only to the 
 " determining the fact of the death," refer, therefore, only to the 
 function of the physician, and not to that of either Judge or jury. 
 The task of the physician now-a-days, therefore, in every case of fatal 
 injury of any kind, differs in no respect from what he has to do in the 
 
240 § 3. OF THE ORGAN INJURED. 
 
 case of violent death from other causes, and has in the one case only 
 to mate out, that the deceased has died from injury, as in the 
 other, that he has died from drowning, that is, has fallen into the 
 water alive. 
 
 § 3. Continuation. — (c) Of the Oegan injured. 
 
 Another foreign element from which legal medicine must be 
 purified, is the consideration of the various corporeal injuries in con- 
 nection with the different organs. While the treatise writers have 
 on the one hand forced upon the attention of the judicial physician 
 all sorts of legal doctrines and theories, with which he has nothing 
 to do, so on the other, they have degraded him to the position of a 
 tyro in his own peculiar department. It is not easy to escape from 
 the trammels of ancient traditions, and therefore, we are continually 
 taught what injuries of what particular bones are more fatal than 
 others, why injuries to the pregnant uterus are more dangerous than 
 to the non-pregnant one, under what circumstances injuries to the 
 intestines are fatal, under what others they are less dangerous, &c. 
 This is a tradition derived from the primitive times of legal medicine, 
 in which the consideration of corporeal injuries were the sole or chief 
 task of the " medical expert " consulted in criminal cases. But the 
 matter in question is a purely surgical one, and surgical knowledge, 
 as well as every other kind of medical knowledge, must be pre- 
 supposed of every medical jurist, and of every Handbook of Judicial 
 Medicine. Nowhere, and particularly not in Prussia, is any candi- 
 date for a medico-legal appointment admitted even to his qualifying 
 examination, still less to the appointment itself, until he has satisfied 
 the board that his medical education is complete, that is, that he 
 is a fully qualified physician, surgeon, and obstetrician (so it is 
 in Prussia at least). It is perfectly superfluous to teach such an 
 one, or consequently any medical jurist, that injuries of the skull may 
 damage the brain by the splintering of the internal or vitreous table; 
 that in the case of an injury of the brachial artery, death may be averted 
 by the application of a ligature, but that this cannot be done where 
 the arch of the aorta is wounded ; or the dangers that attend wounds 
 of the joints, &c, — all doctrines, therefore, regarding the danger and 
 mortality attendant upon the various injuries of the different parts. of 
 the body are to be consigned to the Handbooks of Surgery. 
 
§ 4. IDIOSYNCRASY AND ACCIDENTS. 241 
 
 § 4. Continuation,— (d) Idiosyncrasy and Accidental Circum- 
 stances. 
 
 The case is precisely similar in regard to the categories comprehend- 
 ing idiosyncrasy, and the so-called accidents that accompany, follow or 
 are accessory to the infliction of the injury, and increase its danger. 
 Irrespective of the fact that these influences " are no longer to be con- 
 sidered in determining the cause of death" (§ 1), it is indubitable 
 that any considerations regarding their action, particularly that of 
 idiosyncrasy, must be purely speculative and conjectural, and every- 
 thing of this character in legal medicine is in the highest degree 
 questionable, and as far as possible to be avoided. We know little 
 or nothing for certain as to the reason why ten men wounded in the 
 intestines will die from inflammation and its consequences, whilst in 
 other ten a similar or even more serious injury of the intestines, under 
 apparently similar circumstances will terminate in recovery. No 
 doubt in both classes of cases idiosyncrasy acted unfavourably or 
 favourably ; but who shall prove this to the Judge ? How much 
 more remarkable is this influence of idiosyncrasy in cranial injuries ! 
 Moreover, from the nature of the case the medical jurist, almost 
 without exception, first becomes acquainted with those persons on 
 whose case he has to decide, as bodies upon the dissecting table. And 
 can he conscientiously pronounce an opinion regarding the " idiosyn- 
 crasy " of such men ? Cases of palpable and apparent peculiarities, 
 which may have had an influence upon the fatal issue of the injury, 
 as, for instance, a remarkable thinness of the cranial bones, transpo- 
 sition of the internal organs, &c, are of the utmost rarity, as every 
 expert knows, and in by far the greater number of cases, particularly 
 at the time of the medico-legal inspection, the medical jurist is com- 
 pletely ignorant of the idiosyncrasies of the deceased. Whatever 
 information on this head he may be able to obtain from the prelimi- 
 nary history of the case will be duly supplied to him, to be made use 
 of in drawing up his reasoned opinion in the report of the inspec- 
 tion, not therefore to be used abstractly, but applied individually. 
 And now we have to consider, in the second place, what we have 
 just referred to in § 3, the fact, namely, that general medical science, 
 and not the specific doctrines of medical jurisprudence, must form the 
 groundwork of the opinion given. 
 
 Judicial medicine is not required to impart the knowledge that 
 
242 § 4. IDIOSYNCRASY AND ACCIDENTS. 
 
 ossified arteries are found in old age but not in childhood, that, con- 
 trariwise, it is possible to stab a new-born child through the fonta- 
 nels, but not a grown man ; that an injury to an aneurism may cause 
 fatal haemorrhage, whilst other individuals may be wounded in the 
 same part of the same vessel ten times, or oftener, without any such 
 occurrence. 
 
 All this is also true of the so-called accidents,— intoxication, remo» 
 val, distinct and great neglect in the treatment of the wounded person, 
 &c. It is well known how often in various places the last-named 
 point, the estimation of the share of the blame of the death attach- 
 able to the medical treatment of the injury, has led to the unnecessary 
 exaggeration of the case, to the tedious protraction of it through all 
 the professional courts, and often to extremely disagreeable differences 
 of opinion. The greatest scope for such discussions was given by 
 such injuries to the head as proved fatal from their sequelae, 
 particularly from suppuration, and injuries of the limbs resulting in 
 amputation, followed by pysemia, which has carried off the patient. 
 How must the medical jurist have turned and twisted in order to 
 attack or defend a trepan operatipja or amputation, which either has 
 or has not been performed, .or the application of a dozen leeches, 
 more or less ! And perhaps, after all, the medical board following 
 him may have taken a diametrically opposite view of the case, and 
 supported their opinion by a reference to not less correct general 
 medical precepts ! And all this time the only important point for 
 the Judge — the " determination of the fact of the death " — remained 
 uncared for, since it often enough happened that the result of all these 
 medical subtleties and controversies was to make it appear to the 
 Judge as if the blame of the death of the injured person was more 
 distinctly referrible to his medical attendant than to the person 
 accused. But however difficult it may have been to decide forensi- 
 cally respecting such cases formerly, it is easy enough now. 
 The injury to the head has been the cause of the death. Here 
 we have " the fact of the death determined," the requirements of the 
 statute fulfilled, and the Judge set on firm ground and satisfied. Why 
 the injury to the head has in this particular case produced suppuration 
 of the braiu, and why this has perhaps not been early enough recog- 
 nised, or could not be so, &c. ; all this has to be gone into in the 
 reasoned report, which still however, ends by recapitulating — "The 
 injury to the head has caused the death." * Discussions, such 
 
 * Such cases possess no true medico-legal interest, and are not quoted 
 
§ 4. IDIOSYNCRASY AND ACCIDENTS. 243 
 
 as — whether a state of intoxication at the time of the receipt of 
 the injury is to be reckoned an idiosyncratic or accidental circum- 
 stance ? and the like, belong fortunately to a period in our science, 
 which, with all its subtleties and controversies, is now luckily his- 
 torical. Judicial medicine is a science of itself, and is not a mere 
 encyclopaedia of the other medical sciences. It therefore has only to 
 treat of those points not referred to in the teachings of the other 
 medical sciences, and which belong more particularly to itself, and 
 to avoid the introduction of anything irrelevant, and particularly of 
 all merely introductory information. 
 
 amongst the oases illustrating my observations, except where the appear- 
 ances on dissection were of themselves important. 
 
 R 2 
 
244 § 6. EXPERIMENTS ON THE DEAD BODY. 
 
 CHAPTEE I. 
 DEATH PROM FATAL MECHANICAL INJURIES. 
 
 §.5. GENEEAi. 
 
 We have already (§ 24, page 58) explained what we understand 
 by injuries of this nature. These injuries leave the . most palpable 
 traces of their operation on the body ; they are often attended by 
 various circumstances, which in other cases prove the exclusive cause 
 of death, such as haemorrhage, concussion of the brain, &c, but the 
 occurrence of which in these cases is of no material importance, since 
 the disturbance or destruction of the mechanical organism of the 
 body alone, or at least of its more important organs, which injuries 
 of this kind produce, is sufficient to render the continuance of life 
 impossible. These injuries are produced by the falling of walls, 
 beams, masts, by blows from windmill sails in motion, by the passage 
 over the body of carriages or railway trains, by the body becoming 
 entangled in maehines, by squeezing new-born children into boxes, 
 &c, by falling or being pushed or thrown from a considerable height, 
 and upon hard bodies, by rough and violent ill-treatment, by forcible 
 blows, cuts, &c, and in many other ways. 
 
 § 6. Experiments on the dead body. 
 
 In § 33, and its illustrative cases, I have shown how often, in 
 cases of sudden death from injuries, when death has occurred from 
 internal and not from external causes, there is often no trace of 
 injury visible externally which could betray the nature of the case. 
 This circumstance, as well as the desire to investigate how far it was 
 possible for a criminal to mask the actual cause of death, and 
 obscure the case by producing injuries on the body of the deceased, 
 lust as murderers often attempt to conceal their deed by burning the 
 body, as well as to discover what relation the resistance of the 
 dead organ bore to that of the living one, led to the experimental 
 
I 6. EXPERIMENTS ON THE DEAD BODY. 245 
 
 production of injuries upon dead bodies. I have had uncommonly 
 numerous opportunities of instituting these experiments, and I still 
 continue to repeat them every academical session. Similar experi- 
 ments have not previously been made anywhere on so great a scale, 
 except in the case of experiments on burning, to which I shall refer 
 under the head of " death from burning" (§ 16, &c), and they have 
 been attended by the most astonishing results. It is extremely diffi- 
 cult to breale up the organic cohesion of dead organs. In saying this, 
 of course, I do not refer to stabs or cuts through the skin and 
 muscles. Our experiments, in respect to mechanical injuries, were 
 confined to fractures of the bones, ruptures of the internal organs, 
 and injuries (alterations) of the cuticular surface. 
 
 (1.) Fractures of the Bones. — If we endeavour to fracture the 
 skull of a dead adult, we shall find that an amount of force which, 
 if applied during life, would indubitably have produced fissures, if 
 not fracture or complete smashing of the skull, leaves the dead 
 skull quite uninjured. Iu making these experiments we have usually 
 employed the wooden mallet used to prop up the skull and spinal 
 canal during the process of dissection. In other cases we have 
 employed hammers and similar weapons. The most powerful blows 
 struck downwards upon the body laid horizontally were mostly with- 
 out result, and only after repeated violent blows were we enabled to 
 produce perhaps one or a few fissures in the occipital or parietal 
 bones, or in the temporal bone (squamous portion), and certainly 
 more easily in the latter. We were unable to produce more con- 
 siderable effects, such as complete smashing of the skull or fissures of 
 its base, even in one single instance. The dead scalp seems to have 
 considerably more power of resistance than the living one, and after 
 its removal, fissures of the bones were more easily produced by similar 
 blows. Numerous and uniformly consonant experiments have enabled 
 us to establish this dogma : that when from any cause, such as com- 
 plete putrefaction, it is no longer possible to ascertain whether the 
 injuries discovered in a body have been inflicted before or after 
 death, the existence of considerable injuries of the cranial bones, 
 particularly of the solid bones of the basis cranii, enables it to be 
 assumed, with at least the utmost probability, that the injury has 
 not been inflicted after death, but during life, when there is no other 
 evidence to show that some extraordinary degree of violence has 
 been inflicted on the body. 
 
 All the long bones of the extremities are found to display quite an 
 
246 § 6. EXPERIMENTS ON THE DEAD BODY. 
 
 extraordinary power of resistance. The most powerful blows upon 
 upper and under extremities lying horizontally on the table, both on 
 the humerus and femur, as well as on the bones of the forearm and 
 leg, and even on the same bones when supported only at their two 
 ends, produced in general not only no fracture, but even not the 
 slightest fissure. Malgaigne's experiments are in the main extremely 
 consonant with ours. He says, indeed, that he has very often with 
 an " enormous iron lever " broken every long bone in a dead body 
 (which need not surprise us !) ; but he adds thereto that (even with 
 the employment of such force), " he was often only able to produce 
 incomplete fracture."* The brittle bones of old men (above 70) 
 are, however, more easily fractured by powerful blows. But even 
 such bones are much more easily broken by the same blows after 
 removal of their coverings— skin, fat, and muscle. Should we 
 inquire as to the reason for the difficulty of producing fractures in 
 the dead body, we might readily find it in the absence of muscular 
 action, which has such a powerful effect in the living body.. 
 
 The ribs are more easily fractured in the dead body than in the 
 long bones, but the fracture is always a simple cross one, and is never 
 splintered. 
 
 On the other hand, we have never succeeded in fracturing the 
 larynx or os hyoides of an adult, even by the most powerful pressure, 
 such as would inevitably have produced it during bfe. These 
 experiments are of the same practical importance as those made upon 
 the skull, and in accordance with them I should have no difficulty 
 in assuming, even in a case where putrefaction had already oblite- 
 rated every trace of living reaction, that any existing fracture of the 
 larynx or os hyoides must have been produced previous to death. 
 
 (2.) We have only made a few experiments upon the rupture of 
 internal organs, because no important practical result was to be 
 expected from them. The most violent blows, with beams and the 
 like, upon the regions of the liver and spleen have not been attended 
 with the slightest result. 
 
 (3.) Our innumerable experiments to produce by mechanical in- 
 juries upon the skins of dead bodies alterations somewhat similar to 
 those caused by the reactionary phenomena of life, have been already 
 detailed (§ 33 Gen. Div., sub 2. p. 117), and to those details I now 
 beg leave to refer the reader. 
 
 (4.) Our further experiments in regard to strangulation, burning, 
 * Kuocheiibruche, &c, Deters, von Burger. Stuttgart, 1850, s. 31. 
 
§ 6. ILLUSTRATIVE CASES. 247 
 
 and gun-shot wounds in the dead body, as well as on rupture of the 
 umbilical cord, will be detailed below in their proper places. 
 
 The following two capital cases which have come before us recently, 
 may serve to show the great practical importance of the experiments 
 here related, as well as of the question upon which they bear. 
 
 Case LXXX. — Comminuted Fracture of the Skull — has it 
 
 OCCURRED AFTER DEATH ? 
 
 8., aged 60 years, had, five years previously, been almost instan- 
 taneously killed in his mill, as was given out, by falling from a beam 
 upon the millstone, a height of seven feet and a-half. Two years after, 
 a suspicion arose that the party now accused had killed S. in the mill 
 with a heavy pickaxe, such as is used for hewing the millstones, and 
 the body was therefore ordered to be exhumed. Complete and com- 
 minuted fracture of the skull was found. The question then arose — 
 Has this injury been occasioned by the fall above-mentioned, or by 
 blows by a pickaxe ? The former assumption was maintained by the 
 district physician in opposition to the views of Dr. N., who occupied 
 the position of district surgeon, and this view was also supported by 
 the medical college of the province concerned. The physician also sub- 
 sequently brought forward the supposition that the cranial injuries 
 might also have been produced after death, and this supposition he 
 firmly maintained in sundry discussions, in spite of every opposition 
 made to it. At the request of the Attorney- General, I was deputed to 
 settle the matter at the jury trial at — , the corpus delicti, the skull, 
 being produced in open court. Almost the entire left half of the basis 
 eranii was wanting, and there were at least twenty separate pieces of 
 broken bone. It was impossible to regard so serious a comminution 
 of the base of the skull as the result of a fall from a height so trifling 
 as to amount to no more than seven feet and a-half, when carefully 
 measured, since such fractures affecting the base of the skull, accord- 
 ing to all our previous observations, always presuppose the exertion of 
 very considerable violence (Vide p. 132), and in this case the cranial 
 bones were by no means remarkably thin, but were of the usual 
 thickness. It was just as impossible to suppose that the fracture had 
 been produced after death, as the experiments just related prove. 
 Moreover, it seemed scarcely possible to explain such an occurrence, 
 since the deceased died in his own house, among Iris family, and was 
 buried at the usual early period. On the other hand, the heavy iron 
 
248 § 6. ILLUSTRATIVE CASES. 
 
 pickaxe produced must be regarded as a very fit weapon to produce 
 such a comminution of the skull. The accused was condemned. 
 
 Case LXXXL— Fracture op the Ribs. — Has it been produced 
 after Death ? 
 
 The decision of a medical board regarding a most atrocious crime 
 gave occasion to the consideration of this query. An old peasant 
 and her daughter were placed at the bar at — , accused of having 
 conjointly ( ! ) robbed and murdered a woman aged seventy-five years, 
 which they subsequently confessed. The results of the dissection 
 indubitably proved that the deceased had been choked, after a long 
 struggle, which was proved by the existence of many injuries and 
 excoriations, and by the sand and blood in the hair and down the 
 back, caused by dragging the body from the bed and along the floor 
 of the room. Whilst the daughter held both arms of the deceased, 
 the mother knelt upon her breast and compressed her mouth and 
 nose so forcibly that the mouth was lacerated. The experts differed 
 respecting the fractured ribs which were found in the body ; on the 
 one hand, the medical experts supposed that these — mostly double- 
 splintered fractures on both sides — might have been produced by 
 " falling from a very considerable height with the breast against some 
 soft body (as a dungheap)," just as well as by kneeling upon the 
 chest ; on the other hand, the medical college of the province sup- 
 posed that the fracture of the ribs must have been produced after 
 death, since no trace of living reaction had been described as exist- 
 ing by the medical inspectors. Summoned as arbiter before the jury 
 court at — , I could not regard either supposition as correct. A fall 
 upon such a soft substance as a dungheap could not produce such a 
 number of fractures on both sides, and, moreover, the actual circum- 
 stances of the case gave no countenance to the supposition of any 
 such possibility. Our own numerous experiments upon dead bodies 
 enabled us also to state positively that it is impossible to produce 
 such fractures of the ribs after death {fid. p. 246) ; and neither could 
 we agree to the truth of the reason assigned for this supposition, 
 viz., the want of vital reaction, for reasons which we have already 
 given (pp. 109 and 118), and which we have illustrated by many 
 cases in proof. Moreover, roughly kneeling on the chest of a woman, 
 aged 75, was amply sufficient to fracture her ribs. In consequence 
 
§ 8. ILLUSTRATIVE" CASES. 249 
 
 of this opinion, the mother was condemned to death, and the daughter 
 to many years' imprisonment. 
 
 § 7. Effects of Mechanical Injuries. 
 
 The diagnosis of this form of death is generally very easy, hy reason 
 of the remarkable appearances found on the body. 
 
 We have already (in §§ 35 and 36 of the General Div.) given 
 details respecting the sharp and blunt weapons with which wounds 
 may be occasioned, and in regard to what may be so produced in the 
 living body. There is no possible actual effect or living reaction which 
 may not result from injuries of this character, from a suddenly 
 fatal neuroparalysis from concussion of the brain or spinal marrow, 
 to a lingering death from a chronic inflammation and suppuration of 
 important organs, such as the brain and its membranes. In other 
 cases we may have the body shattered in pieces, limbs torn from each 
 other, internal organs severed from their connections, dislocation, frac- 
 tures, contusions, wounds, ruptures of muscles, of blood-vessels, of 
 internal organs, and frequently three, four, or more of such easily 
 recognisable causes of death in one and the same body. The follow- 
 ing cases, taken from a large number of selected ones, will sufficiently 
 exemplify our statement : — 
 
 § 8. Illustrative Cases. 
 
 Case LXXXII. — Death from a steam-carriage. 
 
 Among many cases of voluntary and involuntary deaths from railway 
 trains, the following, that of a saddler about 30 years old, killed 
 accidentally, was in truth the most horrible. Scarce any region 
 or any single part of the body remained uninjured. The scalp was 
 not much torn, but in it rattled the skull-bones, completely commi- 
 nuted. The left ear was torn off and lost. Both arms and both 
 legs were much crushed, torn, and broken, so that each extremity lay 
 zigzag fashion on the table. From the fractured parts, as well as 
 from the torn abdominal coverings of the left side, the lacerated mus- 
 cular substance protruded. The scrotum was ruptured, and the left 
 testicle, still attached to its cord, lay free and uninjured amid the 
 twisted thighs ! and yet the features of the countenance, which was 
 not much injured, were perfectly peaceful, which was easily enough 
 
250 § 8. ILLUSTRATIVE CASES. 
 
 explained by the extremely sudden, and therefore probably painless, 
 death. 
 
 Case LXXXIII. — A new-born Child completely smashed by 
 
 A RAILWAY TRAIN. 
 
 The head and neck of the child were crushed off, the cervical 
 vertebrse smashed, the collar-bones and superior ribs separated from 
 their connections, the umbilical cord cut across and properly tied. The 
 trunk was ten inches long, and weighed one pound and three-quarters. 
 The soft woolly hair on certain parts of the body, the wrinkled con- 
 dition of the skin on the extremities, the thin, scale-like nails, and 
 the still gaping vagina, all pointed with considerable probability to 
 the fact of the child not being mature ; but certainty upon this 
 point could not be ascertained, from the great destruction of the body 
 and the total absence of so important a part as the head, neither 
 could the hydrostatic test be applied, and therefore it remained un- 
 determined whether the child had lived, and whether the head had 
 been severed from the body during life. ^ 
 
 Case LXXXIV. — Fracture op the Mastoid Process by being 
 
 DRIVEN OVER BY A CARRIAGE. 
 
 One of the rarest of all possible injuries to the head, was found in 
 the body of a girl, aged six, killed by being driven over by a carriage. 
 The seventh rib on the left side was smashed, the skull was fractured 
 in six places, and amongst these was a fracture of the left mastoid 
 process, which was completely broken off. In the left lung, there 
 was also a rupture three inches long. 
 
 Case LXXXY. — Rare Fracture op the Skull by being driven 
 over by a carriage. 
 
 In this case, also, the extreme violence employed had produced 
 one of the rarest injuries to the head. A girl, aged three, had been 
 driven over by a carriage and killed upon the spot. The squamous 
 portion of the temporal bone on the right side was split off, and a 
 transverse fissure extended across the occipital bone into the foramen 
 magnum. Finally, the petrous portion of the left temporal bone was 
 also split by a fissure. 
 
§ 8. ILLUSTRATIVE CASES. 251 
 
 Case LXXXVI. — Cranial Injury from being driven over by a 
 
 CARRIAGE. 
 
 A man-servant, aged 29, was driven over, and died in five hours. 
 In the left temporal bone there was a fissure with that narrow 
 border of ecchymosis which one so usually finds in recent fissures 
 of the cranial bones. This fissure extended across the base of the 
 skull into the foramen magnum. Beneath this fissure, and lying 
 upon the dura mater, there was an extravasation of not less than four 
 ounces of dark coagulated blood, which had made a deep impression 
 in the brain. The bladder was found (from paralysis) perfectly dis- 
 tended with urine, as often happens in similar cases, which are not 
 fatal immediately, but after a short interval. Nothing else anormal 
 was visible. 
 
 Case LXXXVII. — Cerebral Hemorrhage from being driven 
 
 OVER BY A CARRIAGE. 
 
 A virgin, aged seventy years, was driven over, and taken to 
 the Charite, where she died in two days. Over the left parietal 
 bone there was an S-shaped sharp-edged wound, and one inch 
 removed from it, there was a flap of separated skin two inches long, 
 the portion of scalp dividing these two wounds was also separated 
 from the bones. Upon the cranial coverings there were on both 
 sides isolated extravasations of coagulated blood, amounting in all to 
 about two drachms (imp.) in weight. All the other organs were 
 uninjured, only the whole of the cellular tissue of the true pelvis was 
 •infiltrated with blood. (The Hymen of this aged person was unin- 
 jured, and as tight as in a girl of 14 or 15. Both uterus and ovaries 
 were atrophied, and in the right ovary of the aged virgin there 
 were several quite distinct Graafian vesicles.) 
 
 Case LXXXYIII. — Cerebral Hemorrhage from a blow. 
 
 In this case the pole of a waggon, in motion, was said to have 
 struck an old woman of 65, in the left side, and thrown her down 
 on the stone pavement. She was picked up senseless, and died in a 
 few hours. There was no trace of injury on the body. The cranial 
 bones— of the unusual thickness of- a quarter of an inch— were also 
 
252 § 8. ILLUSTRATIVE CASES. 
 
 uninjured. The cerebral membranes were, however, very strongly 
 hypereemic, and the whole brain floated, so to speak, in a layer of 
 coagulated blood, two lines thick. It was decided, that this cerebral 
 haemorrhage (so rare in its extent), could only have been caused by 
 external violence, and that a headlong fall upon a stone pavement, 
 was a very probable cause. 
 
 Casjb LXXXIX. — Botture of the Intestines by a blow ? 
 
 This case was somewhat akin to Case LXYIII. (p. 167), since 
 in it also the injury received had no connection with the death, 
 although the reverse seemed to be highly probable. A dragoon 
 standing in the street, was struck on the right side of the abdo- 
 men by the pole of a passing drosky. Three days subsequently, he 
 was seized with vomiting and violent pains in the abdomen, and died 
 in nineteen hours, perfectly conscious and with all the symptoms of 
 loss of blood. The medical man in attendance had not observed 
 any trace of injury on the spot where the blow had been received. 
 We found the body (in June) already green, &c.j in the abdominal 
 cavity there was about a pound of decomposed blood and intestinal 
 contents, and the source of this extravasation we found to be in a 
 portion of small intestine lying on the left side, in which there was 
 situate one of the well-known perforating intestinal ulcers, perfectly 
 circular, three-quarters of an inch in diameter, surrounded by a kind 
 of rampart of tolerably smooth everted edge, which was livid from 
 putrescence. It was perfectly evident that this effusion had been the 
 cause of death ; and the history of the case and the appearances on 
 dissection, showed also that death had not resulted from the injury 
 received, since it could not have produced such an ulcer, particularly 
 on the opposite side, and if the blow had only completed the per- 
 foration of the ulcer, the symptoms which came on subsequently 
 must of necessity have instantaneously displayed themselves. 
 
 Case XC. — Bupture of the Perineum from being driven over. 
 
 A boy, aged 7 years, was run over by the enormous weight of an 
 omnibus ; one of the wheels passed over his abdomen. At the dis- 
 section, the whole of the right iliac region was externally dark-red 
 and ecchymosed. The perineum was ruptured in such a manner, 
 that an irregular wound with smooth, unecchymosed edges, five 
 
§ 8. ILLUSTRATIVE CASES. 253 
 
 inches long, following its zigzags, extended from the scrotum to the 
 coccyx; this wound was two inches in width, and permitted 
 the interior of the pelvis to be seen. The sphincter ani was also 
 ruptured, but there was no other injury visible in the whole body. 
 The bladder was distended, and rose above the pubis, — easily expli- 
 cable from the fact, that the poor boy died twenty hours after 
 receipt of the injury, and the fearful crushing must of course have 
 produced paralysis of the bladder. 
 
 Case XCI. — Rupture of the Spleen from collision. 
 
 A girl, aged 14, was crushed against the wall of a doorway by a 
 waggon, and died twelve hours after. The body exhibited the waxy- 
 white colour which, under the circumstances, led at once to the 
 supposition of internal haemorrhage from rupture of some organ. 
 The only external trace of injury was three brownish-red leathery 
 patches on the left shoulder-joint ; in particular, there was no trace 
 of injury in the abdomen. Nevertheless, as it accorded with our 
 previous extensive experience (Fid. § 33, Gen. Div., sub. 1), we 
 were not at all surprised to find the spleen ruptured ; in its middle 
 there was a rent one inch long and two lines deep. Three ounces 
 of blood, partly fluid and partly coagulated, were effused into the ab- 
 dominal cavity; no other injury existed. The general ansemia was, 
 however, so great, that the lungs appeared almost of a greyish-white. 
 The right side of the heart also contained a tolerable quantity of 
 blood. The continuance of life for several hours after such a rup- 
 ture is nothing remarkable. Among the cases immediately following 
 will be found many still more striking examples of how comparatively 
 long life may continue after even the most fearful and manifold 
 coexisting ruptures. 
 
 Case XCII. — Fracture of the Cervical Vertebra and Lacera- 
 tion of both Trachea and (Esophagus from being driven over. 
 
 This case was that of a man-servant, aged 30. There was no 
 doubt that the wheels of the waggon had passed over both the neck 
 and upper part of the chest, and had produced the following fearful 
 mutilations. The neck was encircled, and the upper part of the 
 chest covered, with extensive ecchymoses, and fracture of the cervical 
 yertebrse, and of the right shoulder-blade were distinctly to be felt 
 
254 § 8. ILLUSTRATIVE CASES. 
 
 by external manipulation. The shoulder-blade was found to be 
 fractured across, the odontoid process was found to be broken off, 
 and its articular groove separated from the atlas, so that on dividing- 
 the soft parts the cervical column immediately projected, while at the 
 point of division the cervical spinal marrow could be pressed out 
 as a bloody pultaceous mass. Besides these important injuries, both 
 the larynx and oesophagus were found to be torn off ; the first lay 
 in the chest behind the manubrium sterni ; finally, the right carotid 
 artery was also ruptured ! In the chest, in both pleural cavities, 
 there lay masses of black coagulated blood; Lungs, heart, kidneys, 
 and vena cava were completely empty of blood. The lateral ven- 
 tricles contained treacly blood, and the cerebellum was also covered 
 with it. 
 
 Case XCIII. — Fracture of the Ribs; Rupture of the Lungs 
 and Liver by being driven over. 
 
 • A stout boy, aged seven years, was run over by an omnibus, and 
 died in a few minutes. . Externally, no trace of injury was found upon 
 the body (p. 109), except that an emphysematous swelling of the 
 left side pointed out the probable existence of fracture of the ribs. 
 And there was, in fact, a transverse fracture of the sixth rib on 
 the left side, while the last true rib on the same side was also 
 fractured incompletely. Both of the lungs were healthy, and 
 contained no blood. In the upper lobe of the right lung we found 
 a rupture one inch and a-half long and one inch deep, and on the 
 posterior surface of the lower lobe of the same lung there was another 
 rupture, two inches and a-half long and one inch and a-half deep. 
 Both ruptures had sharp edges. In the right pleural cavity there 
 was about eight ounces (imp.) of dark, treacly blood. The thymus 
 gland was still one inch and a-half long and three-quarters of an inch 
 broad. On the concave surface of the right lobe of the liver there 
 was a vertical rupture one inch long, and the right lobe was separated 
 from the left by a rupture three-quarters of an inch in length. About 
 four ounces (imp.) of blood had flowed from these ruptures into the 
 pelvic cavity. 
 
 Case XCIV. — Fracture of the Pubis from being driven over. 
 The wheels of a waggon passed across the inguinal region of 
 
§ 8. ILLUSTRATIVE CASES. 255 
 
 a young man of 16. "Well-marked ecchymosis existed in both 
 groins in the left inguinal region ; the soft parts were burst, so that 
 the abdominal cavity lay exposed to view. The muscles of both 
 thighs were torn across close to the pelvis, and the horizontal ramus 
 of the pubis was fractured across right into the foramen ovale. The 
 soft parts of the back, sacrum, and hips were all torn off and lay 
 loose, and the deeper-seated parts were infiltrated with blood. 
 
 Case XCV. — Fracture of the Eibs and Dorsal Vertebra; 
 
 REMARKABLE CONCUSSION 01? THE HEART FROM THE PALL OF A 
 WEIGHT. 
 
 In hoisting up a bag of corn it fell upon a man, aged 66. The 
 chief visible consequence of this was a comminuted fracture of the 
 right thigh, which was amputated. Death ensued the day after the 
 operation. At the dissection (in June) the stump was most. un- 
 healthy (ichorous). There was also a remarkable general want of 
 blood. The two first ribs were fractured, and of this no ecchymosis 
 gave any external intimation. The appearances found in the heart 
 were, however, most remarkable. On the right side of the peri- 
 cardium we found an ecchymosis the size of half-a-crown, and in the 
 left wall of the heart itself, running from the auricle to the ventricle, 
 there was an ecchymotic stripe, two inches long and a quarter of an 
 inch broad. Here, therefore, there had been a true and most 
 singular concussion of the heart ! An ecchymosis, the size of the 
 palm of the hand, in the region of the third dorsal vertebra, inti- 
 mated the existence of some deeper-seated injury, which was found 
 to be a complete transverse fracture of the spinous process of tins 
 vertebra and also of its body, the spinal marrow being uninjured. 
 This man Kved eight days after the receipt of his injuries ! 
 
 Case XCVI. — Fracture of many bones, with Eupture of the 
 Liver from the fall of a mast. 
 
 A sailor, aged 60, was struck down by the fall of a. mast, and 
 died after six hours. There was no trace of any ecchymosis to be 
 found over the whole body, and nevertheless we found the following 
 injuries : — There was a small fissure in the right orbital plate of the 
 frontal bone ; on the right side five ribs were fractured, from the 
 third to the seventh inclusive, and about six ounces (imp.) of serum 
 
256 § 8. ILLUSTRATIVE CASES. 
 
 were effused into the pleural cavity; at the posterior surface of the liver 
 there were four lacerations, obviously caused by the protruding ends 
 of the fractured ribs, and about six ounces (imp.) of blood effused 
 into the peritoneal cavity ; further, the bones of both forearms were 
 transversely fractured; and, finally, the right femur was completely 
 splintered; and, nevertheless, not the slightest ecchymosis had 
 formed on the surface of the body, though the deceased had lived 
 six hours. 
 
 Case XCVII. — Rupture op the Liver, Spleen, the Omentum 
 and the Stomach, by a blow from a windlass. 
 
 In hoisting a heavy weight of grain, the handle of the windlass 
 jerked backwards, and so severely injured the man (aged 53) engaged 
 in hoisting that he died in a few minutes. No proper ecchymosis 
 was found upon the body, only over the upper part of the abdomen 
 there was a patch of skin six inches long, that cut leathery, and was 
 of a reddish-brown colour. And yet the internal appearances were 
 so important 1 A quart and a-half of dark watery blood was 
 effused into the abdominal cavity, and its source was evident. 
 On the upper surface of the liver there were thirteen or fourteen 
 shallow lacerations, which only penetrated to the depth of about a 
 quarter of an inch. Similar lacerations were, also found on its 
 inferior surface. Moreover, the left lobe of the liver was completely 
 crushed and hung like a fibrous mass from the rest of the organ. 
 The posterior surface of the stomach exhibited two transverse lacera- 
 tions, three to four inches long, of which one was close to the small 
 curvature, and the other two inches above the great one, an 
 extremely rare occurrence for rupture of the healthy stomach almost 
 never occurs (Fid. § 36, Gen. Div., p. 134). Finally, we found the 
 spleen completely smashed, and the great omentum — also a most 
 rare occurrence— exhibited a laceration three inches long. Of course> 
 the body was generally ansemic, except the veins of ihepia mater, 
 which were much congested (rid. Death from Haemorrhage, § 21, &c. 
 Spec. Div.). 
 
 Case XCVIII. — Comminuted Fracture op the Skull from the 
 pall of a drawbridge. 
 
 A steersman, aged 45, died an uncommon death. Standing on 
 
§ 8. ILLUSTRATIVE CASES. 257 
 
 the deck of his vessel as it passed beneath a drawrbidge ; the bridge- 
 master let the bridge fall too soon, and the head of the unfortunate 
 man was caught between its valves ! The assumption of carelessness 
 rendered a medico-legal investigation necessary, in the course of 
 which we found general anaemia of the body, and such an amount of 
 injury to the head as is only to be found after the application of the 
 utmost violence, as happens in the passage over it of heavy waggons, 
 railway trains, &c. The whole of the right side of the head was 
 visibly flattened against the left, and from the lobe of the ear, which 
 was torn, to the lambdoidal suture there extended a gaping, sharp- 
 edged wound, dividing both the soft parts and the bones, and through 
 which the brain could be seen, looking like a blood pultaceous mass, 
 which it was, in fact, found to be on this side, when examined from 
 the interior. Upon the right side there was a wound through the 
 skin, corresponding to the rounded margin of the pass squamosa. 
 The conjunctiva; of both eyes were not in the least ecchymosed, and 
 there was no swelling to be seen, either on the eyelids or on the rest 
 of the head ; from which we concluded that death must have been 
 instantaneous ; and this was afterwards found to have been the case, 
 the unfortunate man having fallen dead without even giving vent to 
 a cry. After removing the scalp, the entire upper portion of the 
 skull seemed as if cut off and separated circularly, fissures also ex- 
 tending towards the occipital bone. The squamous portion of 
 the temporal bone on the left side was split off, and there 
 was a fearful destruction of the base of the skull, which was broken 
 into innumerable pieces. The right hemisphere of the brain was 
 completely smashed, as we have already said, and on the left side the 
 dura mater was completely torn through. The ventricles were filled 
 with firmly -coagulated Hack blood, and similar coagula lay in the in- 
 ternal fossse of the skull, affording thereby another proof that the 
 blood does coagulate after death {Fid. p. 23). In this case, 
 also, the sharp division of the bones of the skull was somewhat 
 remarkable, seeing that the body inflicting the injury was blunt. 
 I have not, however, been able to learn whether the valves of 
 the drawbridge were, as might have been expected, shod with 
 iron, and perhaps acutely angled. Possibly, however, there was 
 some unusual brittleness about the cranial bones in this case ; 
 they were certainly unusually thick, and measured, at least at 
 their posterior half, one quarter of an inch in thickness. 
 
258 § 8. ILLUSTRATIVE CASES. 
 
 Case XCIX. — Rare Fracture prom the fall op a wall. 
 
 Both condyles of the right femur of a healthy young workman, 
 aged 19, were completely broken off by the sudden fall of a wall; 
 the rest of the body was uninjured. Unhealthy suppuration of 
 the right knee-joint set in, accompanied by gangrene of the ex- 
 ternal wound, and the wounded man died after an illness of 
 three weeks. 
 
 Cases C. and CI. — Fracture oe the Skull; Cerebral Suppu- 
 ration PROM THE BLOWS OP A WINDMILL SAIL. 
 
 (C.) A girl, aged 4 years, was struck by the sail of a windmill, 
 became immediately insensible, with convulsions on the left side, and 
 died in twenty-two hours. One-half of the coronal suture was sepa- 
 rated to the extent of one line, — a most uncommon occurrence, — 
 and one which, like every other disruption of cranial sutures, permitted 
 the assumption of the previous employment of some quite unusual 
 violence, and from the end of this fissure another one extended for 
 three inches diagonally into the parietal bone. On the right parietal 
 bone, towards its junction with the wing of the sphenoid, and with 
 the squamous portion of the temporal bones, there was a fracture, 
 with depression, about the size of a shilling. The brain unfortu- 
 tunately ran out after the skull was opened as a putrid pulpy mass, 
 and could not therefore be properly examined. At the base of the 
 skull a fissure extended from the point just mentioned right through 
 the right wing of the sphenoid and across the sella turcica, the latter 
 bone also being only fractured by the application of the most extraor- 
 dinary violence. 
 
 (CI.) In this case, a boy, three years old, was struck by the sail 
 of a windmill. We obtained no history of the case, inasmuch as 
 no medico-legal report was subsequently required, and therefore can 
 say nothing about it. At the dissection we learned that the child 
 had lived seventeen days, a sufficiently striking circumstance, when 
 we consider the appearances discovered. Externally there was little 
 visible. On the left parietal bone, towards the vertex, there was an 
 irregular four-cornered wound, with unequal sides, through which 
 cerebral matter welled out. On the internal surface of the parietal 
 bone, however, there was at this spot a stellated fracture, the termi- 
 
§ 8. ILLUSTRATIVE CASES. 259 
 
 nal points of which penetrated the dura mater. After its removal 
 there was a gash of green purulent matter, and it now appeared 
 that two-thirds of the whole of the left cerebral hemisphere were 
 transformed into an abscess. We have quoted this case in con- 
 nection with the foregoing, notwithstanding that it does not pro- 
 perly belong to the Category of deaths from mechanical injuries, 
 because injuries from windmills are so extremely rare. Obviously, 
 the child had not been struck with the full force of the wind- 
 mill sail, but had received but a (comparatively) slight blow, so 
 that the case more properly belongs to the category of contused 
 wounds. 
 
 Case CII. — Fatal Cranial Injury from a fall downstairs. 
 
 This case, besides its forenso-anatomical interest, possesses also 
 some degree of psychological interest, inasmuch as the unfortu- 
 nate man was overtaken by death in a .more than usually unex- 
 pected manner, immediately after indulgence in sensual pleasures 
 of a kind betokening the fullest enjoyment of life. A staff- 
 officer, just 53 years old, and in the possession of a pension, 
 had drawn his allowance on the first of the month, and after 
 having had a jollification, he proceeded to follow up his offerings 
 to Bacchus with a sacrifice to Venus also. On leaving his 
 priestess, he fell downstairs, and was dead within an hour ! We 
 found a fissure extending from the lambdoidal suture into the 
 left foramen lacerum, and which gave rise to a precisely similar 
 haemorrhage to that which we have described as existing in Case 
 LXXXVIIL, for the whole of the cerebrum and cerebellum were 
 covered with a layer of dark venous half-coagulated blood, one 
 line thick. There was a remarkable extravasation of similar blood 
 in the centre of the pons Varolii. Both sides of the heart con- 
 tained a fair amount of blood. The stomach was filled with the 
 remains of food stained with red wine. The bladder in this case 
 also rose above the pubis, and was distended, as in other similar 
 cases, with pale, watery urine. 
 
 Case CUT. — Kupttjre of the Spleen from a fall down- 
 stairs. 
 
 A boy, aged 5 years, was thrown down but a few steps by 
 
 S2 
 
260 . § 8. ILLUSTRATIVE CASES. 
 
 another boy with all his force, and in five hours he was dead. 
 The cause of death was a longitudinal laceration of the spleen 
 that had completely divided it in two. There was no trace of ex- 
 ternal ecchymosis on the body ! 
 
 Case CIV. — Fatal Cranial Injury fkoii a fall. 
 
 It is something quite unusual to find the base of the skull fissured 
 subsequent to a fall from an inconsiderable height, yet this we found 
 in the case of a woman, aged 5SJ, who fell from a cupboard, and died 
 in twenty-six hours. Externally there was nothing remarkable. On 
 removing the skull-cap, however, a triangular fissure was found in 
 the right temporal bone, one leg of which passed across the base of 
 the skull through the sella turcica quite to the opposite side. Above 
 the dura mater and covering the whole of the left hemisphere, there 
 lay a coagulum of dark blood half-an-inch thick. The pia mater 
 itself was anaemic, but in the substance of both hemispheres, close 
 to the lateral ventricles, there was an extravasation of dark blood of 
 about four drachms (imp.) in weight. There was also in the fourth 
 ventricle an extravasation the size of a pea. 
 
 Case CV. — Fatal Cranial Injury from a eall. 
 
 The following case, resembling the foregoing in the remarkable 
 extent of injury, following a fall from a still more inconsiderable 
 height, was easily explicable from the unusual thinness (only one 
 line and a-half) of the cranial bones of the aged (70 years old) man. 
 He fell on the floor of a room, and was taken up senseless and com- 
 pletely paralysed on the left side, and died in two days in the 
 Hospital. The only trace of injury visible externally was a slight 
 ecchymosis, the size of a plum, upon the external angle of the right 
 eye. The squamous portion of the right temporal bone was fractured, 
 the right parietal bone divided by five fissures, and upon the right 
 hemisphere, over the dura mater, there lay an unusual quantity of 
 pulpy, coagulated blood, three inches and a-half in thickness and 
 about three ounces (imp.) in weight, which had made a groove-like 
 depression on the brain. A smaller extravasation, weighing about 
 two drachms (imp.) upon the left side of the base of the skull. 
 
§ 8. ILLUSTRATIVE CASES. 261 
 
 Case CVI. — Feactuee of the Skull and Veetebe^e, and 
 
 RuPTUEE OF THE SPINAL CoRD BY A FALL FEOM A HEIGHT. 
 
 A mason, aged 32, fell from a scaffolding four stories high, and 
 died two days after. The results of this very considerable fall were 
 a fissure an inch and a-half long, which extended from the right 
 orbital plate of the frontal bone right into the pass cribrosa of the 
 ethmoid, and a complete shattering of the ninth dorsal vertebra. 
 Beneath this the dura mater of the cord was torn to the extent of 
 one inch, and the spinal cord itself crushed and completely torn 
 through. And yet this man lived two days ! 
 
 Case CVII. — Muedee by a contused wound of the head. 
 
 Markendorf, at the time of the murder a young man just 18, 
 went to a shoemaker of his acquaintance with the intention, as he 
 afterwards confessed, of robbing him of a pair of boots at all hazards. 
 The shoemaker sat upon a stool at his work. While conversing, 
 M. slipped behind him, seized his hammer, and struck with a will 
 and repeatedly upon his head ; the unfortunate man fell from his seat 
 stunned, and very soon thereafter died. The murderer subsequently 
 confessed — what I have often heard from the mouths of such criminals 
 (there seems to be some peculiar demoniacal pleasure in crime !) — 
 that after giving the first stroke with the hammer, and with his 
 victim already lying motionless before him, he became quite furious, 
 and felt as if he could keep on battering him " for ever." This con- 
 fession entirely corresponded with what we found, vvl., four-and- 
 twenty individual injuries of the head, extending even to the face 
 (eyes, nose, and cheeks). Amongst others, the left ear was entirely 
 separated, all except a narrow connecting band, by a transverse 
 wound, with obtusely incised edges ; there were also several such 
 wounds on the soft parts of the head ; and from this we, at the 
 medico-legal dissection, where the nature of the deed and its perpe- 
 trator were alike unknown, at once concluded that the deceased 
 must have been killed with a blunt (corresponding with most of the 
 wounds), but also with an -obtusely sharp, weapon. This supposi- 
 tion was afterwards confirmed by the confession of the murderer, 
 who acknowledged having used both sides of the shoemaker's ham- 
 mer alternately. It would be most wearisome and superfluous to 
 
262 § 8. ILLUSTRATIVE CASES. . 
 
 enumerate all the individual injuries which were found at the dissec- 
 tion; we content ourselves with recapitulating the most important, 
 which were, a vertical fracture of the left, and a semilunar fracture of 
 the right temporal bones, through their respective squamous por- 
 tions, and also a complete fracture of the base of the skull, right 
 across from one wing of the sphenoid to the other. The veins of 
 ihejoia mater, especially on the left side, were distended with dark- 
 coloured blood. Opposite to the fracture of the left temporal bone 
 there was an extravasation of blood the size of a threepenny-piece, 
 and a penetrating wound of the brain one-quarter of an inch in 
 depth. 
 
 Case CVIII. — Complete Shattering of the Skull by a blow 
 
 WITH AN AXE. 
 
 The following fearful ease was also equally easily decided. A 
 man, aged 60, whose mental condition, when subsequently examined, 
 was found to-be defective (imbecile, in the Common Law sense of the 
 term), and who was consequently declared by us to be irresponsible, 
 had allowed the idea, that he must die by the hangman's hands, to 
 become fast rooted in his mind, and in order to attain this wished- 
 for end, he had resolved upon killing a boy aged 12, who was in, 
 the habit of assisting him in his labours, and for whom he always 
 had a certain amount of love and attachment ! He invited the boy 
 to come to him one Saturday afternoon on the pretence of assisting 
 him to cut wood in the cellar. He had previously in this very 
 cellar scattered some dominoes about the chopping-block, that the 
 boy might be induced to stoop for them ; and while in that position 
 he intended to strike him dead with an axe. This plan was exactly 
 carried out. Having come into the cellar, the boy stooped to 
 pick up the dominoes, and at that instant, E. — paralytic on the 
 right side — smashed his skull with the axe which he held in 
 his left hand ; whereupon he went at once to the police, and with 
 the utmost composure disclosed his deed, requesting that he might 
 be executed as speedily as possible ! The wounded boy was im- 
 mediately carried to the surgical hospital, but died on the way. 
 The upper part of the skull was smashed; no fewer than eight 
 large and small pieces of the left parietal bone, from the size of an 
 almond to a crown-piece, were found lying loose upon the dura 
 mater, which is an exceedingly rare occurrence. One of these frag- 
 
§ 9. SUICIDE OR HOMICIDE? 263 
 
 inents had penetrated the dura mater. The frontal bone was 
 completely split by a fracture running diagonally across it. The 
 surface of the brain was, as it were, strewn with numerous extra- 
 vasations of coagulated blood, and the hollows between the convo- 
 lutions were filled with blood. In the posterior third of the left 
 hemisphere the extravasation extended throughout the whole sub- 
 stance of the brain. At the base of the skull there was a fissure 
 two inches long in the left great wing of the sphenoid, and a second 
 fissure had split the occipital bone to its basilar portion. 
 
 In accordance with our opinion of the mental condition of the 
 murderer, as expressed in our extended report, he was not executed, 
 but sent to an asylum. 
 
 § 9. Suicide ou Homicide ? 
 
 Whenever the question arises : — Has the deceased died by his own 
 hand — suicide or carelessness — or by the hand of another ? there 
 are three criteria upon which a decision may be based, which is 
 sometimes quite easily arrived at, but in many cases is extremely 
 difficult. The decision may be based upon facts which are quite 
 exterior to the body, and which involve the exercise of a sound judg- 
 ment — which is of far more value in medico-legal matters than all 
 the subtleties of the ancient medicina forensis. The facts I allude 
 to are oral or written communications made by the deceased, from 
 which his design to commit suicide may be gathered,* the fact of 
 the body being found in a room locked on the inside, &c. We may 
 rationally conclude that the case has been one of suicide, when it is 
 known that the deceased has lived in any of those social conditions 
 which experience teaches us often lead to suicide; there are also 
 hundreds of circumstances occurring in individual cases, which it is 
 impossible to enumerate collectively, which make a rational decision 
 more or less easy ( Tide Illustrative Cases), by which it is of course 
 understood that the results of the dissection support the decision 
 arrived at, and do not afford any indications contrary to it. Thirdly, 
 however, the results of the dissection itself, taken into connection 
 with the posture and position in which the body was found, even the 
 nature and appearance of the clothing, the weapons which may have 
 been found by the deceased, the body in short, as such, with all its 
 
 * The very remarkable case, CCLXXXIV., shows how even written com- 
 munications of this character may be involved in doubt. 
 
264 § 9. SUICIDE OR HOMICIDE? 
 
 accessories of place, &c, will always afford the most conclusive 
 evidence on which to base -our judgment. 
 
 "Whenever the question arises: — Has such an one who has 
 perished from a fatal mechanical injury, perished from accident, 
 suicide, or the fault of a third party ? no single, generally applicable 
 proposition can be laid down, except that fatal contused wounds per- 
 mit the conclusion to be drawn, that the death has been caused by a 
 third party, with a probability so great, as almost to amount to 
 certainty. For experience teaches us (notwithstanding the uncom- 
 mon rarity of such cases in the entire literature of the science), 
 that men almost never (as we can easily understand !) choose this 
 most uncertain and impracticable mode of committing suicide. I, 
 myself, have never seen a case of the kind. In regard to the other 
 kinds of fatal mechanical violence alluded to in this chapter, each 
 individual case must be decided on its own merits. Eor example, at 
 that part of the railway on which a shattered corpse was found, a 
 lofty barrier, or other fence, had to be surmounted to gain the rail- 
 way, and in such a case, therefore, no one could hesitate to regard 
 the case as one of suicide. It is more difficult to decide in the case 
 of falls from a height, downstairs, &c, and in such cases, the accused 
 not infrequently declares that the deceased had falleu by chance, and 
 without any complicity on his part. Should the peculiarities of the 
 case render it impossible to give an indubitably certain decision, it is 
 better openly to declare our incompetence, or to confine ourselves to 
 tenable probabilities, rather than assume a certainty for the one case 
 or the other, for which we have no scientific basis. The accused in 
 fatal cases of violence often resort to the silliest subterfuges in the 
 way of statements and descriptions of how the deceased has been 
 killed by accident, or by his own fault — never by the fault of another ; 
 and of this, Case LVIIL, already detailed, affords a most striking 
 example, showing also how the appearances on dissection can con- 
 trovert the most daring and obstinate lying. — We have also to con- 
 sider the questions of suicide, accident, or murder, in respect of 
 every particular kind of violent death, and since many circumstances 
 which have more particular reference to one kind of death, require 
 to be considered in all, to avoid repetitions, we beg now to refer to 
 §§ 14, 23, 37, 42, 51, 57 and 62. 
 
§ 10. GUN-SHOT WOUNDS. 265 
 
 CHAPTEB II. 
 
 DEATH FROM GUN-SHOT. 
 
 § 10. The Gun-shot Wound. 
 
 We reckon this kind of death among the " mechanical/' because, in 
 most cases, it is caused exclusively or chiefly by destruction of the 
 integrity of the external and internal organs involving that of the 
 corporeal mechanism.* The diagnosis of this form of death is not 
 difficult, since its effects are usually very evident. We have already 
 (§ 37, Gen. Div.) considered the nature of the weapons employed, 
 and have now to consider their effects. It is difficult or impossible 
 to give a general description of a gun-shot wound, since no one such 
 wound resembles another, as will be readily acknowledged by every 
 one who has had any experience of them. In one case, we have such 
 a mangling of the countenance that the body can be no longer thereby 
 recognised; in another, there is nothing to be seen on the body 
 except a small, insignificant wound, and that, too, in some out-of-the- 
 way part of the body, such as the axilla or popliteal region. And 
 yet both of these are gun-shot wounds. It is possible to lay down 
 but few generally-applicable criteria in regard to such wounds, and, 
 according to our experience, these few are the following : — Every 
 gun-shot wound either traverses the whole body, and we have a wound 
 of entrance and a wound of exit, or the shot does not pass through, 
 but lodges. In such cases it is usually a most vain proceeding to 
 attempt to find the ball, piece of lead, or shot in the body, even 
 when such a solid projectile has been employed, which is by no 
 means always the case. The piece of metal, or wadding, is most 
 easily found in the skull, and when it has been impelled only by 
 
 * The ancient doctrines regarding the effects of the wind of balls, which 
 were based upon not very trustworthy observations made upon fields of 
 battle, &c, and have been long very generally doubted, have been proved 
 to be perfectly false and untenable by Pelikan's very ingenious experiments. 
 Vid. his Beitrage zur gerichtl. Medicin, Toxicologie and Pharmakodynamik. 
 Wiirzburg, 1858, s. 151. 
 
266 § 10. GUN-SHOT WOUNDS. 
 
 water or compressed air. It is difficult to find the projectile or wad- 
 ding in the chest when the lungs have been much destroyed, and the 
 pleural cavities are filled with masses of coagulated blood, and this is 
 reduced to a bare chance in the case of the abdomen, where several 
 organs are reduced to a bloody pultaceous mass. Every gun-shot 
 wound penetrates to some considerable relative depth ; seldom or never 
 do we find the extremity of the wound near its commencement in the 
 case of the brain, lung, liver, or intestine, &c, but we almost always 
 find the organ originally struck completely penetrated, which we can 
 easily understand, from the violence of the gaseous expansion by 
 which the bullet is impelled. Every gun-shot wound has, moreover, 
 the peculiarity of becoming larger the deeper it goes, thereby differing 
 from punctured wounds, &c. Should the ball lodge in any soft part, 
 the .cavity in which it is found is often from two to four times the 
 diameter of the wound of entrance. And this is not contradicted 
 by the fact that where a bullet has not lodged but has passed, along 
 with the air or gas accompanying it, quite through the body, the 
 wound of exit is always smaller than the wound of entrance. All 
 recent observers agree in this opinion, which is quite opposed to that 
 which was formerly the popular one, and they are right in so 
 doing. These revolutionary years have afforded others, as well as 
 ourselves, ample opportunities of studying such wounds !* "Wounds 
 from double shots, as from double-barrelled pistols, &c, or from slugs 
 or pellets out of one barrel, diverge after their entrance into the body, 
 a fact easily recognised by the position of the wounds of exit when 
 these are present, even where the condition of the wound internally 
 does not permit the course of the projectiles to be traced. When 
 the charge of shot has scattered before reaching the body, sometimes 
 a few only, or perhaps but a single pellet, is found to have penetrated 
 it, though the original charge has consisted of many such pellets. I 
 cannot state the distance required to permit the charge to scatter, 
 nor can I maintain that Lachese t is correct in assuming this to be 
 three feet. In one of those unfortunate and too frequent cases, in which 
 a girl was shot at in joke by her sweetheart with a gun supposed to 
 be empty, but which was actually loaded with buckshot, it was 
 ascertained that the man had stood six feet from the girl, and yet 
 the charge was not scattered, and we found the whole of the left 
 
 * Vid. for observations on the Parisian street fights, and on the campaign 
 in Baden, Buchner in the Prager Vierteljahrschrift, 1854, i. s. 38, &c. 
 t Annales d'Hyg., 1836, s. 386. 
 
§ 10. GUN-SHOT WOUNDS. 267 
 
 mamma pierced by numerous shot-holes. A charge of powder alone 
 burns, contuses, and even lacerates the skin, when it has been fired 
 close to the body. These points excepted, in which all gun-shot wounds 
 agree, amongst a hundred different cases, we find every one different. 
 The wound of entrance has its edges by no means always inverted, as 
 all the text-boohs teach us, nor has the wound of exit its edges always 
 everted, so that it can be thereby in dubious cases always discovered 
 where the shot went in and where it came out. The condition of 
 the edges of the wound depend upon certain other conditions, besides 
 the entrance of the bullet; and of this I have been completely con- 
 vinced by the observation of a large number of persons shot, respecting 
 whose position at the moment of receiving the wound there would 
 be no doubt, since they were all killed before witnesses during street 
 riots or barricade fights. For instance, if the person wounded, or 
 if the part struck be very fat, such as the abdominal coverings, &c, 
 the fat soon protrudes from the wound, and it — the aperture of 
 entrance — is found to have its edges swollen and anything but in- 
 verted. In other cases, and those of frequent occurrence in medico- 
 legal practice, the putrefactive process causes the edges of both 
 wounds — when two are present — to protrude, and so prevents their 
 being recognised either as the aperture of entrance or exit. More- 
 over, the soft parts, both at the wound of entrance and of exit, are 
 often so torn and mangled as completely to conceal the existence of 
 any inversion or eversion of their edges. And there is still another 
 peculiar case which of late has been of frequent occurrence, in which 
 the diagnosis made from the state of the edges of the wound is per- 
 fectly deceptive — I refer to the case of wounds made by conical bullets. 
 Their visible effect upon the surface of the body is usually perfectly 
 different from that of round bullets, lead slugs, nails, stones, &c, for 
 in such cases we only find a trifling, unecchymosed, slightly contused 
 aperture, not always round, often more triangular, through which the 
 conical bullet has entered, and from the appearance of which no one 
 would for one instant suspect the amount of destruction which is to 
 be found inside. Should the ball have passed through the body, the 
 aperture of exit is precisely similar. This appearance is so constant, 
 that it is by no means difficult after a little experience, to decide 
 a priori with certainty that a conical bullet has been used. But just 
 because of these appearances I would recommend the greatest caution 
 in regard to the answers to any queries respecting the apertures of 
 entrance and exit in the case of wounds with conical bullets. 
 
268 § 11. GUN-SHOT WOUNDS. 
 
 § 11. Continuation. 
 
 The shot produces either a sharply-defined round opening in the 
 soft parts, or in the bones, as when it makes an opening in the skull 
 like a trepan wound ; this is, however but rarely observed ; or it lacer- 
 ates and shatters. Wounds of the first kind have been termed pure (?), 
 those of the latter sort, usual gun-shot wounds ; this is, however, a 
 matter of no importance. Whether this difference in effect be pro- 
 duced, as it most probably is, by the loading or by the kind of weapon, 
 I cannot say. It does not certainly result from the distance from which 
 the shot has come, so that the appearance of the wound does not in 
 this respect afford any means of diagnosis between murder and 
 suicide (§ 14); independent of the fact, that in the case of the 
 murder of one asleep (Case CX.), or quite near (Case CXXVL), and in 
 suicide, where the shot has been fired from some appreciable distance 
 (Case CXXVIIL), those appearances dependant on distance may 
 closely assimilate. Orfila, and after him Simon,* have expressed a dif- 
 ferent opinion — viz., that when the shot was fired quite close (within 
 from sixty to eighty paces, according to Simon's observations in the 
 campaign in Baden), and "when it came with great force," the aper- 
 tures of entrance and of exit were precisely similar, and seemed as if 
 they had been cut out with a punch. But here, again, we have con- 
 siderable stress laid upon " the force" with which the shot struck; and 
 my own observations compel me still to maintain the correctness of the 
 opinions just laid down. When the shot, as is often the case, crushes 
 and lacerates the parts at its entrance, then the edges are found irre- 
 gularly torn and lacerated in every conceivable fashion, often with a 
 considerable deficiency of skin at the aperture of entrance, and the 
 subjacent hard- parts completely shattered with jagged fissures stream- 
 ing off in every direction, or whole portions of the body, the head, 
 for example, may be partially or wholly blown off from the rest. 
 The colour of the edges is susceptible of infinite variation. When 
 the shot is not of such a character as of necessity to produce in- 
 stant death, the edges are usually surrounded with a more or less 
 broad border of ecchymosis, and are hard to cut. They are 
 generally, but by no means always, more or less scorched, and then 
 appear black as a coal and smeared with black blood. This colour is 
 to be distinguished from the blackening produced by gunpowder itself, 
 * Buchner, op. cit. 
 
§ 11. GUN-SHOT WOUNDS. 269 
 
 inasmuch as it produces a larger or smaller number of patches 
 covered with little greyish black dots. These scorchings and brand- 
 ings with powder only prove that the shot has not come from any great 
 distance, that is, as I have learned by observation in those cases 
 in which it was possible to estimate it, from a distance not greater 
 than from three to four feet. In cases, therefore, where suicide or 
 murder is in question, these marks may, according to the individual 
 circumstances of the case, either afford no proof at all, or, at the most 
 can only furnish a probability, as, for example, when two men have 
 been travelling together in one waggon, or have been wrestling with 
 one another, and it has become matter of doubt whether the shot 
 that has killed one of them has been fired by the other or not. In 
 general, however, the complete absence of scorching or of powder 
 branding from the edges of the wound permits us to assume with 
 some degree of certainty that the shot has come from a considerable 
 distance (more than four feet), and has therefore probably, or accord- 
 ing to circumstances, with great probability, been fired by a third party, 
 unless, as may happen in a few rare cases, there are facts to show 
 that the suicide has made peculiar arrangements to shoot himself 
 from a distance (as by means of a string fastened to the trigger, &c). 
 For experience teaches us that the whims of suicides are innumerable, 
 and often lead them to the most fantastic proceedings. But, more- 
 over, I cannot permit it to be assumed that the absence of scorching 
 and powder branding is an absolute proof that the shot has come 
 from a distance, — a doctrine that may be attended with the gravest 
 results in important criminal cases, since I have missed both of 
 these criteria from the edges of the wounds of persons who had indu- 
 bitably shot themselves. One of the most recent of these was that 
 of an instrument maker, who, as a letter in his pocket proved, had 
 shot himself for slighted love. The body was found lying in the 
 Thiergarten,* but no weapon near it. The charge, a piece of lead, 
 apparently filed by himself to the shape of a conical bullet, had 
 traversed the heart. The wound was of a remarkable, almost 
 perfect triangular shape, its sides measuring one inch and a-half and 
 one inch in length, and its edges were perfectly sharp, smooth, and 
 perfectly unecchymosed, so that it resembled an incised much more 
 than a gun-shot wound ; not a single grain of powder was to be found 
 branded on the edges of the wound, the neck or the face. If the shot 
 have passed through articles of clothing before entering the body, 
 * A large public park close to Berlin. — Transl. 
 
270 §11. GUN-SHOT WOUNDS. 
 
 these are usually torn, and very often, from the elasticity of their 
 textures, they display a smaller aperture than the wound in the body, 
 or they may remain untorn, passing into the body as a pouch in front 
 of the ball, which falls out when the cloth is pulled forward. Such 
 cases are, however, but rare, while it is very common to find rags torn 
 from the clothing lying with the bullet when its track is laid open in 
 the body* In regard to the track of the ball, this can in general 
 only be followed and investigated when it has passed through dense 
 and firm parts, such as the muscles of the extremities or back, the 
 nates, &c. Its general direction can also be estimated when it passes 
 through parts having a dense surface, as the head and face, thorax, 
 &c. In the soft parts it is different. Among these the bullet track 
 is most easily followed in the brain by carefully removing layer after 
 layer, the track being easily recognised as a bloody pulp, passing in 
 a certain direction through the healthy brain-substance. In the heart, 
 also, it is sometimes possible to follow the track of the wound, hut 
 in general in such cases the heart is so completely disfigured as to 
 render it impossible to discover the direction of the shot. This is 
 also the case with the lungs in most instances, and also with the 
 liver and spleen. When the shot has passed through the bowels, it 
 is also extremely difficult to investigate its direction, and for this very 
 reason, that the intestinal convolutions must be more or less altered 
 in their position even to begin the inquiry, and the whole state of 
 matters is thus necessarily changed. In all such cases a comparison 
 of the orifice of entrance with that of exit, where it exits, affords 
 often a basis whereon an opinion regarding the general directions of 
 the wound may be based. At other times, and this right often, the 
 bullet traverses the body in various directions, gliding off smooth 
 surfaces, ricochetting from hard bones, &c, and finding its exit in 
 some unexpected spot. And thereby are explained cases of the pre- 
 servation of life after a gun-shot wound that trench on the marvel- 
 lous, such as after the balls passing through the neck, which, however, 
 did not, of course, pass through the trachea, carotid, &c, but only 
 around them. Begin' s supposition that it is possible to distinguish 
 the cicatrix of the aperture of entrance from that of exit seems an 
 unusually rash one. He says that the cicatrix of the aperture of 
 entrance is circular, concave, depressed, the skin equally plicated 
 from the periphery towards the centre, also white and hardish, while 
 that of the wound of exit is generally smaller, irregular in its interior 
 * Vid. the representations of gun-shot wounds, Plate II. Figs. 4, 5, and 6. 
 
§ 12. EXPERIMENTS ON THE DEAD BODY. 271 
 
 protruding, elevated, slit-shaped, or of various forms. It is, how- 
 ever, self-evident, that too many circumstances modify the formation 
 of the cicatrix to permit such views to be regarded as founded on 
 fact ; moreover, the matter seems to be of very little importance in 
 regard to medico-legal practice, since if any one wounded by a shot 
 has lived long enough to have his wound cicatrized, he will probably be 
 able to tell the Judge himself from what direction the shot came. 
 Proofs in favour of all the assertions here made will be found in the 
 illustrative cases, which will be given immediately.* 
 
 § IS. Experiments on the dead body. 
 
 The result of my experiments on the dead body in regard to gun- 
 shot wounds could only be to make more complete the proof of the 
 resistance of the dead corporeal tissues, in contradistinction to the 
 same tissues when alive, after I had already learned this peculiarity 
 from my experiments with contused wounds (§ 6, p. 244), and this 
 peculiar resistant property was found to be confirmed in a most re- 
 markable manner. Bullets, half-an-inch in diameter, fired from a com- 
 mon pistol against any bone, but particularly against the cheek-bone, 
 from a distance of only from four to five feet, did not penetrate but 
 rebounded, after contusing the soft parts. The same thing happened 
 with slugs shot against a rib. A similar bullet was also fired from 
 the same pistol against the side of the occiput of a male corpse. It 
 penetrated, but remained sticking in the aperture, which it completely 
 filled, as the stuffing does a hollow tooth — no trace of a fissure be- 
 ing found in the bone (which was of the usual thickness). How 
 differently would a living bone have behaved if similarly wounded. 
 A conical bullet fired from a distance of three feet against the ab- 
 domen of an adult covered with four folds of linen, did not succeed 
 in completely traversing the body, but remained sticking in the 
 muscles of the back. It had not carried any part of the linen with 
 
 * It is to be hoped that physicians without much experience in medico- 
 legal matters, who are nevertheless frequently called upon at public trials 
 to perform the part of " experts," and also that medical boards of reference, 
 which do not always contain skilled medical jurists among their constituents, 
 may be warned by the opinions given above, and founded on actual expe- 
 rience, to find no fault with medical inspectors, should they in certain cases 
 declare themselves unable to make any decided statement regarding the 
 direction of the bullet-track, in spite of the most careful investigation, or 
 should they confess to not having found the bullet in the body, &c. 
 
272 § 13. ILLUSTRATIVE CASES. 
 
 it into the body. A conical bullet, fired at the distance of six. paces 
 against the left side of the head of a man, aged 24, who had been 
 drowned, broke up the cranial vault without destroying the scalp, 
 and completely traversed the head, escaping at a point directly oppo- 
 site its entrance. The track of the bullet could be distinctly traced 
 through the brain, its substance being but slightly destroyed by its 
 passage, of course without any effusion of blood. The wounds of 
 the skin and bones had the characteristic form of those caused by 
 conical projectiles, without any laceration or smashing, and of course 
 without any discoloration of the edges of the wound. Another 
 drowned person, was shot, at the same distance, with a round bullet 
 from a double-barrelled gun between the third and fourth ribs. The 
 wound of the skin looked as if cut out with a chisel. The track of the 
 ball could be very distinctly traced, which it is quite impossible to do 
 in the living body, from the extensive laceration of the soft parts. It 
 had cut clean through the upper lobe of the left lung, then the aorta, 
 the body of the fifth thoracic vertebra, the upper lobe of the right 
 lung, and terminated in a somewhat less sharp-edged wound of exit 
 on the right side. The track of the bullet could be traced as empty 
 grooves through the brains of all the bodies shot through their 
 heads, of course, because there was in these cases no effusion of blood 
 to disturb the distinctness of the view. It does not need to be men- 
 tioned, that the edges of the wound in every case presented no 
 appearance which could be mistaken for vital reaction. And for 
 this reason, gun-shot wounds, even when purposely produced on dead 
 bodies, can never for one instant be confounded with wounds 
 similarly produced during life. 
 
 § 13. Illustrative Cases. 
 
 Case CIX. — Gun-shot Wound oe the Lung and Spinal 
 
 Maeeow. 
 
 The. bullet which killed a deer-stealer, aged 38, took the following 
 extraordinary course. It entered the left hand, followed the course 
 of the radius, and penetrated the left shoulder. It shattered the 
 first and second ribs, passed beneath the collar-bone without wound- 
 ing the vessels, into the left thoracic cavity, lacerated the top of the 
 left lung, traversed the body of the third thoracic vertebra, lacer- 
 ating the anterior surface of the spinal cord, and finally passed 
 
§ 13. ILLUSTRATIVE CASES. 273 
 
 into the soft parts of the back, where it was found on dissecting 
 the body. 
 
 Case CX. — Gun-shot wound of the Liver. 
 
 This case was more rare and remarkable in its psychological aspect 
 than in its medico-legal one. Klebe, a journeyman mason, lived 
 with a mistress, and suspected that his son, a lad of 21, the fruit of 
 a former marriage, was too intimate with his sweetheart. He de- 
 termined to revenge himself, and sought to murder his own son from 
 jealousy ! ! The scene at the perpetration of the crime was such as 
 the most luxuriant fancy could scarcely imagine. Here lay the son 
 in the same bed with his younger brother, a little boy, round whom 
 his arms were accidently thrown — there, in the darkness of the 
 night, the father glides to the bed whereon his children sleep, a 
 small lamp in one hand, a loaded pistol in the other ; he bends over 
 the boy that he may not hurt him, places the muzzle of the pistol 
 just over the liver of his oldest son, pulls the trigger, and kills him 
 on the spot ! At the dissection the whole of the liver, except the 
 lohulus Spigelii, was found so completely broken up that, along with 
 the gall-bladder, it was transformed into a bloody pulp. Two pounds 
 of dark fluid blood were effused into the peritoneal cavity. The 
 bullet had traversed the liver, and also the internal edge' of the 
 spleen, and was lodged in the eighth dorsal vertebra, in which it was 
 found sticking. The unnatural criminal was executed. While in 
 confinement he made a great display (or pretence?) of penitence and 
 piety ! 
 
 Case CXI. — Gun-shot wound of the Omentum and Small 
 
 Intestine. 
 
 A woman, aged 50, was accidentally shot at the ball-practising of 
 the Citizen Militia. She stood about twenty paces distant from the 
 place of firing; the musket-ball entered in the right hypogastric 
 region, and made its way out posteriorly at the right border of the 
 sacrum ; and the" woman lived two hours. The abdominal wound 
 was protruded by the incipient putrefaction (not, therefore, inverted !), 
 the edges, to the extent of a quarter of an inch, were irregularly 
 ecchymosed ; and, of course, from the distance at which the shot 
 was fired, no powder marks were visible upon them. The edges of 
 
 T 
 
574 § 13. ILLUSTRATIVE CASES. 
 
 the wound in the back were also protruded like those of the orifice 
 of entrance, but they were not ecchymosed. The bullet had gone 
 quite through the great omentum, and had torn a piece, three inches 
 in size, out of the anterior wall of the ileum, close to its entrance 
 into the caecum, — appearances which sufficiently explained the pre- 
 sence of faeces, and of eight ounces of coagulated blood in the 
 peritoneal cavity. The whole of the body was completely an- 
 aemic. 
 
 Cases CXII. and CXIII. — Fatal gtjn-shot wound of the 
 
 Head. 
 
 At the well known assault upon the arsenal on the evening of the 
 14th of June, 1848, two of the assailants, — both of them from the 
 lowest dregs of the people, — were shot dead by the City Militia. 
 The one — a thief already convicted eleven times ! — had three gun- 
 shot wounds on his head ; one, a lacerated wound, almost triangular, 
 and one inch long, was situate over the right supra-orbital arch ; 
 half-an-inch above this was the second wound, also with lacerated 
 edges, and the size of a fonrpenny-piece ; and the third one, one 
 inch in diameter, was situate on the right parietal eminence, and 
 from it there projected a piece of bone half-an-inch long. The whole 
 of the skull was shattered, and the right cerebral hemisphere com- 
 pletely broken up. How could this extraordinary shot be explained ? 
 Only by supposing that the shot had been fired by a double- 
 barrelled musket, both balls having entered through the wound in 
 the parietal bone, and afterwards diverged, as such shots generally 
 do, and escaped by two different openings anteriorly. This suppo- 
 sition of mine was afterwards confirmed by further investigation, 
 which brought to light that only two shots had been fired upon that 
 
 occasion, one of which had killed this man, and the other, , 
 
 his worthy comrade, who was a journeyman shoemaker and barricade 
 hero of 30 years of age. At the moment of the receipt of the fatal 
 wound, he must have been calling out with open mouth (or perhaps 
 been yawning), since the bullet had entered by the mouth and passed 
 out at the right side of the neck, one inch from the spinous processes 
 of the sixth and seventh cervical vertebrae, where there was a roundish 
 lacerated wound with everted swollen edges. The tongue was torn 
 to its centre, and hung in bloody tatters half-an-inch out of the 
 
§ 13. ILLUSTRATIVE CASES. 275 
 
 mouth. The teeth on the right side were amissing, and the whole 
 of the under-jaw was shattered, its external coverings remaining unin- 
 jured. The ball had not injured the great vessels of the neck. The 
 putrefaction, which was already considerably advanced, did not per- 
 mit any exact examination of the brain to be made; but after 
 removing the dura mater from the base of the skull, we found it 
 completely shattered : the ethmoid bone, the petrous portion of the 
 right temporal bone, the sphenoid and the occipital bones were all 
 fractured. It is certainly remarkable that the ball, which in this 
 case had passed beneath the cranium proper, had yet produced such 
 extensive fractures of the true cranial bones. 
 •* 
 Case CXIV. — Fatal gun-shot wound of the Head. 
 
 In this case the bullet lodged in the brain. It was a buckshot, 
 with which a boy, aged 13, had been shot in the head. The bullet 
 had entered through the centre of the left parietal bone, and had 
 carried with it two small splinters of bone down to the left lateral 
 ventricle, where they were found. The little bullet was discovered 
 completely flattened, lying at the base of the cerebellum. Prom the 
 shot-hole in the bone a denticulated fissure extended in an exceedingly 
 rare manner, viz., horizontally, across the head towards the right, 
 where it ended in the middle of the lambdoidal suture, while by far 
 the largest number of fissures in the cranial bones follow a vertical 
 direction. We also found in the basilar part of the occipital bone 
 a piece of bone the size of a bean, broken out and lying loose in the 
 rest of the osseous tissue. 
 
 Case CXV. — Fatal gun-shot wound of the Head from a 
 
 CONICAL BULLET. 
 
 The following case was very similar to the last one, it was that of 
 a boy aged 15, who acted as marker at target-practising, and was, 
 through carelessness, shot in the head. The wound was situate in 
 the scull-cap at the junction of the occipital and parietal bones on 
 the right side, and appeared as a very irregular, partly circular and 
 partly triangular, aperture, with flat, not inverted edges, which were 
 feebly ecchymosed. Scorching was, of course, not to be expected 
 .(and was not found) since the shot had notoriously come from a 
 
 t2 
 
276 § 13. ILLUSTRATIVE CASES. 
 
 distance of 150 paces. A precisely similar aperture was found in 
 the cranial bones, and close beneath it the conical bullet was found 
 lodged in the protruding cerebral substance, with its base, strange 
 to say, flattened out and, as it were, torn. The declaration of an 
 eye-witness that the bullet had first struck a plank, and had been 
 reflected from that to the boy's head, sufficiently explained the 
 irregular appearance of the wound, and the trifling effect produced 
 by the ball. The boy lived three days. The posterior half of 
 the right cerebral hemisphere was completely transformed into a 
 purulent pulp. The case was all the more interesting from the fact 
 that the perpetrator of the deed was known to be one of two, one of 
 whom used a conical and the other a round,i)ullet, and the' discovery 
 of the conical bullet in the body revealed the true culprit. 
 
 Case CXVI. — Fatal gun-shot wound of the Head by a 
 
 CONICAL BULLET. 
 
 This was a case very characteristic of the nature of a wound made 
 by a conical bullet. The ball had entered on the right side of the 
 neck, near the vertebrae, by a small triangular orifice, scarcely the 
 size of a threepenny-piece, the edges of which were slightly inverted 
 and ecchymosed to the distance of about two lines. The aperture 
 of exit was situate on the right cheek in front of the ear, and appeared 
 as a triangular wound half-an-inch long, with edges ecchymosed for 
 about a line's breadth, and not everted. The whole of the base of 
 the brain was bathed in black coagulated blood. The petrous portion 
 of the right temporal bone was fractured,, zigzag fissures running 
 from this point into the occipital bone. 
 
 Case CXVII. — Fatal gun-shot wound of the Head with a 
 conical bullet. 
 
 This was the case of a canal labourer, named S., aged 21, who was 
 shot through the head during the riot on the 16th of October, 1848. 
 In the middle of the right cheek there was an irregular, roundish 
 wound, about the size of a halfpenny, with hard, dry edges, burnt for 
 about half-an-inch all round — whence it was to be gathered that the 
 muzzle of the piece could have been but a few feet distant ( J id. § 11) ; 
 and through this opening one could look into the antrum Righmori. 
 The aperture of exit was at the right mastoid process, and was a 
 
§ 13. ILLUSTRATIVE CASES. 277 
 
 triangular wound, with soft unecchymosed edges. The whole of the 
 right side of the skull was shattered, and particularly the right great 
 wing of the sphenoid, the temporal bone with its petrous portion and 
 part of the occipital bone. The base of the brain and the cerebellum 
 were bathed in dark blood coagula. 
 
 Case CXVIII. — Gun-shot wound of the Popliteal Vein. 
 
 At another target practice of the City Militia, a boy, 12 years 
 old, standing by the target, was shot dead. In this case the death was 
 caused purely by haemorrhage, and this from the popliteal vein. The 
 ball had passed beneath the knee-joint from within outwards, without 
 injuring the joint, and had made a tear three-quarters of an inch long 
 in the posterior wall of the popliteal vein. The aperture of entrance 
 was circular, its edges sharp, smooth, dry, eechymosed, and somewhat 
 inverted. The aperture of exit was somewhat smaller, its edges 
 lacerated and everted. The bullet track was stuffed with coagulated 
 blood. That the haemorrhage in this case must have been consider- 
 able, and truly fatal, was sufficiently evinced by the complete anaemia 
 of the whole body, which in this case even affected the cerebral veins ; 
 and this, as I shall by-and-by show, is by no means always the case 
 in cases of death from haemorrhage (§ 21, Spec. Div.). 
 
 Case CXIX. — Gun-shot wound op the Heart and Lungs. 
 
 At the canal labourers' riot at Berlin on the 16th of October, 1848, 
 by an unlucky chance, an unconcerned watchman, who sat composedly 
 in his box upon the field of battle, was shot through the chest ; the 
 bullet passed over the manubrium sterni into the chest, where it 
 lodged. The heart was torn to pieces, and the superior lobe of the 
 left lung was partially lacerated, and of course there was an enormous 
 effusion of blood into the cavity of the pleura. The ball had not 
 passed out of the body, yet it could not be found amid the mass of 
 blood coagula. 
 
 Case CXX. — Gun-shot wound of the Vena Cava. 
 
 The following six cases also take their origin from the same canal 
 labourers' riot ; they comprise a journeyman mason, two journey- 
 men tailors, a whilom publican, a day-labourer, and an unknown 
 
278 § 13. ILLUSTRATIVE CASES. 
 
 workman. In the case of T., there were three pounds of half-coagu- 
 lated blood in the peritoneal cavity, which had come from a wound of 
 the vena cava. The orifice of entrance was over the crest of the 
 left ileum, and its edges were ecchymosed for two lines in breadth. 
 In this, not only was the ball not found, although, as it had not 
 passed out, it must have been lodging in the body, but even a 
 probe which was stuck into the track of the bullet to point out its 
 course also disappeared — the like I have seen in two other cases, — 
 and it had to be sought for long in the abdominal cavity before it 
 could be found. 
 
 Case CXXI. — Gun-shot wound of the Aech of the Aoeta 
 and of the Lungs. 
 
 In C, aged 18 years, the bullet had entered between the second 
 and third ribs on the left side, and passed out at the right shoulder- 
 blade. Remarkably enough, the ball, without wounding the left 
 lung, had penetrated the arch of the aorta, making in it an orifice 
 the size of a threepenny-piece, whose edges were not ecchymosed, it 
 then traversed the upper lobe of the right lung, two-thirds of which 
 it had completely lacerated. In the right cavity of the pleura there 
 were ten, in the left three ounces of dark fluid blood. In this case, 
 also, of sudden death from haemorrhage, the cerebral veins were by 
 no means empty. 
 
 Case CXXII. — Gun-shot wound of the Diaphragm and 
 
 Lung. 
 
 In this case the appearances were most unusual ! Externally, the 
 aperture of entrance (with inverted edges, hard to cut, and ecchy- 
 mosed for the breadth of two lines) was visible between the fifth and 
 sixth ribs on the right side. On laying open the thorax, the. liver 
 was the first thing that caught the eye, its convexity projecting into 
 the cavity. Of course, the diaphragm must have been injured, and, in 
 fact, it was found torn right across its right half. The inferior lobe 
 of the right lung was also lacerated by the bullet, the direction of its 
 track was therefore easily inferred. There was nothing else injured. 
 
§13. ILLUSTRATIVE CASES. 279 
 
 Case CXXIII. — "Wound of the Lung and Vena Cava by a 
 
 CONICAL BULLET. 
 
 A most characteristic wound by a conical bullet had proved fatal 
 to a canal labourer. The only injury visible on the entire body 
 was an orifice the size of a pea at the internal part of the right 
 arm, with edges blue and ecchymosed for the breadth of two 
 lines. This little wound was only discovered after repeated care- 
 ful but fruitless examination of the whole body for an injury, and 
 might very readily have been overlooked, particularly if the body 
 of the presumed victim of accident or suicide had been only inspected 
 by a legal functionary. The bullet had passed into the chest, had 
 penetrated the upper lobe of the right lung, and lacerated the vena 
 cava. We could not find the bullet amidst such a mass of blood 
 coagula (eighteen ounces in weight) . The following was a similar 
 case : — 
 
 Case CXXIV. — Gun-shot wound of the Heart and Lung. 
 
 The bullet had entered between the sixth and seventh ribs. The 
 wound was irregular, roundish, half-an-inch in diameter, apparently 
 caused by a common musket (ball and not a conical) bullet ; its edges 
 were not inverted,- but were irregular, hard, and surrounded with a 
 dark-red ecchymosis the breadth of two lines. The internal wound 
 was not ecchymosed. In the left pleural cavity there were four, and in - 
 the right one twenty ounces of dark coagulated blood. The ball had 
 passed through the inferior lobe of the left lung into the pericardium, 
 had completely lacerated the left ventricle of the heart, and finally 
 penetrated the inferior lobe of the right lung, in which it remained 
 implanted. 
 
 Case CXXV. — Gun-shot wound of the Lung and Femoeal 
 
 Aeteey. 
 
 This man had been twice shot. One bullet had lacerated the fe- 
 moral artery about the middle of the right thigh, and another had 
 apparently passed in by a wound about the size of a shilling, with 
 dark-red ecchymosed edges, situate over the left acromion, out of 
 which protruded the splintered collar-bone. The orifice of exit, 
 
280 § 13. ILLUSTRATIVE CASES. 
 
 situate at the upper edge of the left shoulder-blade, resembled the 
 wound of entrance, only it was smaller, and had everted edges. The" 
 ball had passed through the top of the superior lobe of the lung, 
 and had broken off the left transverse process from the first thoracic 
 vertebra, and shattered its body. Withal, it was somewhat remark- 
 able to find only three ounces of clear fluid blood in the left pleural 
 cavity, whilst in general much more considerable effusions of blood 
 are found in cases of penetrating wounds of the lungs, as the fore- 
 going cases have exemplified. But the whole body was anaemic, and 
 the fatal haemorrhage had evidently taken place from the femoral 
 artery, and at an earlier period than that from the lung. Had both 
 of these shots been fired with criminal intent by two different persons, 
 the case would have given rise to most interesting legal questions, 
 since, according to the appearances on the dissection, the (of itself 
 unquestionably fatal) wound in the chest did not kill, but had only 
 been inflicted upon a man already mortally wounded. 
 
 Case CXXVI. — Mtjedek, by a gun-shot wound of the 
 Diaphragm. 
 
 According, as it was alleged, to previous agreement, a journeyman 
 silkweaver, shot his sweetheart (one hot August), by placing a 
 double-barrelled pistol, each barrel of which had been loaded with 
 half a bullet, upon the region of her heart and firing off one barrel. 
 He then endeavoured to shoot himself with the other barrel, but the 
 bullet was caught in it. His sweetheart, still living, called on him 
 to stab himself, which he attempted to do with a bread-knife and two 
 razors, but in Vain. The girl, still living, exhorted him to hang 
 himself ! and he tried to do this with a towel fastened on a doorlatch. 
 He became insensible, was seized, imprisoned, and condemned to be 
 executed, this being afterwards commuted to imprisonment. The 
 body of the girl was, alas I only three days after her death already 
 green from putrefaction; between the seventh and the eighth ribs on 
 the left side there was a large opening out of which the stomach pro- 
 truded, in size like a child's head, but in so disorganized a state that 
 in attempting to replace it it burst. The external wound was two 
 inches long and one inch in width, with edges slightly inverted, dry, 
 unecchymosed, and on which there were visible here and there dark- 
 grey points (powder marks). Both ribs were uninjured, as also both 
 lungs, which were anaemic. In the left pleural cavity there were 
 
§14. SUICIDE OR HOMICIDE 1 281' 
 
 four, in the right two ounces of a dark, half fluid, half coagulated 
 blood. The heart and large blood-vessels were uninjured, but not so 
 the diaphragm, the entire left half of which was irregularly torn, 
 with strongly ecchymosed edges. Through this rent the distended 
 stomach had protruded. Besides the rupture which took place at 
 the dissection, there was also another round, sharp-edged, unecchy- 
 mosed opening two inches in diameter, situate in the anterior wall of 
 the stomach. The rest of the abdominal organs were uninjured. 
 Though it was not, as is evident, difficult to form an opinion regard- 
 ing the nature of the case, yet the ball could not be found in the 
 abdominal cavity.* 
 
 § 14. Suicide oe Homicide ? 
 
 Besides what we have already said (§ 9, p. 263) in relation to this 
 question in general, the following points still remain to be considered 
 in regard to death by firearms. 
 
 (1.) The position of the loiy. — I cannot concede that the supine 
 position of a body found shot points with certainty to suicide, as 
 many authors assert, any more than that men shot by others, as 
 soldiers in battle, or those thus executed, always fall forwards, since 
 I have known many cases of indubitable suicide in which the bodies' 
 were found lying on their bellies. The medical jurist is not usu- 
 ally present at the discovery and removal of the body, which is 
 generally given to him for examination at a later period ; in regard 
 to this point, therefore, I possess no considerable experience. I have 
 had more frequent occasion to see the bodies of those who have died 
 from cutting their throats, than of those who have shot themselves, 
 lying on the place and in the position in which they have died. I 
 have found these bodies, no doubt, usually lying on their backs, but 
 frequently also on their bellies. This variety in position seemed to 
 depend upon that in which the person had been at the moment in 
 which he gave himself the fatal wound; t these various observations at 
 
 * Vide cases of gun-shot wound in the axillary artery, p. 65 ; in the 
 spinal marrow, p. 123 ; and in the lungs, p. 123. 
 
 t I have learned officially, that staff-surgeon, Dr. "Wolff, saw in Dantzic, 
 of four cases of suicide by firearms (soldiers), to which he was called im- 
 mediately after the commission of the deed, two of them lying on their 
 bellies. Both of these had shot themselves, standing, with the (Prussian) 
 needle-musket. The other two had shot themselves with the same weapon 
 while sitting upon the edge of a bed ; these were found lying on their backs. 
 
282 §14. SUICIDE OR HOMICIDE? 
 
 any rate justify the assumption of the dogma : that no conclusion 
 
 AS TO THE SUICIDAL OR HOMICIDAL NATURE OF THE CASE CAN BE 
 DRAWN FROM THE POSITION IN WHICH THE BODY SHOT HAS BEEN 
 FOUND. 
 
 (2.) The discovery or not of the weapon near the body proves 
 nothing, as every one knows, since it is just as likely to be stolen 
 from the dead suicide, and so to be not found beside him, as happens 
 with us very frequently, where the bodies are lying in the open air 
 with good useful pistols beside them, as it is to be intentionally left 
 near his victim by the murderer, with the design of obscuring the 
 traces of his crime. Most extraordinary complications do, moreover, 
 occur, as we will find, for instance, in Case CXXXVL, in which a 
 pistol loaded with ball, was found lying beside a man shot dead 
 through the heart. In a more recent case, two double-barrelled 
 pistols, one of them burst, were found lying by the body, whereof 
 three barrels had been fired. This man, aged 40, had shot himself 
 immediately after his arrival in one of our hotels. One charge was 
 found to have taken effect in the left hypogastric region; out of the 
 wound a convolution of the large intestine protruded; a second one 
 had made a wound in the umbilical region, and a third one, evidently 
 the last, had penetrated the forehead and smashed the skull. Should 
 the weapon be found, very often some degree of probability may be 
 attained by its simple inspection. For instance, in cases of suicide 
 occurring amongst the lower and poorer classes, we often find near 
 the body old and useless pistols, or a gun-barrel merely, or some 
 kind of firearm extemporised for the purpose, such as a third party 
 would scarcely have used with intent to kill ; this is a matter not 
 hitherto taken notice of, and I can recommend it as deserving 
 of attention. Should the gun so found be burst, that of itself 
 gives a certain air of probabibty to the idea of suicide; since 
 suicides are fond of overloading the weapons employed, to make more 
 certain of their end, and often also from ignorance load them badly. 
 All authors recommend you also to compare the bullet that has 
 caused the death with the bore of the weapon found. It does not 
 appear, however, why this comparison should be undertaken, since a 
 murderer will scarcely intentionally place any other weapon than the 
 one employed near the body ! Moreover, in order to institute this 
 comparison, it is necessary first to find the bullet. But when this 
 has passed through the body we cannot of course find it, and we 
 have already stated (p. 265) that it is not always possible to do so, 
 
§ 14. SUICIDE OR HOMICIDE? 283 
 
 even when~we know that it is in the body. Finally, the com- 
 parison is not possible when small shot, buckshot, or lead slugs, 
 &c, are used, which will pass into any barrel, or when the bullet has 
 lost its original form by striking against hard bodies, since to 
 beat it right again, as Bock advises, and then compare it with the 
 bore of the presumed weapon, is a most unsafe experiment, and one 
 against which the advocate of the person accused might most justly 
 protest. "We have already spoken of the investigation of the fouling 
 of the gun-barrel and of Boutigney's experiments on this point, 
 and have shown their insufficiency (§ 37, p. 135). 
 
 (3.) The examination of the hands, particularly in most cases of 
 the right hand of the corpse, is not nearly so often as it is supposed 
 of any use in determining this knotty point, but may certainly be of 
 the most decided importance, such as when the pistol, &c, is found 
 so spasmodically grasped that the fingers must be sawn through to 
 liberate it, a most infallible sign of suicide, since no third party can 
 by any means produce such a closure of the hand of a corpse. 
 
 Kussmaul * indeed supposes the contrary, and holds the spasmodic 
 closure of the hand to be the result of cadaveric stiffening, sup- 
 posing that if a pistol were placed in the hand of a corpse before 
 the occurrence of the rigor mortis, its fingers would on the occur- 
 rence of this rigor "grasp it so firmly that it would cost some 
 trouble to remove it." Eepeated experiments made on the dead 
 body for the purpose of investigating the truth of this assertion, have 
 convinced me of its error. We placed in the hands of bodies, lying 
 in the dead-house, immediately after death, at least before the occur- 
 rence of cadaveric rigor, round pieces of wood, such as pistol handles 
 and the like ; in other cases we bent the fingers and wrapped the 
 entire hand (holding the body) with a piece of cloth, and finally, we 
 fastened the fingers firmly round the wood with pieces of plaster, and 
 waited the occurrence of the rigor. In every case, without a single 
 exception, the instrument was with the utmost ease removed from 
 the fingers which seemed to clutch it. The spasmodic grasping of 
 the weapon, therefore, continues to be a most exquisite proof of 
 suicide. It is, alas ! one of the rarest phenomena. Next to this is 
 the discovery of fractures of the fingers, or recent cuticular abrasions 
 on the hands of the corpse, which may certainly supplement the 
 evidence of suicide; but it must also be remembered, that such 
 injuries may be otherwise produced; and this reflection may deserve 
 * Prager Vierteljahrsehrift, 1856, 50 Bd. s. 113. 
 
284 § 14. SUICIDE OR HOMICIDE? 
 
 the gravest consideration in important cases, where from other cir- 
 cumstances there is forced upon us the suspicion of an antecedent 
 struggle with a murderer. 
 
 Much importance has been laid upon finding the hand of the 
 corpse blackened. 
 
 Should this really depend upon branding with powder, the 
 question might still arise, — Has this not arisen from some previous 
 shot, and, in spite of this, may not the deceased have been shot by 
 some third party ? Such a doubt may perhaps appear well founded 
 in certain individual cases, but in general this sign is really demon- 
 strative of suicide. Only to make sure that we do not take the dirty 
 hand of a metal worker ( Fid, Case CXXXIIL), for the fouling from 
 powder, which it may strongly resemble, we must carefully wash it, 
 when the metallic stains will wash off, while the powder-branding 
 remains. Contrariwise, however, the absence of powder-branding 
 proves nothing. For the suicide may have worn gloves when he 
 shot himself, which have been afterwards removed, or in shooting 
 himself he may not have used his hand at all, as happened in Case 
 CXXVIII. ; and, besides, even in flagrant cases of suicide, in most 
 instances the hand is just as little blackened as it is in the case of 
 soldiers, gamekeepers, &c, after firing their pieces. Scorching of 
 the hand is, moreover, only likely to be produced by more or less 
 unskilful handling of some firearm destitute of a percussion-cap. 
 Injuries of the hand also do not happen to experienced shots, and 
 only arise from awkwardness; and this explains what experience 
 confirms, that in most indubitable cases of suicide by firearms there 
 is no remarkable appearance found upon the hands. And we have 
 now only to investigate — 
 
 (4.) The direction of the wound, which is frequently the only basis 
 upon which the decision can be grounded, and before doing so 
 I would beg to refer to the difficulties already enumerated in § 11. 
 It is well enough known that such situations as are usually 
 selected by suicides, from their certainty, such as the mouth, the 
 temples, or the region of the heart, are sometimes chosen by mur- 
 derers, to obscure their crime; and give it the appearance of self- 
 murder. But the direction of the wound may be such as to exclude 
 the possibility of suicide; for instance, should it tend from be- 
 hind forwards, or from above downwards, or should it be a 
 musket-ball which has penetrated the back of the head, &c, cases 
 
§14. SUICIDE OR HOMICIDE? 285 
 
 which are, however, extremely rare. And so in regard to this cir- 
 cumstance also, each case must be judged of on its own merits. 
 Should the wound be deep in the palate, where the muzzle of the 
 pistol had been placed (as in Case CXXXI.) ; should the deceased have 
 been destroyed by filling the mouth with powder and blowing it up (as 
 in Case CXXXVIIL), no one would hesitate to assume the fact of 
 suicide. Meanwhile, such a positive assertion is by no means always 
 possible, since we have opposed to it all the manifold considerations 
 we have just suggested. Still, we have just as little to say in this 
 as in any other medico-legal matter, in favour of that too much 
 affected subtle scepticism which leads men in ninety-nine out of a 
 hundred cases of death from gun-shot wounds, to leave the Judge in 
 perfect uncertainty, and against which the healthy human intellect 
 rebels. Suicides take place daily, murders, fortunately, but rarely. 
 Statistics, moreover, inform us that male suicides prefer shooting 
 themselves to any other form of death but hanging, and, also, that 
 accidental death from the incautious use of firearms is extremely 
 frequent in the case of soldiers, foresters, gamekeepers, and the like. 
 From all this it follows that in any doubtful case the probability in 
 favour of suicide is a priori much greater than that of murder. The 
 medical jurist must, therefore, seek so to express his opinion as to 
 give the Judge a firm basis, according to which to treat the case, 
 without wounding his own conscience, or excluding the possibility 
 of further light being thrown on the case by future investigations. 
 Such a mode of expression as we — we repeat it — are daily in the habit 
 of satisfactorily employing where the case does not admit of an un- 
 qualified " yes" or " no," such, for instance, as " that the dissection 
 with (according to circumstances, ' great/ or ' very great') proba- 
 bility favours the idea of ' suicide/ " or " that the dissection has not 
 revealed anything inconsistent with the idea that the deceased 
 has died from suicide (or accident)." In a very large number of 
 cases of death from violence, in which we have delivered our 
 opinion thus, and in which there were no other judicial grounds for 
 suspicion, the case was quashed by the dissection, and the docu- 
 ments reponed ; whilst, by permitting an unjustifiable scepticism, so 
 to word the medical opinion, as, e. g. " that the dissection affords no 
 means of deciding whether the deceased has died by his own hand or 
 that of another," the Judge would be necessitated, in order to enable 
 him to act one way or another, to refer the matter to the costly and 
 
286 § 15. ILLUSTRATIVE CASES. 
 
 tedious decision of the technical courts, to keep a suspected but 
 actually innocent person long in prison, and after all this disagrees 
 able delay obtain only the satisfaction of reponing the documentary 
 evidence. 
 
 § 15. Illusteative Cases. 
 
 Case CXXVII. — Murder by gun-shot wotjnd op the Thoracic 
 
 PORTION OF THE ElGHT JuGULAR VEIN AND OF THE LUNG. 
 
 The perpetrator of this deed confessed immediately after he had 
 done it, that he had shot his sweetheart, who had scorned him, and who 
 stood right before him, by firing at her two pistols loaded with buck- 
 shot, the charge from one of them having injured the abdominal cover- 
 ings, while that of the other had penetrated the chest. The haemorrhage 
 was but trifling, and I was accidentally enabled to verify this fact about 
 half-an-hour after the commission of the deed. The girl died in five 
 days. Although the shot had been fired quite close, yet the wound 
 in the chest, which was right upon the manubrium sterni, and was 
 half-an-inch in diameter, had its edges blackened, indeed, but not 
 ecchymosed. On the other hand, the closeness of the shot was 
 evinced even before the confession of the perpetrator, by the nume- 
 rous grains of powder branded over the whole of the left cheek. 
 The anterior portion of the vena jugularis tkoracica was found to 
 have irregular openings in it. At the apex of the superior lobe of 
 the right lung, there were two circular wounds, the size of the 
 buckshot produced. Both had traversed the whole of the lung, 
 and so diverged (p. 266), that the inferior wounds were three- 
 quarters of an inch apart. The two buckshot were found lying on 
 the right side of the diaphragm. The right pleural cavity contained 
 about one ounce and a-half of dark fluid blood. All the other 
 organs of this young and healthy girl were uninjured — only anaemic. 
 The case was an easy one to decide. The perpetrator was condemned 
 to death, but this was graciously commuted to penal servitude 
 for life. 
 
 Case CXXVIII. — Suicide from gun-shot wound of the Left 
 
 Lung. 
 
 A young man, studying medicine here, had, after suffering long 
 from melancholy, determined to kill himself. He placed a perfectly 
 
§ 15. ILLUSTRATIVE CASES. 287 
 
 new double-barrelled pistol, both barrels loaded, at the foot of a 
 sofa-table, tied a piece of match to the end of a cane, then laid him- 
 self down upon the sofa, with the upper part of his body well 
 forward so as to favour the entrance of the ball into his heart, 
 lighted the match and fired the powder in the priming pan. He so 
 far failed in his intent, however, the bullets missing the heart, but 
 lacerating the left lung, diverging to different points of exit in the 
 back, and lodging in the soft sofa pillow, where we found them. 
 The unfortunate young man lived, for five hours, so the method of 
 procedure was accurately ascertained. Of course, in this extraor- 
 dinary case, the hands were neither blackened nor injured, &c. 
 
 Case CXXIX. — Doubtful Suicide. — Gun-shot wound of the 
 Diaphragm and Spleen. 
 
 Another most extraordinary case. A man, aged 48, was found in 
 the water in January, clothed, and dead. His coat and top-coat were 
 buttoned up to the throat, his clothes and shirt uninjured. The police 
 never doubted but that the body was that of a drowned person, and their 
 astonishment may be imagined when, upon unclothing it, a gun-shot 
 wound was found in the region of the heart ! At the dissection it was 
 found that the shot had passed through the diaphragm and spleen, and 
 had lodged in the muscles close to the vertebral column. The lungs were 
 healthy, and contained no water, the trachea but a little bloody froth, 
 the right side of the heart was distended, the left empty; the left 
 pleural cavity contained a cupful and a-half of blood, the tongue was 
 between the teeth. In the head there was great congestion of all 
 the veins and sinuses, in the stomach a cupful of dirty water ; the 
 rest of the body was perfectly normal — if we except its unusual 
 obesity. In the early morning those living in the house near the 
 pond had heard the dogs barking, and from a spot not far from the 
 pond, where the snow was considerably disturbed, footsteps could be 
 distinctly traced to the pond itself. It is evident that this case was no easy 
 one to decide. We gave it as our opinion that the gun-shot wound 
 was absolutely mortal. But this absolutely mortal character of the 
 wound did not by any means involve instantaneous death, and the 
 wounded man might very well have walked a few steps to the neigh- 
 bouring pond, where he might speedily die, and this view was sup r 
 ported by the existence in the body of several signs of death from 
 drowning. As to the question of who did the deed ? the man him- 
 
288 § 15. ILLUSTRATIVE CASES. 
 
 self must be assumed to have done it, as the complete buttoning up 
 of all the clothes can only be explained by supposing the case to be 
 one of suicide, with a short interval of consciousness following the 
 fatal shot. Since both the clothes and shirt were uninjured, a mur- 
 derer must have shot his victim when naked, and in that case the 
 completely clothed condition in which the body was found is per- 
 fectly inexplicable. Finally, the circumstance that the death had 
 occurred from drowning before the gun-shot wound had time to 
 develop its fatal effects, militated against the supposition of the co- 
 operation of any third party. The fact of the pistol that had been 
 used being found in the pocket of the coat upon the body could 
 not be regarded as proof either way, since it was quite possible 
 for a murderer to place it in the pocket and leave it there for 
 the very purpose of exciting the suspicion of suicide. Other ana- 
 logous cases of suicide also favoured our views; it was subse- 
 quently ascertained who the unknown man was (a stranger mer- 
 chant), and then our opinion was completely confirmed by the 
 circumstances. 
 
 Case CXXX. — Doubtful Suicide. — Fatal gun-shot wound of 
 
 the Head. 
 
 A young man, aged 19, was found shot through the head, and 
 whilst his watch was left in his pocket, the pistol with which the deed 
 was done was awanting, and this brought the case under the cogni- 
 zance of the law, and necessitated an examination of the body. The 
 ball had entered about the middle of the forehead, where the soft 
 parts were lacerated in the figure of the letter M. There was no 
 branding with powder in the neighbourhood of the wound. The 
 orifice of exit was in the occipital bone. The wound in the frontal 
 bone was one inch in diameter, whilst that in the occipital bone 
 scarcely admitted the point of the index finger. The whole of the 
 cranial vault was blown off, being only firmly connected to the occi- 
 pital bone for the extent of two inches. The whole of the surface of 
 the brain was covered with blood, and its substance completely broken 
 up. The circumstances connected with the case were in favour of 
 suicide, and we gave it as our opinion that the dissection had revealed 
 nothing inconsistent with this view. 
 
§ 15. ILLUSTRATIVE CASES. 289 
 
 Case CXXXI. — Doubtful Suicide. — Fatal gun-shot wound 
 
 of the Head. 
 
 A powerful man, aged 85, was found shot dead. A most remark- 
 able circumstance connected with this case was the universal existence 
 over the whole body of a well-marked cutis anservna.* The direc- 
 tion of the wound was also most unusual; the ball had entered about 
 the middle of the palate, where there was a sharply-defined circular 
 opening ; from the^o«* Varolii onwards, the track of the bullet through 
 the brain could in this case be easily traced, inasmuch as little or no 
 blood was effused into it. About the centre of the occipital bone there 
 was a piece broken off about the size of a five-shilling piece, and 
 directly beneath it lay two half bullets. There was nothing remark- 
 able upon the hands, but the position of the wound of entrance was 
 sufficient to stamp the case as one of suicide. 
 
 Case CXXXII. — Wound of the Heart and Lung by a 
 
 CONICAL BULLET. 
 
 A journeyman locksmith had filed out for himself two tolerably 
 rude conical bullets, and shot himself with one of them. The other 
 was found in his pocket, along with a packet of powder. A recent 
 and bleeding fracture of the left index finger; showed that he had shot 
 himself with that hand. The wound on the breast had sharp edges, 
 as wounds from conical bullets generally have, was acute-angled, four 
 lines broad, its edges not inverted, and its circumference partly scorched 
 and partly ecchymosed. The bullet had penetrated the pericardium, 
 had torn the right ventricle and auricle to tatters, and, after wounding 
 the right edge of the left lung, had penetrated the back, and was 
 found sticking in its external coverings. The haemorrhage was 
 extremely 'trifling; there was only two ounces of blood in the peri- 
 cardium. 
 
 Case CXXXIII. — Wound of the Heart and Spleen by a 
 
 CONICAL BULLET. 
 
 On the body of a man, aged 30, one inch and a-half from the left 
 
 nipple, there was a circular opening, one-quarter of an inch in diame- 
 
 * Vid. Death from Drowning, Chap. VI. § 54. 
 
 U 
 
290 § 15. ILLUSTRATIVE CASES. 
 
 ter, with, sharp, clean dry edges, neither swollen nor inverted, surrounded 
 by a dark-coloured ring two inches broad, which was leathery, and not 
 ecchymosed. The fingers were bent and stiff. The first phalanx of the 
 left index fingers broken, and there was also beneath the fracture, on 
 the anterior aspect, a bloody wound, the size of a pea. The palm of 
 the hand was covered with dried blood. Both hands were greyish-black 
 with dirt, which could be easily washed off. From this the trade of the 
 deceased could be readily inferred, and it was accordingly found that 
 he had been — a journeyman tinsmith. On the left half of the back, 
 about three inches beneath the anterior wound, about two inches from 
 the spinous process of the ninth dorsal vertebra, there was a semi- 
 circular opening one-quarter of an inch in diameter, with sharp smooth 
 unecchymosed edges, neither everted nor inverted, in short, a wound 
 most characteristic of a conical bullet. If any one had taken a knife 
 and cut a semicircular flap of skin on a dead body, the wound would 
 have exactly resembled that now before us. At the dissection, the 
 fifth rib was found broken beneath the anterior wound, where the shot 
 had obviously entered. The whole of this region was infiltrated with 
 coagulated blood — a further proof of the correctness of what we have 
 already stated regarding the coagulation of the blood after death.* 
 For death must in this case have been instantaneous, since the left 
 ventricle displayed a rent an inch and a-half long with lacerated edges. 
 In this ventricle there was still a small coagulum j the right ventricle, 
 and all the large blood-vessels, were quite uninjured and empty. But 
 the whole of the left pleura was completely filled with blood, partly fluid 
 and partly coagulated. Both lungs were uninjured, but the ball, after 
 traversing the heart and pericardium had penetrated through the dia- 
 phragm into the abdominal cavity, making a jagged lacerated wound in 
 the upper edge of the spleen. The deceased had, therefore, shot himself 
 with his left hand, the muzzle of the weapon having been placed upon 
 the cardiac region, so that the conical ball had passed through the 
 body from above downwards, and from before backwards. * 
 
 Case CXXXIV. — Suicide by a gun-shot wound of the Hf,a™ 
 
 WITHOUT A BALL. 
 
 In the body of a man, aged 25, a circular aperture of entrance the 
 size of a five-shilling piece was found in the right temple, but there 
 was no aperture of exit. The soft parts were much mangled and 
 
 * Page 23. 
 
§ 15. ILLUSTRATIVE CASES. 291 
 
 cohered with dried blood; the left temporal bone, as well as the right, 
 blown loose, and the cranial basis fissured. The track of the wound 
 traversed the brain horizontally, and close to the internal lamella of 
 the left temporal bone there lay a paper plug the size of a hazel-nut, 
 which had in this case been the only projectile used. The blood- 
 stained right hand and arm, with distinct powder-branding on the 
 fingers, left in this case no room to doubt its suicidal nature. The 
 powder-branding was easily explained by the awkwardness of the 
 operator, who had used an old, useless, little pocket-pistol, which he 
 had evidently overloaded, since the barrel was burst. In this case, 
 also, there was a distinct cutis anserina over the whole body. 
 
 _ Case CXXXV. — Doubtful Suicide. — Gun-shot wound of the 
 Heart and one Lung. 
 
 A blind man, aged 52, was found sitting in his room by a warm 
 stove, killed by a pistol-shot through the left breast. The external 
 wound was three inches long and one inch and a-quarter wide, its 
 edges lacerated, and for more than half-an-inch in circumference 
 blackened and scorched. The ball had entered between the sixth and 
 seventh rib, had completely lacerated the left lung, and so mangled 
 the heart that the only portion recognisable was a part of the wall of 
 the right ventricle. In the left pleural cavity there were eight ounces 
 of dark fluid blood effused. The right lung was pale and quite 
 ansemic, as well as the whole of the rest of the body, with the excep- 
 tion of the veins of the pia mater, which were still tolerably full. 
 The back was perfectly covered with post-mortem staining. The case 
 was remarkable. The deceased was quite blind, having two per- 
 fectly-developed cataracts. His family knew of no motives likely to 
 lead to self-destruction. And they had also no suspicion where he 
 had bought the pocket-pistol, which he did not formerly possess, and 
 which was found near the body, nor even that he had procured one, 
 neither was any ammunition found in his possession. Towards the 
 close of his life (the autumn of 1848), he had been bitten by the 
 political mania of the period, and had been every evening conducted 
 to the clubs. It is at once evident that such scanty data were not 
 sufficient to lead to the supposition of murder having been com- 
 mitted, and, moreover, the direction of the wound would not justify 
 any such supposition. The examination of the hands led to no, 
 result. Both hands seemed by the candlelight— and the examination 
 
 u 2 
 
292 § 15. ILLUSTRATIVE CASES. 
 
 was obliged to be conducted by artificial light — to be dirty-bluish- 
 grey, and the fingers were flexed, but both were precisely alike. The 
 shirt, however, had been pushed aside, and it as well as the dressing- 
 gown were uninjured. These things seemed to bespeak a voluntary 
 death j and yet it is possible, that a third party, finding the poor 
 blind man, perhaps asleep, in his chair by the stove, might have shot 
 him after this careful fashion, in order to give rise to the suspicion of 
 suicide. In this state of matters we concluded our protocol of the 
 dissection with the following summary opinion, " That the dissection 
 has revealed nothing opposed to the opinion that the deceased has 
 committed suicide." Further judicial inquiries ascertained the cor- 
 rectness of the assumption of suicide, and the case was not pro- 
 ceeded with. The following case was very similar, but more difficult. 
 
 Case CXXXVI. — Doubtful Suicide. — Gun-shot wound op the 
 
 Heart. 
 
 In Frederick's Grove,* a man, aged 40, was found shot dead, and 
 sitting upon a tree. His watch and purse, which he was known to have 
 had with him, were awanting, and near him lay, certainly a most rare 
 and singular occurrence, a pistol loaded with ball. The coat, &c, upon 
 the body had been thrown open, the shirt was pierced by the shot, 
 which had penetrated between the fourth and fifth ribs on the left 
 side. Here we found a circular wound half-an-inch in diameter, with 
 lacerated edges, which were neither everted nor inverted. For the 
 circumference of two inches the skin was yellowish-brown and hard 
 to cut ; but there were no traces of powder-branding. In the left 
 pleura there was an effusion of two pounds and a-half (imp.) of 
 blood, partly fluid and partly coagulated, and the heart was com- 
 pletely shattered by the shot. In this case also, the most careful 
 search failed to discover the ball, which had not passed out of the 
 body. Both hands, as well as all the j.oints, were quite supple, and 
 no trace of powder-branding was found upon the hands. Was this 
 a case of murder or of suicide ? The question which was put to us 
 at the dissection was, " Could the deceased, after receipt of his fatal 
 injury, have loaded the pistol again?" — for by this supposition, if 
 true, the finding of the loaded pistol by the body would be ex- 
 plained. But, inasmuch, as death must have been instantaneous, 
 we could have no hesitation in answering it negatively. It was 
 * The new park outside the gates of Berlin. 
 
§ 15 ILLUSTRATIVE CASES. 293 
 
 much more difficult, however, to decide as to the likelihood of 
 suicide. The deeeased might have been robbed, while drunk, of his 
 watch and purse, and then shot dead, and the murderer might in this 
 case have loaded the pistol anew and laid it designedly by the body. 
 But this view of the case rendered the throwing back of the clothes 
 somewhat remarkable. The deceased might, however, have shot him- 
 self, and to that end might have taken out with him two loaded 
 pistols, one of which, with his watch and purse, had been stolen from 
 him after death. The absence of blackening around the wound was 
 in favour of neither supposition, since in either case the shot could 
 not come from any distance, neither could the absence of this black- 
 ening of the hands be regarded as of any consequence after what we 
 ^have already said (p. 284). In this very intricate state of matters, we 
 ' gave it as our opinion, "That the dissection has not revealed any 
 satisfactory data whereon to decide the doubtful question of murder 
 or suicide, but the appearances found were not inconsistent with the 
 idea of the case being one of self-murder.*' This case also was not 
 proceeded with further. 
 
 Case CXXXVII. — Gun-shot wound of the Heart and Lung 
 
 WITHOUT A BALL. 
 
 In this ca^e the suicide (of a sick tender) was clearly made out. 
 To conclude from the remarkable size of the wound, the man had 
 probably loaded with water. The aperture of entrance — one of exit 
 was wanting here too, where again no ball was used — was an inch and 
 a-half beneath the left nipple ; it was almost two inches long and one 
 inch wide, and had lacerated edges, which were neither inverted nor 
 everted. In its neighbourhood there were several ecchymosed 
 patches, partly denuded of their epithelium, of a dirty brownish-red 
 appearance, and soft to cut. Nothing unusual was found upon the 
 hands. It. was somewhat remarkable to find eight ribs (from the 
 fourth to the eleventh inclusive, on the left side) shattered. In the 
 left pleura there was a quart and a-half of very dark blood, in which 
 floated small pieces of the substance of the heart and many coagula. 
 The left lung was somewhat lacerated at its anterior border, and in the 
 lacerated pericardium the heart lay completely shattered. In the 
 bloody contents of the left half of the thorax there were also many 
 splinters from the fractured ribs, and a plug of strong grey paper, 
 but no ball. All the other organs were uninjured. 
 
294 § 15. ILLUSTRATIVE CASES. 
 
 Case CXXXVIIL— Doubtful Suicide. — Death from stuffing 
 
 the mouth with powder and firing it. bupture of the 
 
 Lungs, (Esophagus, and Left Carotid Artery. 
 
 This is so extraordinary a case that it certainly .deserves to be 
 related here. . It was that of a coachman, who died under such cir- 
 cumstances as to give rise to the suspicion of murder, although it was 
 known that he had been killed by blowing up a quantity of powder 
 with which his mouth had been stuffed. At both angles of the mouth 
 of the corpse there were jagged and scorched rents, of which the 
 right one was two inches long and one inch in width. The tongue 
 was only bloody and hard to cut, but not, properly speaking, scorched. 
 The palate was also uninjured. In the fauces there was an ounce of 
 coagulated blood. The skull was perfectly uninjured, and the effects 
 of the explosion of the powder were much more evident inferiorly. 
 In both pleural cavities there were respectively two and four ounces 
 of dark fluid blood, and the upper lobes of both lungs were perforated 
 with many holes, and much broken up. The trachea and larynx were 
 uninjured ; on the contrary, the faucial extremity of the oesophagus 
 was rent, and in its centre there was a rupture the size of a bean. 
 Finally, the left carotid artery was found ruptured. We therefore 
 gave it as our opinion (1.) that death had been caused by haemorrhage 
 from the aorta and from the pulmonary injuries, and (2.) that the 
 supposition that death had been caused by a third party was not 
 justified by the results of the dissection, but rather that the case was 
 one of suicide. Very soon thereafter it was made plain that the 
 suspicion of murder was perfectly unfounded. 
 
§ 16. DEATH FROM BURNING. 295 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 DEATH FROM BURNING. 
 
 § 16. General and Diagnosis. 
 
 This kind of violent death, which we have reckoned amongst the 
 mechanical deaths, for the reasons already stated, may kill in various 
 ways. For instance, the man is either burned by the action of flame 
 and heat, which kills by producing a more rapid and greater afflux 
 of warmth than the organism can make use of, and which, therefore, 
 kills by destroying the dermoid tissues. The resulting phenomena ap- 
 parent on dissection are those of inflammation, particularly of all the 
 serous membranes ; effusions being usually present, or of asphyxia (§ 39, 
 &c.) with inflammatory injection of the mucous membrane of the trachea, 
 hypersemia of the lungs, of the right side of the heart, and of the larger 
 blood-vessels ; or in other cases, particularly those of peculiarly sensitive 
 individuals (children), who die rapidly in great pain and convulsions, 
 the death ensues from neuro-paralysis, and the appearances found are 
 entirely negative. "When Eokitansky* states that hBemorrhagic 
 erosions of the mucous membrane of the stomach, as well as the 
 acute perforating ulcer, are "frequently observed" after death by 
 burning, we cannot, with such a voucher, doubt the fact of their 
 occurrence ; at the same time, in regard to their " frequency," I must 
 state that I have never observed these phenomena in a single case of 
 death from burning. The body is burned either by flame, or by 
 heat united to some solid body, as hot or glowing metal, incandescent 
 coal, &c, or with fluids, as water, coffee, oil, &c. Or the body is 
 " burned," as it is figuratively termed, by caustics, which also destroy 
 the dermoid tissues, such as mineral acids and caustic leys, solid 
 caustics, rubefacients, cantharides, mustard, &c.f 
 
 * Wochenblatt der Zeitschr. der Gesellsch. der Aertze zu Wien, 1856, 
 No. 23, s. 366 u. 368. 
 
 t Men who perish amid a conflagration, may also die from other causes. 
 They may he struck dead hy falling beams or walls, &c, or be suffocated in 
 
296 § 16. DEATH FROM BURNING. 
 
 In determining the fact of death from burning we are met 
 at the outset by the difficulty, that it is almost impossible to 
 determine with accuracy how large a portion of a surface of the 
 body must be burned in order to make death inevitable. Every 
 physician knows that burns involving the half or a third part of the 
 entire body must be regarded as necessarily fatal. Is, however, the 
 same opinion good should only a fourth or an eighth part of the body 
 be burned ? And how difficult would it not be to determine the 
 fractional amount of the burn, where, as is so often the case, it is not 
 continuous, but involves sundry patches upon one arm, others on the 
 back, and others on the leg. - In such cases, there is the widest scope 
 afforded for individual estimation ; but a rational consideration of the 
 individual case will serve to limit this. 
 
 A bum comprising the very same amount of square inches may 
 cause only temporary inconvenience to a robust workman, while it 
 may prove irreparably fatal to a feeble and sensitive woman. Irritable 
 little children die from bums which comprise but a trifling fractional 
 amount of the surface of their body. Therefore, because a purely 
 geometrical calculation of the surface of a burn is of no use in esti- 
 mating its severity, it is also quite erroneous to suppose, as I have seen 
 done, that a number of isolated patches of burning scattered over the 
 body, each of so unimportant a size as that they collectively amount 
 to but a trifling fraction of the entire surface, must have been pro- 
 ductive of no injury to life. This is just as erroneous as to estimate 
 the effects of several hundred needle-pricks, by stating that, taken 
 collectively, they constituted but an unimportant wound, scarcely the 
 size of a cherry ! The irritation of the cuticular nerves by so many 
 isolated burnt patches, both can and does cause very much more 
 pain and vascular reaction than a continuous burn of larger size ; and 
 this is nowise lessened by the greater difficulty of making the appli- 
 ances necessary for promoting the healing action in the case first 
 mentioned. 
 
 But the present praiseworthy condition of the penal code provides 
 that too much importance be not attached to individual opinions, 
 practically, since, as is well known, the law no longer takes 
 any cognizance of necessarily, or individually mortal injuries, &c. 
 (§ 185, Penal Code), and the medical jurist is required to decide each 
 
 the smoke. In such oases, however, the death is due to injury or asphyxia, 
 and not to combustion, which in these cases rather happens after the death 
 than before it. 
 
§ 16. DEATH FROM BURNING. 297 
 
 case on its own footing. Should burns be found upon a body, and 
 death have followed their infliction, while the dissection has revealed no 
 other cause of death, then the burns are to he regarded as its efficient 
 cause. It will frequently happen that the medical inspectors at the 
 time of the dissection are not in a position to give such a decided 
 opinion, because at this time they are ignorant of all the antecedents 
 of the case, a knowledge of which is requisite, unless where the burns 
 are very extensive ; in such a case it is requisite so to word the sum- 
 mary opinion at the end of the protocol of the inspection as to reserve 
 the power of giving a more decided opinion when a more accurate 
 knowledge of the case is acquired, either by the communication of 
 the documentary evidence, or by the examination of witnesses at the 
 time of the public trial. 
 
 The diagnosis of combustion on the body is in general by no 
 means difficult. The opposite assertion displays a complete misap- 
 prehension of the practical end in view. Thus, it is very far from 
 difficult, though it is generally thought so, to determine whether a 
 body, so completely destroyed as to be no longer recognisable, has 
 been burned before or after death. Such a burning is, of course, 
 always after death, since a living body neither roasts nor chars ! 
 But if it be said that it is difficult to decide whether the person burnt 
 may not have died from some other cause, — such as strangulation, 
 suffocation, &c. — and been afterwards burnt to conceal the deed, then 
 this is perfectly correct. But this difficulty concerns not combustion 
 alone, but every possible mode of destroying and disfiguring the 
 body after death, such as putrefaction itself, &c. As to the fancied 
 difficulty, however, of deciding as to whether blisters from burns 
 have been produced before or after death, I shall presently point out 
 that even in this case the decision can never falter. In general, 
 burns display themselves on the body in a twofold form. Either 
 the form of the whole body, or of its individual burnt parts, is 
 completely preserved, or it is not. In the first case, according to the 
 degree of burning during life, the burnt part is recognised by a 
 (crab-) red, or by a brownish coppery-red coloration, and a dry, 
 parchment-like condition. This hardness and the bright colour pre- 
 vent any confounding of these marks with post-mortem stains. In 
 certain rare cases, frightful to behold, the entire body may exhibit 
 the appearance described — as, for instance, when the unfortunate 
 individual has been actually roasted (Case CXLIV). Or we find 
 blisters, vesicular elevations of the cuticle, of various sizes, or burst 
 
298 § 16. DEATH FROM BURNING. 
 
 vesications, — excoriations of the cuticle. In every case we must be 
 careful not to confound this appearance with that which seems at 
 first sight very much to resemble it, viz. the bullae arising from 
 putrefaction; and we must be more particularly careful in those 
 cases in which both appearances exist simultaneously in the same 
 body, as our want of due attention to this matter inevitably leads to 
 an erroneous appreciation of the extent of the burn, with all the im- 
 portant influences on the medical opinion therein involved. Every 
 vesication produced by burning has a purple-red boundary line, be it 
 ever so narrow, perfectly visible to the naked eye, and also a more 
 or less red base ; the phlyctense of putrefaction have neither of these 
 peculiarities. Every excoriation produced by a burn exhibits this 
 reddened basis, .frequently beset with granulations already visible, 
 though minute, and yielding pus ; these are, of course, both absent 
 in excoriations, the result of putrefaction, in which the colour of 
 the exposed true skin differs in no respect from that in its immediate 
 neighbourhood, that is, it is either colourless or more generally green. 
 Of course, in perfectly recent bodies, that display none of the usual 
 signs of putrefaction, we need never think of looking for this pheno- 
 menon of advanced putrescence. 
 
 In the second case, where the form of certain parts or of the entire 
 body is destroyed by the combustion, the parts are so carbonized that 
 when the whole body is affected the human form itself is scarcely re- 
 cognisable, or the external coverings of the cavities may be charred, so 
 that it is nothing uncommon to be able to see through the openings 
 in the charred and shrivelled coverings of the abdomen or thorax, 
 right into their cavities, and to be able thus to inspect the roasted or 
 carbonized internal organs. 
 
 Solid and fluid caustics of every kind produce reddish-brown, or 
 (particularly that most common of all corrosives, sulphuric acid) dirty- 
 brown, and nitric acid, yellow patches or stripes, which cut leathery, 
 the incision affording no indication of ecchymosis, and beneath which 
 the true skin is completely destroyed. 
 
 When cases occur, as they sometimes do (Maschka, Buchner), in 
 which there may be a doubt, whether the burn has been caused by fire 
 or by sulphuric acid ? then, besides the appearances already described, 
 the following circumstance may also serve to assist the diagnosis : the 
 individual circumstances of each case ; the absence of vesication when 
 the burn has been produced by sulphuric acid ; the uniform colour 
 and condition of all patches burnt by the acid; while in any con- 
 
§ 17. EXPERIMENTS ON THE DEAD BODY. 299 
 
 siderable bum from fire, the different effects of fire are to be found on 
 the body near one another, blisters either existing or burst, roasted 
 patches, &c. ; further, traces of deposit of carbon (soot) on the skin, 
 the result of burnt articles of clothing, or of the singeing of the hair 
 upon the body, which is never produced by acids ; and finally, the 
 chemical- testing of the articles of clothing burned for sulphuric 
 acid (Fid. §46, Gen. Div., p. 206, and §34, under No. 2, Spec. 
 Div.). 
 
 § 17. Experiments on the Dead Body. — The production op 
 vesication afteb, death. 
 
 For the first time in the course of a medico-legal practice of many 
 years' duration, the following question occurred to me in the im- 
 portant Case No. CXLIL, to be afterwards detailed: — "Have the 
 vesications found on the body of the woman (Hake) been produced 
 subsequent to death or not ?" I considered myself justified in an- 
 swering the question negatively. This view was, however, combated 
 in another professional opinion, in which the following doctrine was 
 laid down, " that experience teaches, that vesications can be produced 
 even in the dead body within from twelve to twenty hours after death, 
 or even after the lapse of longer time, by the persistent action of fire, 
 very probably by the rapid expansion into steam of fluids which can- 
 not escape through the cuticle, and that these vesications resemble 
 those produced during life all the more perfectly the shorter the period 
 that has elapsed between the death and their production." The best 
 practitioners are opposed to this view. Orfila says (Med. Leg., I., 
 Paris, 1828, p. 457, "it has ieen attempted to discover whether there 
 are any vesications (without further description of their circumference or 
 basis), which are capable of truly denoting whether a child was alive 
 when burned or no." Devergie (Med. Leg., Paris, 1836, p. 273) 
 remarks : — " If boiling water or a piece of red-hot iron be applied 
 to the surface of a body even ten minutes after the death ; neither 
 redness nor vesication is produced ;" and shortly after he says, "that 
 it is not possible to mistake a burn that has occurred during life, for 
 one inflicted after death." Christison (Edin. Med. and Surg. Journal, 
 April, 1831), has made six experiments, "whereby it appears evident 
 to him that the application of heat even a few minutes after death is 
 incapable of producing any of the effects due to living reaction." 
 That case is particularly instructive in which an individual lying 
 
300 § 17. EXPERIMENTS ON THE DEAD BODY. 
 
 comatose had boiling water applied to him four hours before his 
 death, and was burnt with a hot iron half-an-hour after, whereupon 
 large blisters formed in the one case, and none at all in the other. 
 In spite of these experiments, &c, I did not feel perfectly satisfied, 
 and therefore, with the assistance of a friend, I instituted four ex- 
 periments on the dead body, the results of which were shortly the 
 following : — 
 
 (1.) We bound four times round the calf the leg of an old woman, 
 aged 60, who had been dead forty-eight hours, a strip of wadding 
 dipped in spirits of turpentine two fingers broad, and set fire to it (in 
 the living body this gives rise to most extensive vesication). The 
 wadding burned for four minutes, and was then entirely consumed. 
 The strip of skin beneath it was slightly and superficially roasted ; but 
 there was no trace of watery exudation or of vesication. 
 
 (2.) On the samebody the flame of an oil lamp was so applied to 
 the top of the foot, that its entire breadth, was in contact with the 
 skin. The result was, that that part'of the skin; became brown, dry, 
 and hard; but there was no trace of separation, swelling, or vesica- 
 tion to be seen, , 
 
 (3.) Two experiments were made upon a premature child, which 
 had lived for twentyrfour hours. Thirteen hours after its death, a 
 dossil of cotton- wOol one Square inch in size was dipped in turpentine, 
 laid on the stomach and set fire to. After three minutes and a-half it 
 was consumed. The spot was surrounded by fine radiating folds. 
 Within three minutes a few small rents were found in the circum- 
 ference, whilst the spot itself, which had been covered by the cotton, 
 presented a light-brown, dry, toasted, crust-like appearance, without a, 
 trace of vesication. 
 
 (4.) Upon the distended dropsical scrotum of this body, — upon 
 which, from its richness in moisture — according to the theory broached 
 in the opinion given above — vesication ought to have been most easily 
 produced, — a flame was so held that the base of its cone touched the 
 skin. A moderate but constant action of heat upon the skin was 
 thereby produced, without the possibility of any soot being deposited. 
 The part exposed to the flame contracted, and assumed a silvery grey 
 glistening surface; but nowhere did it exhibit the slightest trace of 
 vesication. — If it should be objected to the first and third of these 
 experiments that the covering of the skin may have obscured their 
 results, this would be in effect completely to ignore the practical results 
 of these experiments, for no one can deny that precisely such a bum, 
 
§ 17. EXPERIMENTS ON THE DEAD BODY. 301 
 
 as was here produced on a dead body, would, on a living one have 
 been followed by the most evident and unmistakeable results ! 
 
 I have not, however, contented myself with these early experiments ; 
 but, particularly of late, I have continued to make, in concert with 
 my students, many experiments on the production of burns on dead 
 bodies every academical session, and that, too, on individuals of every 
 different age and sex, and who have died from every possible variety of 
 cause ; and these have increased to such a number, and have been so uni- 
 form in their results, that it would be extremely tiresome and perfectly 
 superfluous to relate them individually. The experiments have been 
 made with various substances ; we have wrapped round various parts of 
 the bodies dry cotton, or cotton dipped in highly inflammable liquids, 
 and set them on fire ; we have poured boiling water or boiling wax over 
 the body ; we have allowed the point of the cone of the flame of a Ber- 
 zelian lamp,* and this produces by far the most intense action of fire, 
 to play upon the tournure of certain parts of the body, as the vault of 
 the thorax, the thighs, arms, &c. By very many such experiments I 
 have convinced myself, and all eye-witnesses, that it is an unquestion- 
 able truth — (1.) That no reaction ensues when the dead body is covered 
 flatly with substances that burn and have burned to charcoal, such as 
 folds of linen or layers of cotton- wool ; at the most, but a few small 
 burnt-looking patches are seen upon the spot, and a closer inspection 
 shows that these are only smutty particles from the substance burnt. 
 Of course any hair that may be growing upon the portion of skin 
 experimented on burns, and may give the place a superficially roasted 
 appearance. (2.) By means of the exceedingly intensive action of 
 flame described above, vesications can be produced upon the dead body, 
 though not by any means in every instance. The very great degree 
 of heat produces a rapid evaporation of the fluids. These elevate the 
 cuticle in vesicles of various but always small sizes. But the expan- 
 sion of the vapour within these vesicles bursts them, and in a few 
 seconds they explode with a slight crack, and the cuticle collapses. 
 Only in a very few instances did these bullae maintain their existence 
 for a few minutes before they burst. Their formation is not accom- 
 panied by any change of colour in the basis from which they spring 
 (Fid. the representation, Plate II., Pig. 3, a, b, c). Moreover, such 
 bulhe never contain serum, but only a watery vapour, and they never 
 exhibit any trace of the bounding line of redness, nor any trace of 
 colour on their basis. (3.) It makes no difference whether the experi- 
 * An argand spirit-lamp.— Te ah sl. 
 
302 § 18. SPONTANEOUS COMBUSTION. 
 
 ment be performed immediately or not till several days after death. I 
 may mention that the bodies experimented on by us were often left 
 for days exposed to the air and to continuous observation, but any 
 alteration of the burned parts by the action of the atmosphere was 
 never observed. The following remarkable experiment, performed by 
 ignorant men, which came under our observation three days after its 
 performance, was very instructive in this respect, as well as in relation 
 to the general question. A barrel-organ player, with his two chil- 
 dren, had leaped into the water ; they were all three taken out immedi- 
 ately, the two children alive, but the father dead. In order, if 
 possible, to recall the deceased to life, the by-standers had rubbed 
 him in the roughest manner, as was shown by the cuticular abrasions 
 on the chest and groins, and had, finally, kindled a fire of straw be- 
 neath the body ! The thighs and legs were mostly of a greyish-black 
 hue from adhering soot, and the same was the case with the back and 
 right arm ; also in about ten or twelve different places, there were 
 burst bullae, just as I have described them, of various sizes up to that 
 of a walnut ; and there was no alteration in colour either of the ex- 
 posed true skin of the parts excoriated, or of the base of these vesica- 
 tions. The conclusion deducible from all this is, that in by far the 
 largest number of cases, we would just as little expect to find persistent 
 vesications as the result of a post-mortem bum, as we would expect to 
 find a bum of the body to result from that unintentional experiment 
 daily repeated, the dropping of burning sealing-wax upon the pit of 
 the stomach of those just dead to see if they be really so — -a result 
 which I have not yet observed once amid a countless number of such 
 experiments which have come under my cognizance. When, there- 
 fore, vesications that may exist are examined with a due regard to the 
 points of diagnostic value, the conviction is sure to be attained, that 
 
 IT IS QUITE IMPOSSIBLE TO CONFOUND A BURN INFLICTED DURING 
 
 life, with one inflicted after death. I have nothing more to 
 say respecting the roasting and carbonizing of the body, inasmuch 
 as the individual must have been already dead before the action of the 
 fire could produce so great an amount of injury. 
 
 § 18. "Who is to blame, the person himself or another? 
 Spontaneous Combustion. 
 
 The question as to whether a person found burned has met with 
 his death from his own fault or that of another ? can only signify, 
 
§ 18. SPONTANEOUS COMBUSTION. 303 
 
 has the unfortunate individual perished by accident, or teen burned 
 by a third party ? for intentional suicide by combustion has never yet 
 been known to occur in sane persons, unless, perhaps, among the 
 Hindoo widows. The chief criterion in deciding this point is to be 
 found in the appearances on dissection, when they distinctly reveal 
 some other cause of death, such as fatal cranial injuries, wounds of 
 the throat, strangulation, &c. But the answer to this question may 
 become difficult or impossible, even should the circumstances of the 
 case render it possible or probable that such a primary cause of death 
 had existed, where the body has been so destroyed by burning, as to 
 obliterate every trace of any such mode of death. A proper estima- 
 tion of all the details of each case affords the only means of correctly 
 deciding it, and for this, no general rules can be given.* If the de- 
 ceased has been a workman employed about fire (a smith, &c), and 
 has been found burned to death in his workshop, it is much less 
 likely to have been a case of murder than if a countess were found 
 burned to death sitting before her secretaire in her boudoir.f And 
 the same is true in the case of some poor old woman found half- 
 burned sticking in the mouth of her stove, | and some lone-living rich 
 old miser, whose boxes and coffers lie empty and tumbled about the 
 room in which the burned body lies. Here, alas ! it is too true, as 
 Devergie says, that in ninety hundred cases of doubtful murder 
 or suicide, the truth is to be determined less by science than by 
 probative circumstances which he beyond its pale. 
 
 But might not the deceased, even should murder be, from the 
 circumstances, a probable supposition, yet have perished from spon- 
 taneous combustion ? and was there not a judicial murder perpetrated 
 on two innocent men in England, whose wives, according to the tes- 
 timony of the " experts," had perished by spontaneous combustion, 
 but who were executed, because an inexperienced jury declared them 
 guilty of murder ? It is sad to think, that in an earnest scientific 
 work, in the year of grace 1861, we must still treat of the fable of 
 "spontaneous combustion," a thing that no one has ever seen or 
 examined, the very proofs of whose existence rest upon the testimony 
 of perfectly untrustworthy non-professionals, upon newspaper para- 
 
 * Compare § 9, p. 263, and § 14, p. 281. 
 
 t On the cause of the death of the Countess von Gbrlitz, who was found 
 half burned. Von Graff, Erlangen, 1850. 
 
 X Vid. our most interesting case in the Viertljscht. for gerichtl. u. 
 offentlioh. Medizin. V. S. 1 u. f. 
 
304 § 18. SPONTANEOUS COMBUSTION. 
 
 graphs, all of which in their statements laugh to scorn every known 
 physical law. Every truly experienced medical jurist, who thoroughly 
 knows the criminal world, and all the lies, frauds and dissimu- 
 lations by which crimes committed are sought to be concealed, must 
 regard the hypothesis of spontaneous combustion as one of the silliest 
 of fables. Liebig has, from a scientific point of view, distinctly shown 
 the untenableness of any such hypothesis ; * and yet the most recent 
 handbooks of medical jurisprudence do not hesitate to teach the possi- 
 bility of the spontaneous combustion of the human body, which, 'to 
 quote only one of Liebig's facts, contains only 75 per cent, of water, 
 and is nevertheless, supposed capable of burning away to a handful 
 of ashes in a very short time ! For a full account of the arguments 
 against this hypothesis, so important in regard to the ends of justice, 
 
 1 beg to refer to Liebig's incontrovertible pamphlet ; and I shall only 
 now consider those points in relation to it which are most apt to 
 strike a practical medical jurist, or any other healthy human mind. 
 Whoever has seen any bodies dragged from the rubbish of great con- 
 flagrations, has seen them, perfectly carbonized indeed, and it may be 
 partially defective, but alway possessing at least so much of general 
 human appearance as to enable them to be recognised. But never 
 in such cases — never, even when the body has been exposed for days to 
 fire or incandescent heat, has it been reduced to ashes ! t And yet, 
 in most of the so-called "proved" cases of spontaneous combustion, 
 the whole process, even to the complete reduction to ashes, had occu- 
 pied but a few hours at most ! Further, if we are to investigate 
 these " cases," we find in all of them, without exception, that the 
 effects of the fire upon the persons themselves, as well as on the com- 
 bustible matters upon or around them, are so described as to throw 
 despite upon what every child knows to be the truth as to the burning 
 of the latter, and what every physician knows as to the burning of 
 the living body. The old drunkard was burnt, but the stool on 
 which her charred remains were found sitting was uninjured ; in other 
 cases, the legs or head have been burned, but not the stockings or 
 
 * Zur Beurtheilung der Selbstverbrennungen der mensohlichen Korpers, 
 
 2 Aufl., Heidelberg, 1850.— (Giving in a few pages a perfect pattern of 
 scientific criticism.) 
 
 + Except iu the rarest instances— in the case of Mr. Scott, destroyed during 
 the late (June- July, 1861) great fire in London— only two or three bones, 
 with a gold watch and guard, marked the spot where his body had been, 
 but it had been exposed to incandescent heat for nearly a fortnight !— 
 Teansl. 
 
§ 18. SPONTANEOUS COMBUSTION. 305 
 
 the nightcap ! A Mr. D. was playing with sulphur, which he set 
 fire to at a light ; he burnt his fingers and clothes, but extinguished 
 the flames. By-and-by, his fingers began to burn "like candles with 
 a bluish flame " (! !) ; and with these " candles " he ran to a doctor (! !), 
 &c. — for the fingers began again to burn. " They were bandaged up, 
 as in a case of simple burn, and twenty-two days afterwards the sick 
 man was in a satisfactory condition," for large vesications had now 
 formed.* And just because these extraordinary details exclude the 
 action of every physical law, some yet believe it necessary to have 
 recourse to still more wonderful hypotheses to explain them, without 
 confessing that that can be true to which modern science is opposed, 
 since that would be to admit every superstition or fable into the realms 
 of science. All is not true that is printed, and nothing less true 
 than spontaneous combustion, which in no respect can stand against 
 adverse criticism. Eor without mentioning, that amongst the thirty 
 sw-called attested cases, in which, instead of an individual who had been 
 seen the previous evening alive and healthy, only a few burnt fragments 
 or a handful of ashes were found in the morning ; there may have 
 been some in which murder had been actually committed, the traces 
 of which were attempted to be obscured by the burning of the body 
 (Case CXLIL), or, in which the body was wholly carried off under 
 cover of this burning, which, in truth, cannot be proved — without 
 mentioning, that even in our own day, and in enlightened 
 Northern Germany, people have not hesitated to assume as 
 "proven'" a case of spontaneous combustion, in which a young 
 sempstress (in Hamburg), when admitted to an Hospital, related! 
 that her finger had commenced to bum of itself, and in which 
 indeed — a burned finger was found (! !), the girl, for some reason 
 or other, having obviously deceived and mystified the physicians. 
 — We proceed to consider the following facts : — From the twenty- 
 eight cases of spontaneous combustion collected by Jacobs, t we omit 
 this Hamburg case, and also the two wives of the Englishmen who 
 were executed, and in classifying the others according to the countries 
 in which they occurred, we find that 20 happened in France, 2 in 
 England, 1 in Italy, 1 in Germany, and 1 in America. Twenty cases 
 
 * Riohond in den Archives de Medecine s. Devergie, Annales d'Hyg. 
 publique, 1851, s. 386. 
 
 t Vid. Casper's Woohenschrift, 1841, s. 113, &o. The same cases are 
 to be found quoted in every treatise, and also in the Encyclop. der Med., 
 Wissenseh., Bd. xxxi. 
 
 x 
 
306 § 18. SPONTANEOUS COMBUSTION. 
 
 in Prance to one in Germany, whilst another remarkable. disease (as in 
 truth spontaneous combustion must be called), the cases of which are 
 considered just as well " proven/' and which are just as little able to 
 withstand a scientific criticism, the now justly notorious "Pyro- 
 mania," is almost exclusively confined to Germany, and almost never 
 occurs in France. This, then, is a most remarkable circumstance, 
 since pathological essences are not limited by geographical boundaries ; 
 and the cause must be sought elsewhere ; and it is no less striking a 
 fact, that by far the larger number of all the known cases of so-called 
 spontaneous combustion have been handed down to us from the last or 
 even earlier centuries, and that in the many hundreds, of journals of 
 modern times there is scarcely one recent case to be found. We are 
 therefore led to seek for other reasons. 
 
 I may here mention, that in by far the largest number of cases, the 
 unfortunate individuals are stated to have been old, indeed very old 
 (from 50 to 90 years), given to the abuse of spirituous liquors, awl 
 that the accident has occurred during winter, by night, and in soli- 
 tude. I may also mention, that in most of such cases there has been 
 found in the room along with the spontaneously-consumed body, some 
 substance, however apparently trifling, burning, or that had been 
 alight, such as a tobacco-pipe, a candle, a lamp, and especially an 
 open fire. In portraying such a scene, what can be more natural 
 than to suppose the following sequence of events : some evening in 
 winter, in a wine country, a drunken old man or woman comes home 
 half frozen, proceeds to light a fire in his lone room, and in warming 
 himself at it sets fire to his clothes, and is burnt ? Or the drunken 
 old man, stupid with wine and sleep, and mentally feeble from age, sets 
 fire to his clothes, bed curtains, &c, either with a spark from his 
 tobacco-pipe, or by going about carelessly with a lighted lamp or 
 candle, and is himself consumed in the conflagration ? Such an expla- 
 nation is certainly more natural and more tenable, than any hypothesis 
 of "an excess of phosphorized fat in the blood," of extraordinary 
 electrical agencies, of the existence of phosphoretted hydrogen in the 
 body, &c. And suck cases of spontaneous combustion indeed occur 
 everywhere and every winter, only they may well be more numerous 
 in France than in Germany, because in France their beds have cur- 
 tains, which as a rule they have not in Germany, because in France 
 fire-places, and therefore open fires are in every room, and in Germany 
 only closed-in stoves ! Moreover, in our Fatherland for almost two 
 Hundred years we have possessed a regulated public body of medica 
 
§ 19. ILLUSTRATIVE CASES. 307 
 
 men, beneath whose cognizance all such cases must come, while 
 France, and other countries, still want in part this benefit, and 
 therefore the details of all the recorded cases of spontaneous combus- 
 tion have been communicated by priests, barber-surgeons, and rustics. 
 Moreover, it must be remembered, as an incontrovertible fact, that 
 the mass of the French people are more credulous than the Germans, 
 and this helps to explain why France has been the actual birthplace of 
 " spontaneous combustion," of which it is to be hoped that we shall 
 hear no more in relation to the science of Medical Jurisprudence.* 
 
 Case CXXXIX. — Attempt to burn a Body. 
 
 Although superfluous, it may not be uninteresting to relate a some- 
 what singular experiment which we have made in relation to the 
 subject of spontaneous combustion. A five-months' foetus, which had 
 lain in spirits as an anatomical preparation for an unknown length of 
 time, and whose tissues must therefore have been even more saturated 
 with combustible matter than those of the most inveterate toper 
 could ever become, was so exposed to the most intense flame of a 
 small chemical glass and metal-smelting furnace, that the apex of the 
 cone of flame was applied to the body. In a few minutes the skin 
 commenced to burn, the flame was at once removed, and the body — 
 instantaneously ceased to burn. This experiment was repeated ten 
 or twelve times after each other, with always the same result ; scarce 
 had the flame approached when the body took fire, and it was 
 scarcely removed when it as suddenly went out. AH the ultimate 
 result of our experiment was the few burnt patches upon which we 
 had allowed the flame to play, by no means a " spontaneous combus- 
 tion" of the perfectly alcoholized body. 
 
 § 19. Illustrative Cases. 
 
 Case CXL. — Burning in a chimney. 
 
 A young chimney-sweep was exercising his vocation in a flue, 
 when he was suffocated by the smoke from a fire in the kitchen, 
 
 * Vide Pelikan's profound and scientific treatise on the subject in his 
 Beitrage zur Gerichtl. Medioin, u. s. w. Wurzburg, 1858, s. 1 u. f, for a 
 most judicious view of a recent case of spontaneous combustion, occurring 
 in St. Petersburg, which fell to nought before the criticism of science. 
 
 x 2 
 
308 5 19. ILLUSTRATIVE CASES. 
 
 which had been lighted by some one unaware of his presence. He 
 remained for some time sticking in the heated flue, and was then ex- 
 tricated completely roasted ! He was not carbonized, but his entire 
 body, without the exception of a single patch, had exactly the appear- 
 ance of those spots on a body upon which fly-blisters have been 
 applied shortly before death, that is, the whole of the skin was of a 
 coppery-red with isolated yellow patches, and cut like parchment. In 
 many places the skin was fissured, and the molten fat had flowed out, 
 and as it were varnished the surrounding parts. The body was only 
 inspected. 
 
 Case CXLI. — Five Carbonized Individuals. 
 
 During a fire, the family of a tailor, consisting of the two parents 
 and the three children, who occupied the garrets, met with a most fearful 
 death. The bodies were extricated from the rubbish, but the general 
 appearance alone denoted them to be human. Their respective pelves 
 also permitted the distinguishing with probability which was the man, 
 and which the woman. It was a most mournful sight to see the two 
 large and the three smaller skeletons laid out in a gradually decreas- 
 ing row. All the five were perfectly carbonized and black, all their 
 cavities laid open, and not a trace of soft parts any longer visible. 
 From almost every skeleton single parts — an arm, a hand, a whole 
 extremity, or a foot, &c, were broken off and awanting. 
 
 Case CXLII. — Murder by. Combustion or by Strangulation ? 
 
 The following is the important case above alluded to : — On the after- 
 noon of the 26th of April, 18 — > the labourer Fritze visited a lone- 
 living widow, named Hake, aged 70, confessedly for the purpose of 
 obtaining money from her, and in case of refusal, murdering her. 
 
 She actually did refuse the loan, whereupon F., a large and strong 
 man, struck her at once a blow upon the forehead, which knocked her 
 down. She lay "quite still, without groaning, moaning, or calling 
 for help." He then took up a paving stone the size of a fist, which 
 he stated he had found in the room, and struck her a violent blow on 
 the face with it, upon which, " after being convulsed for a short time 
 she never stirred more." He declared that he did nothing else to the 
 body of the woman Hake, neither strangled her, nor burned her, but 
 only turned her round on her face on the floor, as he felt it unpleasant 
 
§ 19. ILLUSTRATIVE CASES. 309 
 
 to look her in the face. He now searched the cupboards, where he 
 found a purse containing £150 j he remained in the house till it was 
 dark, when he lighted a tallow candle, and afterwards went off late in 
 the evening with his booty, after placing the candle beneath a cane- 
 chair, for which singular proceeding he could or would not give any 
 explanation. On the following morning the small two-roomed house 
 of the widow Hake was found by sundry persons, amongst whom we 
 ourselves were, filled with a strong smell of burning, and the walls, 
 furniture, &c, covered with soot. In the bedroom the body, which 
 will be described immediately, lay upon its face near the bed, which 
 was quite destroyed, many parts of it were completely burnt, upon it 
 lay a pillow quite burned, and one foot from it stood a cane-chair 
 quite burned through, beneath which stood a brass candlestick, in the 
 socket of which a tallow candle had burned out. In the sitting-room 
 the paving-stone was found lying on the floor. The most remarkable 
 appearances found upon dissection were the following, which I extract 
 from the very full protocol written out at the time of the dissection : — ■ 
 The hair, covering the corpulent body, was burnt and partly car- 
 bonized, the nasal bones were broken, the bones of the septum narium 
 separated from the cartilage ; the eyes were firmly closed, and inside 
 the right eye there were small vesications ; the whole of the forehead 
 was covered with clotted blood, and in the centre of it there was an 
 ecchymosis the size of a halfpenny, on incising which fluid blood 
 escaped; there was a smaller ecchymosis on the right cheek; the 
 whole face was covered with dried blood and burnt feathers, was 
 charred and almost unrecognisable ; the right ear was quite charred, 
 the left only burnt ; at the root of the nose there was a semicircular 
 wound a quarter of an inch long, and two lines broad, with blunt 
 irregular edges, and at the distance of half-an-inch there was another 
 similar but triangular wound; the tongue protruded from between 
 the teeth; the neck was charred all round, and great patches of 
 the skin cracked, the laryngeal region alone was not charred, but 
 beset with several vesications ; the right hand was completely charred ; 
 the right arm and forearm, as well as the left arm, were only par- 
 tially charred, but were covered with numerous vesications, both large 
 •and small, which were partly filled with serum, partly empty, and this 
 was also the case with all the numerous vesicles found scattered over 
 the body. It was certainly remarkable to find the nates and external 
 parts of generation completely charred, so that on the latter no an- 
 atomical structure could be any longer recognised. The legs and feet 
 
310 .§ 19. ILLUSTRATIVE CASES. 
 
 alone were quite uninjured. At the internal inspection the cranial 
 cavity and the brain were quite anaemic, and there was nothing else 
 discovered at all relevant to the cause of death, wherefore we omit the 
 other appearances found. The fracture of the nasal bones could now 
 be distinctly made out to have been caused during life by the ecchy- 
 moses which extended into the bones. The mucous membrane of the 
 trachea, when a deposit of soot had been washed off with a sponge, 
 exhibited " a bright cherry-red colour, and some bloody froth was 
 found in the trachea.-" The lungs were "greatly distended with dark 
 blood;" the oesophagus was empty and normal; the large thoracic 
 veins were distended with dark blood. Of the abdominal cavity, I 
 need only remark, that all its organs were healthy, and the vena cava 
 contained much dark-coloured fluid blood. 
 
 In accordance with these appearances we gave it as our provisional 
 opinion, at the termination of the dissection, that the deceased had 
 died from asphyxia, and that " it was quite possible " that the very 
 considerable fire which had occurred had been the sole cause of this 
 asphyxia. "When our reasoned report was demanded, the following 
 questions were given us to answer : — 
 
 (1.) Is it certain, probable, or possible, that the death of the woman 
 Hake from asphyxia, could have been, mediately or immediately, 
 produced by the blows which she received on the forehead and nose 
 from the stone and the man's fist ; or is it impossible that these blows 
 could have produced this death from asphyxia ? 
 
 (£.) If such should be the case, has this asphyxia been produced by 
 the circumstance that Fritze, after knocking down the woman Hake, 
 who was old and corpulent, laid her on her belly, and so left her lying 
 without perceiving any sign of life up to the period of his taking his 
 departure ? 
 
 (3.) What medical reasons can be given for supposing that the 
 smoke of the fire alone has produced death by asphyxia in the woman 
 Hake? 
 
 As the death happened after the receipt of injuries, according to 
 the then requirements of the law, we had to commence our report by 
 a correct estimation of these in relation to § 169 of the Code of 
 Criminal Procedure (that is, according to their degree of lethality). 
 Since, however, even allowing that these injuries had produced an im- 
 mediate concussion of the brain, the dissection had revealed that they 
 had not been the cause of death, but that it had been produced by 
 asphyxia, we were obliged to come to the conclusion that the three 
 
§ 19. ILLUSTRATIVE CASES. 311 
 
 lethality questions had no application to the present case. After 
 we had explained scientifically the reasons why death was in this 
 case assumed to have been caused by asphyxia, all the different pos- 
 sible modes of origin of this death were given. We then continued 
 in regard to the first of the questions put to us — "in particular, 
 asphyxia cannot be produced by cranial injuries which are neither 
 severe nor fatal, which have not destroyed the whole brain or any 
 large and important part of it, thereby interfering with the innervation 
 of the lungs. In the present case, indeed, we must not' altogether 
 disregard the bruising of the nose, inasmuch as such an injury must 
 interfere more or less with the act of respiration. The far more 
 important passage for the respiration, however, that through the 
 mouth, is quite unaffected by any fracture, or even by complete 
 squashing of the nose; therefore, so long as the chief respiratory 
 passage remains patent, no amount of injury to the nose can produce 
 asphyxia." Accordingly, we concluded, in reply to the first query : 
 " that it was impossible that death by asphyxia could have been pro- 
 duced by the blows given." In respect to the second and more 
 difficult question, the following was the substance of our remarks : — 
 " We must repeat that the woman Hake did not die from the cranial 
 injuries. She was, consequently, not yet dead, as Pritze supposed 
 when he saw her lying senseless on the floor, but she only lay — if, 
 indeed, any credit is to be attached to his statements — in that stunned 
 condition which the injuries to her head were capable of producing, 
 but still alive and breathing. When in the condition just described, 
 !Pritze is said to have turned her round, with her face to the floor, 
 close to which it must have been pressed, from the flattened condition 
 of the nose, and thereby undoubtedly the respiration must have been 
 made more difficult. Especially when we consider that the woman 
 Hake was already far advanced in years ; that at her time of life the 
 respiration is less frequent and energetic ; and further, it is not con- 
 trary to the evidence to suppose that there coexisted a certain amount 
 of concussion of the brain, which of itself would render the respiration 
 slower and more laboured, so it is not impossible that all these various 
 •causes of respiratory embarrassment might ultimately so accumulate as 
 to produce complete asphyxia. But this supposition, to which we do 
 not accord any probability, to say nothing of certainty, leaves us com T 
 pletely in the dark as to the production of the charring of the face, 
 which must be regarded as lying almost flat on the floor, and yet 
 the floor itself beneath it was by no means badly burned or char- 
 
312 ! 19. ILLUSTRATIVE CASES. 
 
 red* Also the fact of the right hand heing completely charred seems to 
 contradict this assumption; this may, indeed, have been so placed on the 
 body already lying dead on the floor, as to have been specially exposed 
 to the action of the flames, but of this we have no knowledge, while 
 we cannot shut our eyes to the possibility that the woman Hake was 
 yet alive when the fire seized her clothing, and the pillow which was 
 found covering her back, and that, either fully conscious of the danger 
 of her* situation, or still half unconscious, she strove with all her 
 might with her right hand to tear off the burning articles, and thus to 
 save herself. In reply, therefore, to the second question, we can only 
 say : — That the circumstance that Fritze, after knocking down the 
 woman Hake, laid her on her face, and so left her lying for several 
 hours, way possibly have produced the asphyxia from which she died." 
 In reply to the third question, we thus expressed ourselves : — The 
 great deposit of soot which we found on every article of furniture was 
 sufficient proof of the density of the smoke, which had completely filled 
 the two small rooms in the woman Hake's house; And this was further 
 proved by the utterly consumed state of all the clothing on the body, 
 by the complete carbonization of her face, right ear, right hand, notes, 
 and external parts of generation, which distinctly showed how intense 
 the fire had been, and how powerful had been its action. That such 
 an amount of burning and of smoke must have killed any one lying 
 helpless in its midst, requires no further proof; it is also self-evident that 
 in such a case the dissection would reveal exactly the same appear- 
 ances as were found in the body of the woman Hake, namely, burning 
 and charring of the surface of the body, and the signs of death from 
 asphyxia internally. That, however, the asphyxia in the case of the 
 deceased was produced in this manner "alone" can be by no means 
 proved by "medical reasons." On the contrary, there are in this 
 case several other possible hypotheses. For instance, had Fritze, after 
 knocking the woman Hake down, strangled her with his hands or 
 with any instrument, and then so burned and roasted the neck as it 
 was found by us, the mark of cord or ligature would thereby have been 
 completely effaced, and the appearances on dissection would have been 
 pecisely the same as those found — and the result would have been pre- 
 cisely similar, had he forcibly held the pillow over the face, or the whole 
 of the head of the woman as she lay on the ground, till he either knew 
 
 * A similar eircumstanoe has been observed in many cases of so-oalled 
 spontaneous combustion, and it is one of the many miraculous phenomena 
 described in connection with them ! 
 
5 19. ILLUSTRATIVE CASES. 813 
 
 or supposed her to be dead; and thereafter set fire to it/' &c. Ac- 
 cordingly, we replied to the third and last question by saying, "that 
 there are no medical reasons for supposing that the woman Hake has 
 been asphyxiated solely by the smoke of the fire which surrounded her." 
 Fritze was executed. As we have already remarked, it was psycho- 
 logically remarkable that this man, though he became softened and re- 
 pentant at a very early period of his imprisonment, and freely con- 
 fessed the murder with all its details, could yet never be brought to 
 acknowledge the fire-raising, of which he was also indubitably guilty. 
 Just one day before his execution, when he had no longer anything 
 to hope for or dread upon earth, I spoke to him in the prison, and 
 asked him to tell me now, as a matter personally interesting to me 
 from its connection with my branch of science, what he had done with 
 the woman Hake. In vain ! He held fast to his statement that he 
 did not know why, on going away, he had placed the burning candle 
 under the cane-chair, and quite close to the bed of the murdered 
 woman ! Forced by the gnawing of his conscience, he did not hesi- 
 tate to confess that he had been a murderer ; but he would not leave 
 the world stigmatized as an incendiary. This is an illustration of the 
 peculiar point d'honneur of a criminal, many proofs of which are to 
 be found in the criminal world. 
 
 Case CXLIII. — Fatal Scald in a Bath. 
 
 A man aged 68, of weak intellect was scalded to death in a hot 
 bath in an Hospital. As the neglect of his attendant was presumed, a 
 medico-legal examination was ordered. We found the half of the 
 back and belly, the whole of the left forearm, the parts of generation, 
 and the whole of the inferior extremities so burnt that the epithelium 
 of all those parts lay in tatters over the brownish-red coloured cutis 
 vera, and the nails of the fingers and toes were all awanting. The 
 poor fellow had only lived two hours after the injury. From the 
 appearances on dissection, we must deduct a gelatinous exudation on 
 the surface of the brain, a very hard brain, a very large rust-coloured 
 and friable liver, and a diffluent spleen, as all connected with the men- 
 tal disease of the deceased, which had existed for one year and a-half, 
 and we could only reckon great congestion of the brain, and distention 
 of the right side of the heart, and particularly the condition of the 
 blood, which was dark, almost black, and loosely coagulated — grumous 
 — as due to the fatal scald. It is perfectly self-evident that a scald 
 
;314 .§ 19. ILLUSTRATIVE CASES. 
 
 ■which, affected two-thirds of the body, and occasioned- death in two 
 hours, must be assumed to be absolutely fatal (according to the law 
 as it then stood) . 
 
 Case CXLIY. — A Boasted Man. 
 
 A man aged 83, sitting before a stove had his clothes accidentally 
 set fire to ; they were burned to ashes, and the feeble helpless old man 
 was found sitting dead and roasted before the stove. The body was 
 in a bent position, was completely carbonized, except the legs, which 
 were burned of a deep dark brown, but not carbonized. The whole of 
 the back was particularly destroyed, so that in attempting to straighten 
 the body, it broke. On the right side the external coverings were so 
 cracked that one could see through the fissures into the thorax and 
 abdomen, in the latter of which the roasted right lobe of the liver 
 could be distinctly recognised. Any further examination of the body 
 -was, of course, declared to be unnecessary. 
 
 Cases CXLV. and CXLYI. — Burning of two Children. 
 
 A boy, aged 6 years and three-quarters, and his sister, aged 3 years 
 and a-half, were both destroyed in one fire, which their mother was 
 supposed to have kindled intentionally, in the room in the crib in 
 which the younger child was lying upon feathers and rags. The body 
 of the youngest child everywhere displayed injuries arising from fire. 
 The external surface of the left upper extremity, the parts of genera- 
 tion, the nates, and the toes of the right foot were black and carbon- 
 ized; the left half of the face, and the left side of the body were 
 roasted brown and leathery ; and finally, the right upper extremity, 
 the left hand, and both of the thighs, displayed the lesser degree of 
 burning— separation of the cuticle. The body of the boy, on the 
 other hand, presented no injuries from fire. Both of these children 
 had died from asphyxia. Particularly remarkable was the fact of the 
 tracheae of both, being filled with not very frothy, dirty, dark-coloured 
 mucus, in which black particles (soot) were distinctly visible. The 
 lungs of both the children, particularly the right one, were very much 
 distended with dark fluid blood, as were also, particularly in the case 
 of the boy, the large venous trunks of the thorax and abdomen. The 
 right side of the boy's heart contained half a tablespoonful of such 
 blood, the right side of the girl's heart only half a teaspoonful. The 
 
§ 19. ILLUSTRATIVE CASES. 315 
 
 abdominal organs of the girl were not at all congested ; in the hoy, 
 however, the liver and right kidney were hyperBemic. The stomachs 
 of both were distended with a pultaceous mass of apples and potatoes. 
 The urinary bladders of both were empty. The small intestines of 
 the boy alone had a rosy-red (cholera-like) appearance, as is often 
 the case in death from asphyxia; the large intestines of both were full 
 of faeces. The whole surface of the brain of both children was of a 
 peculiar rosy-red, and its substance in both was more congested than 
 usual, but this was not, however, the case with the sinuses. I may 
 mention by the way, that the thymus gland of the boy, almost seven 
 years old, was still the size of a walnut; and that in these asphyxiated 
 children the tongue was not found compressed between the teeth, but 
 lying behind them (vid. Death from Asphyxia, § 394). 
 
 Case CXLVII. — Fatal Burn fkom hot metal. 
 
 This was a very peculiar case. A girl aged 2 years and a-half, had 
 fallen with her buttocks and parts of generation upon a hot smoothing- 
 iron, and after eleven days' illness died. Her private parts were 
 from the moms veneris to the coccyx brownish red, leathery (roasted), 
 and the vagina was greyish red, soft, and gangrenous. The .uterus 
 was not gangrenous, and internally the fluidity of the blood, and the 
 bright-red colour of the mucous membrane of the trachea, in which 
 there was also a little bloody froth, were the only things observed that 
 were very remarkable ; since, however, the child had lived eleven days, 
 and as the lungs were also pale and anaemic, these appearances could 
 not be regarded as the signs of death from asphyxia. In our summary 
 opinion we therefore assumed that the child died from internal 
 disease, which was indubitably connected with the injuries discovered, 
 and we reserved any further reasoning upon the subject till the com- 
 plete history of the case should be given us, from which to prepare 
 our reasoned report; this, however, we were never required to 
 furnish. 
 
 Case CXLVIII. — Fatal Scald from boiling coffee. 
 
 A girl, aged 6 years, while lying in bed was scalded with boiling 
 coffee, and died in eight days. The scald extended visibly from the 
 left ear over the half of the back into the right axilla, and down the 
 right side of the thorax, and the right upper extremity. Its effects 
 
316 § 19. ILLUSTRATIVE CASES. 
 
 were visible partly in brownish-yellow patches, which cut soft, partly 
 in separation of the cuticle, partly in sores already granulating. In- 
 ternally there was pleuritis on the right side ; the right lung was 
 covered with recent bands of adhesion, compressed and hepatized. The 
 left lung was healthy. The pericardium was distended with serous 
 effusion. The right side of the heart was quite filled with cherry-red 
 half coagulated blood, the left side was empty ; the whole of- the rest 
 of the body, with the exception of the large abdominal veins, was 
 anaemic. Accordingly we gave it as our opinion that the child had 
 died from thoracic inflammation, originating in the scald. 
 
 Case CXLIX. — Death fkom fibe. 
 
 The clothes of a boy, aged one year and a-half, took fire, and he 
 died two days after. Apoplectic congestion of the brain, evident in- 
 flammation of the trachea and red hepatization of the inferior lobe of 
 the right lung were the appearances found on dissection. The fre- 
 quent coexistence of inflammation of the air-passages after extensive 
 burns, is as well known as it is easily explained by a reference to the 
 physiological consent between the pulmonary and cuticular respi- 
 ration. 
 
 Case CL. — Death from fire. 
 
 While a widow, aged 81, was warming herself at the stove, her 
 clothes took fire, and the whole of her nates, inclusive of Hheperineeum 
 and vulva, were burned. She was at once sent to an Hospital, where, 
 after several days of suffering, she died. Of her illness we know 
 nothing. At the dissection the parts mentioned were found covered 
 with deep ulcerations, which were covered with healthy granulations, 
 upon which lay a dressing of raw cotton. A cherry-red parchment-like 
 band separated completely the burned from the healthy parts. The 
 internal appearances were of comparatively Utile importance, since, 
 except general anaemia, nothing was found that properly resulted from 
 the burn, except inflammation (red hepatization) of the upper lobe of 
 the left lung, whilst the other parts of both lungs were anaemic, and 
 no trace of any exudation was to be found anywhere else, either in the 
 cranium, or in the pleurae, or in the pericardium. 
 
§ 19. ILLUSTRATIVE CASES. 317 
 
 Case CLI. — Death peom hue. 
 
 This case is rendered interesting and worth relating from the fact, 
 that in it the action of fire upon a living body and a dead one could 
 be seen upon one and the same corpse. A drunken old washerwoman 
 had laid herself down upon a bench near the fire in the washing-house, 
 and had fallen asleep. "While asleep she had fallen on the floor, and 
 that in such a position that the fire had reached her, for she was 
 found lying burnt to death upon the floor. The burn extended over 
 the left side of the face, the left shoulder, breast, thigh, and half of 
 the left leg. The left arm and hand were quite uninjured, while the 
 right hand was burnt, and it was the only part of the right side 
 of the body that was so, thereby affording proof that the deceased 
 had been alive and sensible when she was seized by the flames, 
 and that she had endeavoured to tear off her burning clothing. The 
 left half of the face, inclusive of the ear and the left side of the 
 neck, with the left shoulder and upper half of the left arm were car- 
 bonized. The carbonized parts were surrounded by a dirty purplish- 
 red, dry, leathery margin from a quarter of an inch to two inches 
 broad. A similar state of matters existed on the left thigh. On the 
 trochanter there were two burst vesications with cinnabar-red bases, 
 and not far from them a small vesicle, filled with bloody serum, de- 
 pended from a bright rosy-red basis, round which no margin could be 
 seen, situate as it was on a spot already half charred and wholly 
 covered with soot. Besides these vesications which had been produced 
 during life, there were upon the anterior surface of the leg three 
 patches, each the size of half-a-crown, from which the cuticle was 
 abraded, and which were conspicuous by their whiteness amid the 
 sooty dinginess surrounding them. The deceased had evidently been 
 dead when the flame seized these parts, and produced these speedily 
 burst vesications (on the dead body). Death was caused by cardiac 
 apoplexy (asphyxia). The whole of the right side of the heart (and 
 the vena cava inferior) were gorged with remarkably dark-reddish 
 fluid blood, in which greasy coagula floated. The other appearances 
 were not remarkable. The lungs especially and the trachea were 
 normal, and their vessels very slightly injected ; the brain and cranial 
 cavity were not hypersemic, and in the whole of the abdomen there 
 was not a single appearance worth relating, except the venous conges- 
 tion already mentioned. 
 
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