Outlines of medical jurisprudence for India / by J.D.B. Gribble and Patrick Hehir.

  • Gribble, J. D. B. (James Dunning Baker), -1906.
Date:
1898
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Outlines of medical jurisprudence for India / by J.D.B. Gribble and Patrick Hehir. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    Whether body warm or cold when found. one might really have been held. Dr. Casper once examined the body of a woman who had died ten months previously by falling into a cess-pool. Not only was the body highly de- composed, but a portion had been converted into adipocere.* The woman's master was suspected of having seduced the deceased and of having thrown her into the cess-pool, fearing that she would give birth to a child and the result of the inti- macy become known. Casper, knowing that the womb resists the action of decomposition longer than any other part of the body, persisted in his examination, and found that the womb contained no foetus, and that, therefore, a great part of the suspicion was unfounded. 12. Be most careful in enquiring whether, when the body was found, it was warm or cold A Allusion has already been made to the importance of this point, but the case of Gardner, already mentioned, may be given as an instance. In that case two persons were accused of the murder, and the innocence or guilt of one depended entirely upon the time it takes for a body to cool. The body when found was rigid, and if rigidity could have set in within the space of four hours, * Adipocere is substance which, in some of its properties resembles a mixture of fat and wax. It is formed by the exposure of fleshy tissue to mSture with the exclusion of air, that is embedded m the earth or under wafer it consists of fatty acids, combined with ammonium and alkaline The rapidity with which the temperature of the body falls after death varies unde? different circumstances, as the following table from Husband s Forensic Medicine shows : — Cooling of the Body. f Covered by bed-clothes, or otherwise nnox- a. External circum- \ p0Sed, when cooling will be slower than in stances. | cojci fay njr quickly moving. b. Condition of body j gJow> if fat itself. ) fa. Wasting diseases—Quick. | b. Suffocation-Slow. 1 c. Cholera, yellow fever, rheumatic fever,and | ' cerebro-spinal meningitis—Increase oi heal after death. For fuller remarks on this point, see Part II, CI,,,,. J In no case should n medieil man ever hazard an opinion as to the cause oi death until li< has fhoroShimself on this point, either bv a post- tm — n, ation or otherwise, c. Kind of death.