Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: On the presumption of survivorship / by James Bell Pettigrew. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.
14/38 (page 184)
![daughter, quoted by Beck from Fodere;' and the case of Mason v. Mason, in Merivale’s Chancery Reports. Ot the second class of case.s—viz., such as involve the death of mother and child during delivery—arc tlie following: In the seventeenth ceutmy the iin])crial chamber of Wetzlar was consulted concerijing a mother and child who had died during labour several years previou-sly. No evidence was foi’thcoming, and they decided for physical reasons that the child had survived the mother; but as the causae physicae are unfortunately not given, we are left in ignorance as to their I’eal nature. They were, probably, however, as suggested by a commentator on the case—1, that the mother was exhausted by the labour, and sank; and 2, that the child died after her for lack of nourishment. The justice of the foregoing decision has been questioned by several medical jurists,^ for, .say they, the child may and is likely to have died first from various causes; such, for example, as protracted labour, labour complicated witli convulsions, child un- usually large or before its time, pressure on the umbilical cord, partial detachment of tbs placenta inducing fatal haemorrhage, &c. <fec., all of which are by no means uncommon; while the chances against tlie mother are comparatively few. Indeed, in the case in question only two have been suggested—viz., when the mother is being delivered of twins, and dies after the birth of the first, and before the birth of the second; and when she is labouring under an acute disease. Another very similar case is related by Beck,® on the authority of the Hon. De Witt Clinton. The case was tried in the American courts, and in- volved the succession to a large landed estate. The mother and child both died during delivery. If the latter w^as found to have survived, the father was heir; if the former, the relatives. On the trial it was proved that the child was born alive, and the question of the priority of death was then decided against the parties claiming as heirs of the mother. In this case, of course, the ijresumption of survivorship was set aside hy the proof oi the child’s being born alive. A very good example of disputed survivorship of mother and child is that of Fish v. Palmer alluded to in p. 177. This case occurred in 1806, and w^as tried in the Court of Exchequer, Westminster Hall. Fish had a still-born child by his wife, and at her death resigned the estate to his wife’s brother-in-law. Some circumstances afterwards occurred to induce him to bring this action, and to attempt to prove that the child was not born dead. Dr. Lyon (deceased at the time of trial) had declared an hour before the birth that the child w'as alive; and having directed a warm bath to be prepared, gave the child when born to be immersed in the warm water. It did not cry, or move, or show any symptoms of life; but while in the water (according 1 Fodere, vol. ii. pp. 220, 316.. ® Merivale’s Chancery Keports, vol. i. p. 308. ^ Valentiui’s Pandects, vol. i. pp. 3, 11. * See remarks thereon by Capuron (La Medecine relative i I’Art des Accouche- ments, it Paris, 1821, p. 135); Belloc (Medecine Legale); and Sue (Journal de la Soci6t6 de Medecine de Paris, tome viii.). ^ Elements of Med. Jur., by T. It. Beck, M.D. London, 1826.](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21955876_0016.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
