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.
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![bodies when found, and the appearance presented by post-mortem e.xamiuation, particulaidy the state of the brain. If the body of the one be found ])artially immersed, or otherwise exposed to cold, or in the vicinity of noxious vapours, or with the face burrowed in the earth, while that of the other is found lying on its side or back in a warm dry spot, and not exposed to a vitiated atmosphere, the chances of survivorship will be greatly in favour of the latter. If, moreover, serious external injuiies be found on the one, received evidently in the stupor of drunkenness, while the other is free from such injuries, the chances will be in favour of him exposed to the destructive effects of alcohol only. If on opening the head, traces of cerebral congestion from apoplexy are discovei’ed in the one, while the brain of the other is comparatively normal, the chances of survivorship will be in favour of the latter. But I need not anticipate. These and other casualties are for the consideration of the coroner and his assistants when the case occurs. Death by Starvation.—The laws regulating death by inanition, although somewhat obscure in their operation, are nevertheless pretty well understood from their opposites, the laws of life, with which physiology is tolerably familiar. In order to estimate the probabilities of survivorship in death by inanition, a simple transposition seems to be all that is necessary. During the first fourteen years of life, or in infancy and child- hood, the body, as has been explained, rapidly developes, so that large quantities of nutritious food are constantly demanded. From the fourteenth to the eighteenth year (the period of adolescence), though development steadily proceeds, it is by no means so active as in infancy and childhood j the demands for food consequently are proportionally less frequent. From the eighteenth to the twenty- fifth year (the period of youth) the bodily powers are gradually matured, and still less food suffices. From the twenty-fifth year until the system begins to retrograde or decrease in vital powers, the amount of food required varies according to the amount of work done ; but as a rule, less is required for a full-grown man than a growing youth. In old age, or when symptoms of decay begin to manifest themselves, the amount of food requisite for sustenance decreases in a direct ratio. Making allowance, therefore, for the extremes, Le., the very aged and very young, death by starvation, as a rule, will supervene inversely as the amount of food required for the support and maintenance of the body in the performance of its healthy functions; thus, caeteris paribus, the child will perish before the youth, the yovith before the man.^ On the same principle the female, who requires a less quantity of food than the male, will outlive him. It is owing to this state of things that those Indian ’ The immortal Dante seems to have been aware of this physiological fact, for he describes the ill-fated Count Ugolinoas perishing on the eighth day, after having wit- his sans gink one by one, amid the frightful convulsions of exhausted nature. This fact appears to have been also known to the ancient physicians, (llippoorat. Aphor. xiii. sect. 2.)](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21955876_0031.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
