Volume 3

Wharton and Stille's medical jurisprudence.

  • Francis Wharton
Date:
1873
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Wharton and Stille's medical jurisprudence. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    454/536 (page 1082)
    § 1210. The following legal propositions may be considered as now undisputed :— beating of the child’s heart, and muscular movement of the extremities, the hands and feet. The muscular movements continued a very short time, im¬ mediately after the delivery of the body. The umbilical cord was severed about fifteen minutes after the delivery of the body, and the heart beat after the severance two or three minutes, ceasing gradually, which was the last action or movement of any part of the child’s system. Efforts were made to resuscitate the child, such as sprinkling it with cold water, slapping it with the hand, rolling it, artificial breathing, and all the usual methods. This was before the severance of the cord. After the sever¬ ance, little was done, except putting it into warm water, supplying heat, and inflating the lungs. “ There was no response to the inflation of the lungs.” The child never cried. It should be added, that it appeared from the testi¬ mony of the petitioner that her general health and that of her husband was good; that she first discovered indications of fcetal life in December, 1862, namely, motions, slight at first, but which continued at intervals with increased power, to the time of delivery. Her own testimony and that of the physician showed that the period of gestation was the full term. Was this child born alive ? ********** Considering it, then, as settled, that, to acquire the right to inherit and transmit property, the child must be born alive—that is, must be alive after a complete delivery—we might next attempt a definition of life. But is any definition necessary ? Is it within the capacity of any man to give us a defi¬ nition which could aid us in our inquiries ? We know life by its manifesta¬ tions, and not otherwise. If a child has just come into the world, and has not breathed, cried, or moved, there is naturally an anxious inquiry on the part of all present as to its possessing life. No one, whether ignorant or learned, stops to inquire what life is, and doubtless the most ignorant and the most learned are equally intelligent in regard to it. But the child cries, and all know there is life. They do not see life, they do not hear it—the sound is not life—but all recognize the crying as a sure sign of life. It is not in every instance so easy to determine what are signs of life, but we always judge of the fact of life from acts or circumstances which seem to us to be indications of it. We are then to look at the acts or manifestations of life in the case of the child, named Joseph M. Garwood, after its delivery, and determine from them, as well as we can, whether it was born alive. In cases analogous to this, crying has always been considered the best or most satisfactory evidence of live birth, and at an early day in the history of our law was deemed an indispensable test. This was the doctrine of Glanvil and Bracton. (1 Greenleaf’s Cruise, p. 157, §16.) Littleton, however, seems to have doubted whether it was necessary to prove that the child cried. The rule, as laid down in Dyer's Reports (Dyer 25), is that it is sufficient, “al¬ though the issue be not heard to cry, so it can be known that it hath life, for it may be that the issue is dumb.” In Paine’s case (Paine’s Case, 8 Coke’s