Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Principles of forensic medicine / by William A. Guy and David Ferrier. 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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![OBJECTIONS. sema, in its ubual acccptutiou, means au cnlargemeut or ru]3tiire of the air-cells caused by air introduced in resi^iration, or by iuHa- tion. Now, air introduced in respiration will so expand the air- cells as to furnish, independent of emphysema, distinct proof that the child has breathed; and, if the emphysenia were caused by inflation, the first objection would become identical with the third. But the emphysema urged as an objection to the hydrostatic test is quite a different thing, and is supposed to be brought about by some peculiar action of the lung tissues. This was Cummin's opinion.* He thought that infants might suffer injuiy in the birth through the laboi;r being tedious and the mother malformed; that the sides of the chest might be so pressed against the substance of the lungs as to injure them; that so they became inflamed and puffy, containing air in large vesicles on their surface, and this is what some authors call emphysema.' Lccieux also, in extract- ing infants by the feet, often fouud that part of the lungs floated, though the child died in the course of the delivery, and had certainly not breathed. This buoyancy could not be due to putre- f'actiou, for the infants were fresh and examined soon after extrac- tion ; but he thought that, as we sometimes see a wound or bruise, especially on the head, attended by an emphysematous swelling, the lungs during the extraction might suffer a sort of contusion; that blood might be effused into their tissue, might lead to the formation of some bubbles of air, and to the consequent buoyancy of a part of the lungs.f The true explanation of the formation of air in lungs free from putrefaction is to be found in a simple fact that came under my notice in the winter of 1810. I examined the body of a mature still-born foetus, within forty-eight hours of its extraction by in- struments. There was not the slightest trace of putrefaction in the body or in the lungs; no change of colour, no softening of tissue, no putrefactive odour, and, with the exception of a vesicle the size of a pea on the surface of one of the lungs, no formation of gas. The lungs which were gorged with blood were extracted, placed in a gallipot, and carried in the pocket about two hours; at the end of which time their whole surface was found studded with vesicles, some large as a pea, others smaller than a pin's head. In that short space of time a very large quantity of gas was developed, though the lungs had certainly sustained no injury in the birth, and no smgle sign of putrefaction could be detected.^ ♦ ''nie Proofs of lufautiuidu Cuusidurcil,' by William Uiuuiuiu, M.D., p GL t J_.ccicux:_'Uousidt'nitioijs Medico-legalu.s urn I'lufanlicidL',' Observed aud mcoiitcstiblc case of emphysema devoloping itself spontaneous]v witum the lungs of a fostus, born without artilioial assistance, is luiowu and u IS not, therefore, penni.ssiblo in forensic practice, to attribute the buovancv ot tbo lungs of new-bnrn cliildren, brought forth in secrecy and without arti. ileal assistance, to this cause.-- 'The ,vords, ^^itl,out artificial asnco ' a 2](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21965183_0117.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
