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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!['ohlnJ'' Z^li'' '''''' ^^^ ^'^•iicatioas of respiration are oDscure. hee, however, Inflation, p. 100 LiiS' h}n^^f('' commonly emptied its contents soon after bath; hence, if found empty, it has been assumed that the child was bom alive; if full, that it was still-born. But this sin s niost fallacious, for the bladder may certainly be emptied o its con ents during labour and replenished should the child survive Its birth some time. The statement of Casper that he has un- numbered times]' found fall bladder and an empty rectum, or the reverse, deprives these signs, taken together, of any value they might be supposed to possess.* ^ ^ The point of ossification in the lower epiphysis of the lemur, referred to on p. 81 as a test of age, may be admitted among the signs of survivorship. But it must have a very limited application. III. HOW LONG DID THE CHILD SURVIVE ITS BIRTH ? Our means of answering this question are less precise than could be desired. The extent to which respiration has taken place cannot be depended upon; and recent observations have tended greatly to impair the value of at least one of the three signs iust referred to namely— ' a. Changes in the organs of circulation; b. The state of the umbilical cord; and c. The state of the skin. a. The organs of circulation.—There exist in the foetal organs of circulation certain structures which are'destined to disap- pear after birth. These consist of the umbilical arteries (a a, fig. 21). which return the blood of the foetus to the mother; the umbilical vein_(6), which conveys the blood of the mother through the inter- vention of the placenta, to the foetus; the ductus veno3us( c), which conveys part of the mother's blood direct to (h), the ascending cava; the ductus arteriosus (d), which conveys the blood destined after birth to circulate through the pulmonary arteries (k h), direct into (/) the descending aorta; and the foramen ovale («, fig. 22), situated at {e, fig. 21), which, by establishing a communication between the right and left auricle, makes the double heart of the future breathing animal, a single one during the life in the womb. All these parts, being unnecessary to extra-uterine life, are closed after birth.f The umbilical arteries and vein.—The obliteration of the arteries takes place much sooner than that of the vein. At the * A uric-acid infarction of tlie straight tubules of tlie kidueys iu new-born cliildreu, first described by Vernois, was at one time considered by VircLow and others as a sign of cxti\a-uterine life, and conditioned by the establislinieut of respiration. This, however, has been shown to be orroneous by the occur- rence of similar deposits in the kidneys of fojtnses which have undoubtedly never breathed. t In Fig. 21, p. 109, ff g represent the iliac arteries, i the descending cava, and / the vessels of tlio portal system, derived from the umbilical vein.](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21965183_0126.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
