A handy-book of forensic medicine and toxicology / by W. Bathurst Woodman and Charles Meymott Tidy.

Date:
1877
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A handy-book of forensic medicine and toxicology / by W. Bathurst Woodman and Charles Meymott Tidy. 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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    OGSTON ON PECULIAR WOUNDS. backwards and forwards a few times. Similarly, a stab or punctured wound inflicted by a suicide is commonly from right to left, and from above down- wards, since this is the easiest way to make it. Suicides are sometimes very ingenious in contriving odd ways of injuring themselves. We have known a lunatic fix a knife in the chink of a floor, and another place one in a carpenter’s vice, and then the wretched men impaled themselves upon the weapons they had thus fixed. In such a case the stab was, of course, from below upwards. One of the Authors knew a man whose hands were partially disabled, who fixed a string to the trigger of a pistol which he held between his teeth, and pulled this with his feet. Soldiers, and some sportsmen, who commit suicide with a rifle, musket, or fowling- piece, placing the further end of the barrel inside their mouth, adopt a similar manoeuvre, because in such a position the trigger (if the gun be a long one) is out of reach of their hands. They also make use of the ramrod to fire the gun. The remark made before about cut- throats applies, in part, to stabs and punctured wounds done by mur- derers. That is, if the murderer goes behind his victim, the stab may very probably be from right to left, and from below upwards. If, on the contrary, he attacks his victim from the front, it is most likely that he will stab in an upward direction, and from left to right. Again, “ homi- cidal incisions in the throat,” as Dr. Taylor justly remarks (p. 486), “ are often prolonged deeply into the soft parts below and behind the skin forming the angles or extremities of the wound.” Again, “oblique wounds, passing from above downwards, are common to homicide and suicide, but those which take an oblique course from below upwards are generally indicative of homicide, for it is extremely rare that a person bent on suicide, unless a lunatic, thus uses a weapon.” Suicidal wounds of the throat, &c., are rarely deeper in the soft parts than in the skin, usually, “ they terminate gradually in a sharp angle, and the skin itself is the farthest point wounde.d—the weapon is not carried either behind, below, or beneath it.” Dr. Ogston [“ Med. Times and Gazette,” January 20, 1877] calls attention to the fact, that a single thrust or stab from a weapon which is withdrawn with a twist of the wrist, will inflict a wound with a sort of tail or offshoot, like a Greek gamma, thus y, so that we might almost suspect that there had been two stabs. He also points out that cylindrical weapons, such as some bayonets, &c., will sometimes inflict wounds with two sharp angles, almost like a narrow blade. See our remarks on the fitting of weapons. It is a very old observation that the murderer may use one weapon, and then substitute another belonging to the murdered man or woman, which he purposely stains with blood, in order to convey the impression of suicide. There were many who supposed this to have been done in the case of the alleged suicide of Abdul Assiz, the late unhappy Sultan of Turkey. It was said that his veins were divided by a sharp surgical knife or lancet, and then the scissors worn by him were stained with blood, as if he had done the deed. We shall return to this case presently. C. You should carefully examine the dress of the wounded or murdered person. Where possible, and in the case of a corpse you can always spare the time, examine the outer clothing, and each successive layer of dress first, before cutting off or otherwise removing the coat, shirt, or other article of dress. Preserve, if possible, all the holes indicative of stabs, cuts, or other use of weapons—either by not destroying the clothes at all, or by slitting them up remote from the tear, or opening in