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.

    1167/1268 (page 1131)
    Taylor quotes a case from Mr. Watson, occurring at Ayr in 1831, in which several shots had been maliciously fired into a church. Some of the bullets traversed a window, making holes in the glass, and struck against a wall on the other side of the church—a fact plainly indicated by the marks left by them. A line was drawn from these two points, through the window, and reached a window on the other side of the street, from which it was afterwards ascertained that the shots had been fired. In a case tried at the Kingston Lent Assizes, 1862, a similar piece of evidence clearly showed that a gun, loaded with a bullet, had been maliciously discharged with a design to kill one of two persons. The prosecutrix and her mother were sitting by candlelight near a window in their house, one evening, so that their shadows were on the blind ; a bullet passed through the window, and struck the opposite wall. A line drawn between these points was about half-an-inch above the head of the prosecutrix, and about one inch below the level of her mother’s head. Neither was hurt. Circumstantial evidence tended to criminate the prisoner. The defence raised by his counsel was, that he had gone out [in the evening] to shoot birds [with bullets], and the gun went off by accident! The judge directed the jury, very properly, to consider with what intent a shot could have been fired so close as to come within half an inch of the head of a person. The prisoner was convicted. And no doubt justly. Sir Astley Cooper was able [see page 1091], by considering the line of fire to fix the crime of homicide on a left-handed person. In the same manner the death of Charles XII. of Sweden was judged to be from his own side, and not from the enemy. On the night of Dec. 11th, 1718, the king, who was besieging the fortress of Frederickshall, whilst examining the works, clambered up a mound, facing the enemy’s batteries and within reach of their fire. Several noblemen were with him at various distances. Suddenly the king gave a deep sigh, and fell dead on the parapet, with his face to- wards the fortress. A ball had struck him in the right temple, traversed the brain from right to left, and forced the left eye from its socket. The direction of the wound tended clearly to prove that the king was not struck by a ball from the battery, which he was facing, but that this had been fired from some person on his right hand. Suspicion fell on a M. Siguier, who was then in attendance on him. Whether this was true or not, there was little doubt that the king was assassinated. [Taylor, loc. cit., p. 669.] He was found dead in the position in which he was struck, his hand on his sword. In his pocket was a portrait of Gustavus Adol- phus, and a prayer-book. 7. Was the shot accidental, suicidal, or homicidal, (murderous) ? It is impossible to lay down any absolute rules by which you may answer these questions. Every case must be studied on its own merits. In general if you find several wounds [the contents of several barrels, or of one fired repeatedly], you may assume that the case was one of murder. But you must remember (1) that both barrels of a gun, or rifle, or two- barrelled pistol, or even more barrels in a many-cliambored revolver, may go off accidentally (2) That one bullet has been known to produce five wounds, (three of entrance, and two of exit*); (3) That a suicide * In a case of Dupuytrcn’s, a ball struck the ridge of the tibia (leg-bone), and divided itself into two parts ; both of which traversed the calf of that leg, and pene- trated the opposite calf, lodging there ; thus making the five wounds.