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.

    1168/1268 (page 1132)
    CASES OF GUNSHOT WOUNDS. may, [and indeed suicides have done so] fire not once, but twice, and oven three times in the attempt to take his own life. In general both accidental and suicidal wounds are inflicted at close quarters—but so may a shot intended to murder be. A suicide is most likely to hit the front of his body, to fire at his lungs, heart, head, &c. But some suicides haAre fired at the back of the head, or purposely arranged strings, <kc., to pull a trigger to shoot them from behind. We have previously explained how ingeniously suicides fire a long gun with their feet or with the ramrod. The murderer, however, more often, unless furious with passion, fires at the haclc or side of his victim. In Peytel’s case (“ Ann. d’Hygiene,” 1843, i., 368), the military witnesses asserted that the two wounds were from two different pistols. With all deference to their opinion, we think it not impossible that the difference in the size of the wounds was caused either by two bullets of different size in the same pistol, both fired at one shot; or by different charges of powder; or different distances and height; so that the range and velocity differed. The prisoner alleged that the servant had only fired one pistol; and the military evidence being against this, the defence was overthrown. M. Ollivier supported the theory of two bullets in the one charge. In 1834, a tithes’-collector was charged with murdering a man by shooting him. The prosecution assumed that he took a deliberate aim from a distance. The dead man’s son swore to it; a priest swore that the dying man, on his death-bed, declared this to be true. But on disinterring the body, a surgeon was able to swear positively that it was fired close, as there were marks of burning and of powder on the wrist. Hence the pistol probably went off in the scuffle, as the tithe-collector alleged. His 'Statement was, that being on horseback, the deceased, and two or three more, tried to drag him off his horse ; and that to frighten them he drew the pistol, when the trigger was accidentally pulled. He was acquitted, and the others convicted of perjury. Mrs. Pearce, a surgeon’s wife, whose insane husband shot at her, had her dress burnt, and her skin blistered by the pistol being fired so close to her. [Central Criminal Court, 1840.] Mr. Marshall gives the case of a Cingalese senti'y, who shot himself in the calf, to get his discharge from the army. His statement that he was shot by the enemy was disproved by the way in which his leg was blackened by charcoal. The calf was greatly lacerated and perforated also. Remember that the same bore of weapon, and the same size of bullet, ivill produce wounds of different size at different distances, and with varying charges of powder, consequently with different velocities. Beck mentions the following cases [p. 537]. The first from a French source. An old man was fired at from a deep ditch on the road-side during a thick fog, and killed on the spot. A near relative, who was successor to his property, and whose menaces and conduct for some time previous were of an alarming nature, was suspected of the murder, and arrested. It was proved that a few minutes before the murder was committed, he was seen very near the fatal spot with a fowling-piece in his hand, tin inspection by the surgeons, it was found that death had been occasioned by two balls, one of which cut the aorta across, and the other passed through the ileum. The hole in the ileum was perfectly circular, and when accurately measured, was found to be eight lines in diametei. The calibre of the prisoner’s fowling-piece (the only weapon in his pos- session) was found to be only lines in diameter. This circumstance at