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.

    1169/1268 (page 1133)
    THE DIRECTION OF WOUNDS. once set the prisoner at liberty. But some time after this an old officer committed suicide by means of a cavalry pistol. The ball perforated the parietal bone, traversed the brain, &c. The hole where it entered was perfectly circular, and when accurately measured, was found not only greatly to exceed the calibre of the pistol, but, in fact, to admit, without much force, the barrel of the pistol itself. As regards the direction of the wound, the usual rules as to the diameter of the entrance and exit wounds will usually guide us. In one of Beck’s cases, given by Dr. Gordon Smith, p. 290 [see also “ Cyclopaedia of Practical Medicine,” art. “ Persons Dead from Wounds,” vol. iv., p. 561], the question arose, whether a person in company with smugglers was killed by his own gun, which went off accidentally when his foot tripped, or by a shot fired by a coast-guard. A navy surgeon found the wound in the upper part of the groin much smaller than that in the lower part of the buttock, and fragments of bone were felt at the hinder opening, but none in front. He therefore gave it as his opinion that the ball had entered in front, and therefore came from the coast-guard. Again, Richard Annesley was tried for the murder of Thomas Englestone, a poacher. The prisoner was in company with the gamekeeper, and he asserted that his gun had gone off accidentally in attempting to secure the deceased. It appeared from the evidence of the surgeon, that the direction of the wound was upwards, and con- sequently the fowling-piece had not been levelled from the shoulder. The jury brought in a verdict of chance-medley. [“ English State Trials,” Paris, vol. ii., p. 126.] In a duel, fought at Paris, in 1827, with pistols, the person hilled was much taller than his antagonist, yet the mortal ivound was obliquely downwards. Suspicion was excited, and an investigation made by Breschet, Denis, and Pressat. The ball was found to have struck the clavicle obliquely, and in consequence of its resistance to have thus deviated. They added, in their report, that they had witnessed many analogous cases. [Briand, 2nd edit., p. 298 ; Beck, p. 537.] How widely a bullet will deviate, we have already seen. It is well exemplified by the case quoted from Dr. Hennen, where the ball struck the breast, and lodged in the scrotum, the man standing erect in the ranks. Professor Staughton (quoted by Beck) comments on the rotary motion imparted to rifle-bullets, causing them to make larger and more ragged openings than those of bullets from smooth bores. This is especially true of spherical bullets, which are now, however, seldom used. The wound in the clothes is generally smaller than that in the flesh. The assailant or murderer may use a weapon belonging to the victim. It was so in Reg. v. Wilson [Shrewsbury Autumn Assizes, 1870] when a medical student was charged with shooting at his father, who was a medical man. The father was waked by two shots [two bullets were after- wards extracted, one from the eye, the other from his head]. On groping about, he found his own revolver on the floor. The son tried to make out that the father shot himself, but the wounds were evidently made from a distance. The question of suicide or murder is sometimes much complicated by the discovery of motives or circumstances which might be motives for the crime. It was so in the caso of Risk Allah. Accidental wounds are genei'ally near wounds, but so again may homi- cidal ones be. In the shooting season many accidents occur from carelessness with guns in getting over hedges, &c. A Cambridge Pro-