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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    of the arms; (2) That the instrument (the scissors) shown us might precisely produce those wounds; (3) The direction and the nature of the wounds, as well as the instrument which was said to have produced them, caused us to come to the conclusion that the case is one of suicide.” [Here follow the signatures.] The medical press in England, France, Germany, and America, regarded this case with grave suspicions, as one of possible murder. For—(1) There was no internal post-mortem examination ; (2) The description of the -wounds, &c., is a loose one ; (3) There is no account of the quantity of blood lost; (4) The body had been moved and undressed before the doctors were summoned at all. Death from the cause named would probably take some time. The Authors have known a lad walk nearly half a mile after similar injuries to those described; (5) No attempt seems to have been made to stop the bleeding ; (6) No account is given of the state of the room; (7) The large number of medical signatures to so loose a document was itself suspicious ; (8) The body was very hurriedly buried ; (9) There is nothing in the direction of the wounds or in their nature to prove them suicidal. A suicide would more likely cut his throat, or open the femoral artery, or stab himself in the heart, &c. On the other hand, Dr. Dickenson alleges—(1) That the ex-sultan was in a state of melancholia, and addicted to drink; and (as we know) the affairs of Turkey were going badly ; he had just been deposed from the throne, and was in fear of torture, or a disgraceful death ; (2) The scissors were always carried by him (for trimming his beard?). On the other hand, it is said by some that they were embroidery scissors, lent him by his mother; (3) There was blood enough lost to account for death; (4) He locked himself in, therefore no help could be given him. Reviewing the case, without any bias one way or the other, we cannot but think the circumstances of the case strongly suggestive of assassina- tion, rather than suicide. Both in Turkey and Russia violent methods of getting rid of unpopular sovereigns still remain in vogue—methods which England has abandoned since the death of King Charles I., and France since that of Louis XYI. Case II.—Attempted Murder of the Duke of Cumberland, and Suicide of his Valet, Sellis. [See Beck, p. 540, who refers to the “Edinburgh Annual Register,” vol. vi., part ii., p. 19 ; Gordon Smith’s work, p. 284; Paris “Med. Jurisprudence,” vol. iii. p. xxxii; London “Atlas” newspaper, June 24, 1832.] In 1813 some excitement was caused in England by the sudden death of Sellis, a servant of the Duke of Cumberland, and the simul- taneous injury received by his Royal Highness. Sir Everard Home says : —“ I visited the Duke, and found my way from the great hall to his apartment by the traces of blood which were left on the passages and staircase. I found him on the bed, still bleeding, his shirt deluged with blood, and the coloured drapery above the pillows sprinkled with blood from a wounded artery, which put on an appearance which cannot be mistaken by those who have seen it.* This could not have happened * Muscular movements sometimes cause venous blood to escape in jets from a wounded vein.