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

Date:: 1877

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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$check to the unmeasured, savage, aud in fact brutal retaliation for injuries which prevailed amongst the heathen nations surrounding the Jews, and of which professedly Christian nations still furnish examples, as, for instance, shelling or bombarding a whole town or island for the murder of one or two white men! The French Code of 1791, and the Code Napoleon, even as modified in 1824, established a scale of punishments for such injuries, “ as although not mortal are still incurable, and either leave permanent deformity, or weaken or destroy one or more of the functions of the body.” Whenever anyone was so hurt as to be unable to do manual labour for the space of forty days, the criminal was directed to suffer two years’ imprisonment. If arm, leg, or thigh was broken, three years were appointed., and four years for absolute loss of sight in one eye, a complete loss of a member, or a mutilation of some part of the head or body. It was extended to six years, provided there was absolute blindness, or a total inability to use either both arms, or both legs.” [Beck, p. 648; from Fodere, vol. iii., p. 427.] The present code [art. 309, see Fodere, p. 428] does not contain these distinctions, but leaves a discretionary power to the judges to vary the terms of imprisonment. But it is perhaps more Severe, since it prescribes imprisonment generally against whoever shall, either by wounds or blows, injure a person so that he is ill, or unable to labour, for the space of twenty days thereafter. And this imprisonment was for terms of five to ten years. By the Act of 1824, the Court may reduce this punishment. Huard, Orfila, and others justly urge that this period of twenty days is too short and too arbitrary. Orfila, Lccons ii., 422; Beck, loc. cit., p. 649.] One mutilation, viz., Castration \_see p. 681], subjects the criminal to hard labour for life, and if the castrate die within forty days the castrator is to suffer death. [Art. 316.] Some exceptions are made. The term mayhem is applied to this class of cases in English law. Our word maim is clearly derived from this [from mehaigner, old French me, like mal, badly, and haigner, as if hainer, for hair to hate or be inimical to.*] Blackstone [“ Co'mmentaires ” iv., pp. 205-207] defines it as “ the violently depriving another of the use of such of his mem- bers as may render him the less able, in fighting, either to defend himself, or annoy his adversary. And therefore the cutting off, or disabling, or weakening a man’s hand or finger, or striking out his eye, or fore-tooth, or depriving him of those parts, the loss of which in animals abates their courage, are held to be mayhems. But the cutting- off his ear, or nose, or the like, are not held to be mayhems at common law, because they do not weaken, but only disfigure him.” By the common law also mayhem has for a long time been only punishable with fine and imprisonment, unless, perhaps, the offence of mayhem by cas- tration, which all oiu’ old writers held to be felony; and this, although the mayhem was committed upon the highest provocation.t After sundry changes in our English laws came the ‘ Coventry ’ Act, in the * Blount (“ Glossographia ”) derives it from the Latin mancits. f Beck gives the following curious tariff from the old Anglo-Saxon laws [“ Edinburgh Encyclop.,” vol. ii., p. 94, American edition ; Beck, loc. cit., p. 649, note : — “ C. V. equals current value in coin of present day. Loss of leg or eye'. 50 shillings, (J. V., £250; a wound, causing lameness, 30 shillings, C. V., £150 ;’ ditto, deafness, 25 shillings, C. V., £125; nose-piercing, 9 shillings, C. V. £45 ; a front-tooth, 6 shillings, C. V., £30; an eye-tooth, 4 shillings, C. V., £20.’’’ [Money was in those days one hundred times as valuable as now at least.] 4 F 2$