History. The connection between medicine and legislation had been perceived long before it was considered as a peculiar branch of study, or had even obtained a distinctive appellation. Since its importance has been recognized, it is known in Germany, the country in which it took its rise, by the name of State Medicine; in Italy and in France it is termed Legal Medicine, and with us it is usually denominated Medical Jurisprudence, or Forensic Medicine. It is founded on the relations which ought to subsist between human nature and social institutions, and consists in the application of the principles of medical science to the administration of justice, and to the preservation of the public health. Its nature and objects will be best elucidated by a sketch of its progress.

HISTORY OF LEGAL MEDICINE.

Notwithstanding the importance of the objects which it embraces, and their intimate relation to the interests of society, the true origin of Medical Jurisprudence is of comparatively recent date. It is true that traces of its principles may be perceived in very remote times. In the Mosaic institutions the judges are enjoined to consult the priests, who were the sole physicians of that age and country, on the modes of distinguishing leprosy from other diseases, on the marks of defloration, and the examination of wounds. In the slight notices handed down to us of the ancient code of Egypt, attributed to Menes, we may observe one trace of the influence of medicine on legislation, in the law which forbade the infliction of corporal punishment on a pregnant female; but among the ancient states of Greece the principles of medical science, though successfully cultivated, seem scarcely to have been applied to legislation, except in certain questions respecting the legitimacy of children, a subject on which the notions even of Aristotle were not very definite. In the writings of Galen, however, we find more distinct traces of legal medicine; as in his various remarks on the difference between the lungs of a fetus and of an adult, in his treatise on simulated diseases, and in his observations on the legitimacy of seven months' children.

The laws of ancient Rome were borrowed from Greece, and we could scarcely expect to find in them a more refined legislation; but it is worthy of notice, that the laws of the Twelve Tables fix on 300 days as the extreme duration of utero-gestation, the precise term fixed by the Code-Napoleon. Some writers contend that the Roman law authorized the inspection of dead bodies by medical men, because of the twenty-three wounds by which Cæsar fell, the physician Antistius pronounced one only mortal; and because Tacitus has spoken of the marks of poison on the bodies of Germanicus and Agricola: yet we have no proof that such opinions were required by any positive law, or that the judge was in the habit of demanding the assistance of the physician. In the Justinian code, however, we find more obvious traces of the relation between medicine and law; as in the titles De statu Hominis; De Pausis et Manumissis; De Sicariis; De Insipiendo ventre Custodiendoque partu; De Muliere que peperit undecimo mense; De Impotentia; De Hermaphroditis: yet in the Justinian code it was not by the testimony of living medical witnesses that such questions were to be decided, but "on the authority of the learned Hippocrates."

It was chiefly on questions of medical police, as to what regarded the salubrity of cities and stations, that the ancient Greek or Roman magistrates had recourse to medical assistance; and it appears that it was to such subjects that the public functions of the Archiater of the lower empire were confined.

Medical Jurisprudence, as a science, cannot date farther back than the 16th century. Various German emperors had in vain attempted the introduction of an uniform criminal code; but George, bishop of Bamberg, in 1507, proclaimed a penal code, drawn up for his states by Baron Schwartzenberg, in which the necessity of medical evidence, in certain cases, was recognized; and though this improvement was for some time resisted by the greatest part of Germany, the emperor Charles V. eventually succeeded in persuading the diet of Ratibon, in 1532, to adopt a uniform code of German penal jurisprudence, founded on that of Bamberg, in which the civil magistrate was, in all cases of doubt or difficulty, enjoined to obtain the evidence of medical witnesses; as in cases of personal injuries, infanticide, murders by poison or other means, pretended pregnancy, simulated diseases, &c. The celebrated Constitutio Criminalis Carolina was published in 1553; this must be considered as the true dawn of Legal Medicine, and Germany the country which gave it birth. To the same country must be ascribed the glory of having first thrown the shield of medical science over the victims of a dark fanaticism. The belief in the powers of witches and sorcerers was in full force in the 16th century. It is computed that in Lorraine above 900 persons were burnt alive within 19 years, for the imputed crime of sorcery; and that in the Electorate of Trevers alone, within a few years, 6500 individuals had perished in the flames for the same imaginary crime. In Germany and France instances of pretended demoniacal possession were perpetually occurring; and at Freidberg public prayers were offered up to assuage that dire affliction. Weilier, physician to William, duke of Cleves, had the boldness to impugn these superstitious notions, in a tract published at Basle in 1568, and undertook to prove that witches and demons ought to be considered as unhappy persons subject to hypochondriasis and hysteria, whose maladies should rather excite pity, than render them obnoxious to punishment; while he ridiculed the ordinary modes by which these unfortunate beings were proved to be guilty of the alleged crimes. This attack on a popular superstition aroused alike indignation and vengeance against the daring innovator; and, but for the powerful intercession of his patron, Weilier himself would have perished in the flames, from which he had tried to save others.

In the close of that century many treatises on different branches of Legal Medicine appeared in various countries. Ambrose Paré wrote on monstrous births, on simulated diseases, and a memoir on the art of drawing up medical reports. In 1598 Severin Pineau published at Paris the treatise De Notis Integritatis et Corruptionis Virginum; a book still quoted as an authority. The first system of Legal Medicine appeared about the same time in Sicily, in the work of Fortunato Fidele De Relationibus Medicorum; in which, as might be expected in his age and country, the opinions of the physician are too much warped by his servile deference for the canon law and its clerical exponents.

The rapid progress of anatomy in the commencement of the 17th century now became apparent in the invaluable *Questiones Medico-Legales* of Paulo Zacchia, which appeared in successive volumes from 1621 to 1635; a work which will ever be regarded as a landmark in the history of Legal Medicine; and which, by its learning and its sagacious indications, in an age in which chemistry was in its infancy, and physiology very imperfect, places the medical acumen of the great Roman medico-jurist in a very favourable point of view.

The noble discovery of the circulation of the blood gave a new light to physiological reasoning, which was broadly reflected on Legal Medicine; and to Harvey we also owe the idea how the application of Galen's remark, respecting the difference between the adult and the foetal lungs, might be applied to elucidate cases of infanticide.

About the same time appeared two valuable treatises by Melchior Sebiz, *De Notis Virginitatis*, and *Examen Vulverum*. In the first he maintained that the existence of the hymen was the real mark of virgin purity; an inference warmly denied by Orazio Augenio and Pietro Gassendi; in the second he pointed out the importance of distinguishing between wounds incidentally and necessarily fatal.

In 1663 Thomas Bartholin, a Danish physician, carefully investigated the period of human utero-gestation, and proposed the *Hydrostatic Test*, or observing whether the lungs of the infant floated or sunk in water, as proving whether it had ever breathed. The rationale of this process was more fully explained by Swammerdam in 1677; but was first applied to practical use by Jan Schreyer in 1682; after having been investigated by Thruston and Rayger.

While these important steps were in progress, Germany set the example of the first public lectures on Medical Jurisprudence. About the middle of the 17th century, Michaelis gave the first course in the university of Leipzig; these were soon followed by the lectures of the celebrated Bohn, who, before the close of the century, had published his valuable works *De Renunciatione Vulnerum*, et *Disser- tationes Medicinae Forensis*, which were speedily succeeded by the tract *De Officio Medici Duplici, Clinici et Foren- sis*. The two first were nearly contemporary with the investigations of Welsch and Amman on the *fatalitas* of *iconoids*, and the celebrated work of Licetus *De Monstros*; and the latter with the valuable *Sepulchreum* of Bonnet.

The mode of conducting medico-legal investigations had attracted attention in France, from the time of Ambrose Paré, through the 17th century. French authors love to trace the rudiments of the science in their country from the 12th century, in the rules given in the *assizes of Jerusalem*, for drawing up exemptions from certain civil and military duties, and in several subsequent ordinances of their monarchs, for the inspection of wounds: enactments from which we may trace the institution of the *Chirurgiens du Châtelet*. In 1603 Henri IV. authorized his physician to appoint persons, skilled in medicine and surgery, to make judicial inspections and reports in all cities and royal jurisdictions. The difficulty of carrying this into effect induced Louis XIV. to create, in 1692, hereditary royal physicians and surgeons, for the same purpose, with various immunities and privileges; but their corruption and venality soon became notorious, and the office was suppressed in 1790.

Various decrees, however, of the parliament of Paris, from the middle to the end of the 17th century, were directed to the improvement of legal medicine; and that body acquired great celebrity by the general equity and good sense of its judgments. Notwithstanding this auspicious commencement, Legal Medicine did not then flourish in France; and the work of Gendry, *Sur les Moyens de bien rapporter à Justice*, shews how imperfect were the then approved modes of investigation; though it proves that the importance of the subject began to be acknowledged. No other French work on Legal Medicine appeared in that century, with the exception of *Doctrine des rapports en Chirurgie* of Bléguy, which was superseded in the beginning of the succeeding century by the more useful *L'art de faire des rapports en Chirurgie* of Devaux.

The 18th century commenced with happier auspices for our science, and the press teemed with important works on Legal Medicine. As early as 1700 the admirable treatise on the diseases of artificers by Bernardino Ramazzini appeared at Padua. In the following year Valentiini published his *Pandecta Medico-legales*; his *Norelle* appeared in 1711; and both were incorporated in the excellent *Corpus Juris Medico-legale* in 1722. This work contains a judicious view of all that had been done before him, and is a vast storehouse of medico-legal information.

Several professorships for teaching this subject were about that period founded in the German universities; and the succession of German writers becomes now so numerous that we cannot attempt to give a catalogue, far less to characterize their works. Zittman, Boerner, Kanneger, and Teichmeyer, each published systems of various yet acknowledged merit. The *Institutiones Medicinae Legales* of the latter long formed the manual of the student: the clear and forcible reasoning of Storch in his work *De Medicina Utilitate in Jurisprudentia* (1730), vindicated the high importance of this branch of knowledge; but the *Systema* of Alberti, professor of Legal Medicine at Halle, in six quarto volumes, was the most complete and laborious work ever published on this subject. The writings of this learned man are obscured by his attachment to the mysticism of the Stahlian school; yet the industry with which he has collected facts renders his work a precious mine of information. Curious additions to our knowledge were made by the smaller publications of Loewe, Richter, Budus, Troppeneger, Fritch, and Wolff; Hermann, Clauder, Herzog, and Parmeon; which are chiefly valuable to those who may be called to exercise the profession in Germany. In the *Bibliotheca Medicale* of Plouquet will be found the names of those who have dedicated themselves to the illustration of particular branches of this extensive subject; and in the *Collectio Opusculorum* of Schlegel will be found some of the best detached treatises of the first three-fourths of the last century on the subject of wounds, poisoning, infanticide, utero-gestation, insanity, and the legal inspection of dead bodies. About the same time appeared the *Anthropologia Forensis* of Hebenstreit, the *Specimen* of Fusteneau, the *Institutiones* of Ludwig, and the *Elementa* of Fazelius. The lectures of Haller belong to this same period, though they were not published till 1781–2. Towards the close of the last century, the Germans were almost the only successful cultivators of Medical Jurisprudence. The *Elementa* of Plenck appeared in 1781, and the book is still considered a good introduction to the study. The *Bibliothek* of Daniel appeared in 1784; and in it we find the name of *state medicine* given to this branch of knowledge. Between 1790 and 1800, appeared the *Conspectus* of Sikorn, the *Handbuch* of Loder, the *System* of Metzger, and the *Entwurf* of Müller.

During the last century little was done in Italy after the time of Rammazzini; and in France the subject had attracted little attention, until the celebrated case of Villeblanche called forth the memoir of Louis on the period of utero-gestation, in which he attacked the pretended instances of protracted pregnancy with powerful arguments, which were seconded by Astruc and Bouvart, but vehemently opposed by Le Bas and Antoine Petit. This controversy gave rise to many able publications, in which Pouteau and Vogel took part; but victory remained with Louis and his adherents.

Louis wrote also a valuable memoir on the anatomical examination of bodies found hanged; he pointed out the mode by which we are able to distinguish assassination from suicide in such circumstances. He applied them to the celebrated cases of Calas, of Syrven, Mounthallet, and Baronet, in which are models of medico-legal investigation; and he may be considered as the first who publicly taught in France the just application of medical knowledge to jurisprudence.

The subject of poisoning was examined by Sallin, in a case where a person had been buried sixty-seven days; and he made a very ingenious attempt to investigate the effects of poisons; but has sometimes substituted speculation for facts.

In 1789 professor Chaussier read his excellent Memoire before the Academy of Dijon; in which he showed the necessity of careful inspection by the medical witness in all cases of death from blows or wounds, and gave admirable models of medico-legal reports. Next year he delivered a course of lectures on Legal Medicine to numerous pupils. The last year but one of the last century gave to the world the very excellent Traité de Médecine Legale of Foderé.

It may excite surprise that in this sketch we have made no mention of British authors. The fact is, that with the exception of the short Elements of Medical Jurisprudence published by Dr. Samuel Farr in 1788, which is little else but an abridgement of Fazelius, there was no treatise on Forensic Medicine in the English language.

It is true that some medico-legal questions are ably but incidentally treated in the writings of Mead, Munro, Denman, Percival, and John Hunter, and that an interesting Essay was published by Dr. Wm. Hunter "On the uncertainty of the signs of murder in the case of bastard children;" but the importance of the study, as a whole, was not understood in this country till long after the publication of many valuable systems in Germany, Italy, and France.

In the present century France took the lead. The end of the last century was marked by the institution of three professorships of Forensic Medicine. Malon was the first French professor, and his reputation as a teacher gave him a name, which the posthumous publication of his lectures has not sustained. The short Cours de Médecine Legale of Bellon appeared in 1802. Tartin's excellent Essay on Poisoning by Nitric Acid was published in the same year, between which and the year 1810 various short treatises appeared, chiefly on detached branches by Achart, Drouard, Lavort, Masson, Faufaure, Desortieux, Vigné, Lamarre, Banc-Cavé, Godemar, Raffenaud, De Lisle, and Faure.

In 1814 appeared the important Toxicologie of Orilla, (a Spaniard naturalized in France), which has changed the face of this part of Medical Jurisprudence, by the number of experiments, the original views on the nature and action of poisons, and the disquisitions on the modes of detecting them, it contains. The French practitioner may consult with advantage the Manuel of Bertrand, published in 1817; and the admirable La Médecine Legale relative à l'art des Accouchements of Capuron, has scarcely left us anything to desire on this branch of the subject. In 1819 appeared the excellent Essays of Lecieux on Infanticide, of Renard on Medico-legal examinations of dead bodies, of Laisne on Perforations of the Stomach, and of Rieux on Ecchymosis, Suggillation and Contusion, in the same volume. Valuable detached essays by Foderé and Marc are contained in the Dictionnaire des Sciences Médicales; and we may close our French list with the Manuel of Briand and Brosson, republished in 1828; the Secours à donner aux Asphyxiées of Orilla, which appeared in 1833; and the useful Manuel Complet of Sedillot.

During the present century Germany has not been idle. We have good compends by Schmidmüller, Masius, and Willberg. Rose published a very valuable essay on Medico-legal Dissection, which has been translated and enlarged by Marc, (Paris, 1808); and an excellent treatise on Pharmaco-chemico-Medical Police, was given to the world by Remer. This last treatise has been translated into French by Lagrange and Vogel, in 1816. Among many works which have appeared in Germany of later years, connected with our subject, we may mention the curious collection of cases by Von Fuerbach, published in 1828, entitled Merkwürdiger Berbrechen—Remarkable Crimes; the little tract of Drs. Bunsen and Berthold, on the power of Hydrated Peroxide of Iron as an antidote for Arsenic, which appeared at Göttingen in 1834; the Contributions to Legal Medicine of Bernt; and the masterly analysis of various poisons, by Buchner and Herberger.

Only two medico-legal works of any consequence have proceeded from the press of Italy within the present century: the Instituzioni di Medicina Legale, by Tortosa of Vicenza, and the Medicina Legale of Barcellotti.

Medical Jurisprudence may fairly be said to have only commenced in Britain within the present century. The first lectures ever delivered in Britain were given in the University of Edinburgh, in 1801, by the elder Dr. Duncan; and the first established Professorship was conferred by government on his son in 1803, since which period it has been regularly taught in that seminary.

The first original British work on Medical Jurisprudence was Dr Male's Epitome of Juridical or Forensic Medicine, for the use of Medical Men, Coroners, and Barristers, which appeared in 1816; and, though a short sketch, it contains interesting notices of English cases, and English law. Medical Jurisprudence, as it relates to Insanity, according to the Law of England, was published; in 1818, by Dr Haslam, in a little volume, illustrated by original cases. But the most valuable work then presented to the public, in an English dress, was the Principles of Forensic Medicine of Dr Gordon Smith; a volume commendable as an elementary treatise, less diffuse than most of the continental systems, and interesting to the British practitioner, by the numerous references to British cases and to our national codes. In 1820 Dr. William Hutchinson published his useful dissertation on Infanticide, in which its relation to physiology and Jurisprudence is very ably considered. These works were soon followed by the more costly publication of Paris and Fonblanque, in three octavo volumes in which, among some matter little interesting to the general student, are important references to English Jurisprudence.

The last British work we shall mention is the admirable Toxicology of Professor Christison, which appeared first in 1829, and has since gone through a second and third edition; a work the most philosophical and perfect which has yet appeared on the subject of poisons.

It would be improper to pass over the labours of our transatlantic brethren in this branch of science. In 1819 Dr. Cooper of Philadelphia republished in America the treatises of Farr, Male, and Haslam, with the remarks of Mr Dease, intended for the information of juries and young surgeons; a letter originally addressed "to the Chief Justice of Ireland, by a surgeon of that country." Dr Cooper added some notes, and a good digest of the laws relating to insanity and nuisance, for which his former station as a judge in the American courts well qualified him. Four years afterwards the American press presented us with the excellent work of Dr. Beck, which is a compend of all known on the subject. The author has freely availed himself of the writings of his predecessors, in many instances of their expressions and trains of reasoning; but his references to original authorities are copious and correct; and we must consider the last edition, recently brought to this country, as the best work, on the general subject, which has appeared in the English language. Medical Jurisprudence may be divided into two great branches, Forensic Medicine, and Medical Police. The first may be conveniently subdivided into, 1st, Questions affecting the civil rights, or social duties of individuals; 2d, Injuries to Property; 3d, Injuries to the person. The second part may also be subdivided into, 1st, Questions affecting the preservation of individuals; 2d, What relates to the health of men collected into communities.

It is obviously impossible, in the limits of a dissertation of this nature, to do much more than allude in general terms to most of the subjects included under these branches.

PART I—FORENSIC MEDICINE.

SECTION I—QUESTIONS AFFECTING THE CIVIL OR SOCIAL RIGHTS OF INDIVIDUALS.

I.—DEVELOPMENT OF THE HUMAN FRAME.—The usual development of the corporeal and mental powers becomes of high importance in establishing personal identity, in determining criminal responsibility, and in giving validity to various civil contracts.

1. Infancy is the period from birth until the completion of the seventh year; and its progress is best determined by attention to the size of the body, the evolution of its proportions, and the state of the first teeth. Its conclusion is marked by the loss of the milk incisors, and coming of the first permanent teeth.

2. Childhood may be considered as extending from the last period to the 14th or 15th year, or the commencement of puberty. The expansion of the body, the state of the teeth, and of the genitals, are its principal characteristics.

3. Adolescence is marked by changes in the whole constitution, by the commencement of the beard in males, and of the catamenia in females; this is of uncertain duration, but may be considered, with us, as extending to the 17th or 18th year.

4. Youth is the period between adolescence and the full perfection of the bodily powers. In it the generative function is perfected. We may consider it as terminating with the age of legal majority, though probably it should be extended to the 25th year, as it is with some nations.

5. Virility is that period during which all the bodily powers are perfect, and the mental faculties are matured. It has no definite bounds in man; but the perfection of the bodily powers of the female may be considered as bounded by the time when the catamenia cease, or woman is incapable of being a mother. That period is usually about her 45th year. It is during this period that all the bodily and mental faculties have generally acquired their full perfection in both sexes.

6. Old Age has no absolute beginning, fixed by nature, except in what we have just noticed of the female. It is exceedingly difficult to ascertain the age of persons of either sex in this period of life, so that no general rule can be fixed, and the limits of old age on either hand cannot be determined. Its general characteristics are stiffness of the limbs, wrinkling of the skin, loss of teeth, blanching of the hair, impaired vision, and decay of all the bodily faculties. Its approaches are often marked by the appearance of fawn-like wrinkles at the outer canthus of the eye, by increased obesity, and by the shoulders becoming round.

7. Decrepitude is the last stage of human existence, in which the bodily vigour is decayed; the knees and spine are curved, from the inability of the muscles to support the weight of the superior parts of the body, or by alterations in the form of the cartilages; the senses are blunted; and the only refuge is the grave. The periods at which these various changes take place are accelerated and retarded by constitution, climate, food, habits, education, and occupation.

II.—DURATION OF HUMAN LIFE.—The ordinary chances Duration of human life are an important subject of inquiry, deduced Life from accurate comparisons of registers of births and deaths. On this is founded the system of annuities, the principles of benefit societies, and of insurances on lives. Unfortunately these registers have been so ill kept in Britain, that our own tables have generally been calculated from foreign registers, especially those of Sweden and Finland. It is well known that Dr Price's calculations, from the Northampton tables, gave far too high a rate of mortality; and have caused much loss to the nation, in the payment of public annuities. The later tables, calculated from the last Swedish and Carlisle registers, have proved this most decisively; and the labours of Messrs. Milne, Lyon, and Finlaishon have since furnished us with surer data for our calculations of probabilities of survivorship, and the payment of benefit clubs. The important questions connected with this subject, and the light which a better system of registration is capable of throwing on many subjects connected with population, and the progress of medical knowledge, the important civil rights of individuals involved in the accuracy of registers of births, marriages, and deaths, should induce the government to take up the whole question of registration, and place it on a public and permanent footing.

III.—PERSONAL IDENTITY.—To those little familiar Personal with such inquiries, the danger of mistaking one person for another will not appear very considerable; but the fatal errors which have arisen from this source are too well known in the jurisprudence of every country. It becomes, therefore, of consequence to point out the circumstances by which personal identity may be rendered doubtful, and to indicate the marks by which it is best established. The first may include the effects of age, climate, aliment, habits, passions, wounds, diseases, &c. The circumstances which chiefly enable us to identify one long absent from his native country are, accurate observation of his likeness to his family; his resemblance to what he once was; in some instances his dialect; his recollection of past events; but, above all, the occurrence of scars, or meri materni, known to have been on the individual in question.

IV.—MARRIAGE.—Under this head the principal busi- Marriage ness of the medical jurist is with the nubile age, according to nature, and legislative enactments; and with physical circumstances affecting the legality of marriages, which may justify divorce.

1. The nubile age, with us, is not below fourteen for the male, and twelve for the female, that being the ordinary period of puberty in our climate; but young persons may after this age be prevented from marrying till the age of majority, by parents and guardians, in England, though this seems doubtful in Scotland.

2. The physical circumstances which may invalidate a marriage are, lunacy in either of the parties at the time, and physical inability to consummate. There are instances of this last being pleaded and sustained in our Courts. Certain diseases, such as epilepsy, are held in some countries to invalidate marriage, but not with us.

V.—IMPOBENCE AND STERILITY may arise from,

1. Functional Causes.—Of these, habitual intoxication, excessive venery, and diseases which greatly debilitate, or affect the common sensurium, are the chief. They are generally temporary only. In females the same causes may produce sterility; to which may be added excessive leucorrhoea, dysmenorrhoea, anaphrodisia, &c.

2. The Organic Causes are malformation of the genitals in both sexes, or total deficiency of some of them. We must be careful, however, not to infer the want of testes, VI.—PREGNANCY presents a wide field for medico-legal evidence.

1. The limits between which it is possible, belong to the province of the medical jurist. It may be limited to the period during which the catamenia recur; but this varies from under ten to more than fifty years of age. A few remarkable instances of impregnation after sixty are recorded; and instances of very early puberty also have occurred, even so early as about four years; but these are exceptions to a general rule, which should be kept in mind, in judging of imputed pregnancy.

2. The signs of true pregnancy should be impressed on the mind of the jurist; for he may be called to determine whether a capital sentence is to be suspended on this plea, or whether an accusation of pregnancy may not, from the effect of disease, be made against a virtuous female. It is in the early months that the principal risk of error lies. The usual signs are, the cessation of the catamenia, the darkening of the areola round the nipple, the general state of the breasts, the state of the os uteri, the form of the womb as felt over the pubes; and as the pregnancy advances, the tumefaction of the abdomen, and the motions of the fetus. At this period, the stethoscope, applied to the abdomen, affords a certain indication. The female, for this last examination, should be in bed, lying on her back, with a sheet drawn smoothly over the abdomen; place the stethoscope between the navel and the pubes, and an attentive ear will readily distinguish two sounds; a whirring one, synchronous with the maternal pulse; and the pulsations of the fetal heart, considerably quicker and of a sharper tone.

3. Limits of Utero-gestation. Pregnancy may be protracted beyond nine months, or forty weeks, its usual term; but not so considerably as was once imagined. The Justinian and some modern codes were very indulgent in this respect. Ten calendar months, or three hundred days, is the extreme limit allowed by the present French code; the Prussian extends it to three hundred and two days, a period sufficient to include every case of protracted pregnancy. The law of England at present has no definite limit; but a case beyond the usual term would go to a jury. The difficulty of any female ascertaining the precise period of her conception is the cause of the discrepant opinions of the physiologists on this subject.

VII. PARTURITION. This subject is also one of great delicacy, and involves several questions.

1. Whether it be approaching in general, may be known by indications described in all books on midwifery. The steps of natural, protracted, and preternatural labour should be familiar.

2. But the signs of recent delivery are more important to the jurist. These are, the bruised state of the genitals, relaxation of the vagina and of the uterus, the presence of the lochial discharge, the general appearance of the female, and the formation of milk in her breasts.

3. The viability of the child is very important, and is recognized by the perfection of its organs, the position of the median line, the appearance of its nails, and skin, the cry of the infant, and its capability of sucking. This is a subject of interest; because in some instances, if a child be born not viable, it may affect the succession to property, when the mother dies in childbirth; and it may bear on certain cases of alleged infanticide. One other question connected with this subject is, when there is a considerable interval between the birth of twins, whether these are to be considered as conceived at the same time. Many deny the possibility of superfetation, which in such cases is contended for by others; but it is a subject involved in much obscurity.

VIII. MONSTERS AND HERMAPHRODITES. No living human birth, however much it differ from human shape, can be destroyed without committing a capital crime. The law states that monsters cannot inherit; but it has left us in the dark, as to what should be considered sufficient deviation from the human form to constitute a monster. Hermaphrodites are now considered as beings with malformations of the organs of either sex; and physiology does not admit the existence of true hermaphrodites with duplex perfect organs.

IX. PATERNITY AND AFFILIATION become medico-legal questions when a considerable interval has elapsed between the birth of a child and the death or absence of its reputed father: ten calendar months being the utmost limit to which modern physiology would extend the period of utero-gestation. This subject involves questions respecting children born during a second wedlock of the mother, the circumstances of posthumous children, the laws of bastardy, and the mode of treating alleged cases of suspicious children.

X. PRESUMPTIONS OF SURVIVORSHIP.

1. When a mother and her new-born infant are found of dead, important civil rights depend on the question, which survived the longest; as the husband's right to be tenant to ship, the curtesy, or the descent of property derived from the mother. The law of England in such cases admits such slender proofs of life in the fetus as would not be received elsewhere, and leaves much to the evidence of a medical witness. Elsewhere the child must either cry or look around, to constitute a quick birth; but in England a quiver of the lips has been received as a proof of life, in defiance of physiology.

2. When two or more persons perish by a common accident, without any but probable means of ascertaining who perished first, as in cases of shipwreck, or on a field of battle, the descent of property may become the subject of dispute. Such questions have been rarely decided in Britain; but probably should be determined on the principles laid down in ancient Roman law, or in the Code-Napoleon.

XI. MENTAL ALIENATION. This interesting subject presents a wide field for speculation to the medical jurist. Alienation.

1. He should be familiar with the four forms of insanity, Mania, Monomania, Dementia, and Amentia, and be able to indicate the leading symptoms and the most judicious treatment of each. He should be able to detect feigned cases of insanity, and to prevent real lunatics from being treated as criminals.

2. The chief questions that may fall under his decision are, how to distinguish the disease, and to prove a man insane; if there be a real lucid interval; what period of life is most liable to insanity; what diseases are most liable to be confounded with it; whether it has increased in these kingdoms.

3. The nature and management of Lunatic hospitals are also in his province. It must never be forgotten, that, in such establishments, no more restraint should be employed than is necessary to prevent the unfortunate being from hurting himself or others; while the order and economy of the house is to be maintained by a mild but firm administration; rather like the authority of a parent over children, than the rigid severity of a task-master towards a dependent.

XII. THE RIGHTS OF THE DEAF AND DUMB are secured by law; and if the intellect be perfectly sound, there is now no question of their perfect competence to enjoy all the civil rights of other subjects of the state. They can intimate legal consent by signs, or by writing; and should be considered as responsible agents.

XIII. MALADIES EXEMPTING FROM PUBLIC DUTIES belong to the medical man, both in his civil and military capacity. He may be called to decide whether a man be fit for duty. without imminent injury to his health, or danger to his life, to perform the duties of a jurymen, of an officer of justice, or to serve in the navy or the army. In all such cases the certificate of health must be carefully drawn up, on an honest consideration of each case, and a fearless determination to do justice.

XIV. SIMULATED DISEASES present a field of investigation, requiring caution and discrimination. It may be the duty of the medical man to aid the magistrate in the detection of the guilty impostor, or the military tribunal in consigning to merited punishment the pretended invalid. No questions require more professional skill, more self-possession, or more knowledge of human character.

SECTION II.—INJURIES TO PROPERTY.

Nuisances.

I. NUISANCES FROM MANUFACTORIES, &c. These may affect the property of our neighbour in different ways; or the nuisance may be a public one. The first is what is termed a private nuisance, and may be abated by an action for damages; the second is a common or public nuisance, and the proper remedy is by indictment. In certain cases the injunction of a court of equity will stay the nuisance in a summary manner.

It was at one time ruled, "that usefulness shall compensate for noisesomeness, and that unless it could be proved deleterious to the health, a manufacture, however disagreeable, might be introduced into a town:" but by several later decisions of our judges, it is sufficient to prove that the nuisance complained of is very disagreeable, and renders the property of a neighbour less valuable, or diminishes in a marked degree the comfort of his life. In judging of such cases, a medical man is often on delicate ground, between parties deeply interested in the issue of the cause: but we may in general terms conclude, that what is very disagreeable to the olfactory organs of most persons is injurious to health; and now it is sufficient to prove the very offensive nature of the nuisance, to obtain its abatement or suppression.

The principal nuisances which are likely to become the subjects of an action are:

1. Establishments or manufactures in which offensive odours are either naturally given out, or generated by putrefaction,—such as the erection of privies, piggeries, cattle-pens, slaughter-houses, cemeteries, collections of decaying animal and vegetable substances, steeping of hemp and flax, starch making, dealing in various animal matters, as in the trades of the knacker and gut-spinner.

2. Manufactures which evolve noxious or offensive effluvia by the aid of heat,—as in sugar refining, dyeing, glue-making, hartshorn and ivory-black works, Prussian blue making, rendering of fat and tallow, boiling of whale and fish oil, leaf-horn manufactories, varnish making, soap works, acid making, alkali works, preparation of chlorine, smelting houses, coal-gas works, turpentine making, unconsumed smoke from steam-boilers, &c.

3. Manufactures which corrupt or pollute streams or springs,—as bleaching, dyeing, tanning, gas making, lime-burning, and the like.

4. Establishments that become nuisances from their noises—as the business of the tin-plate worker, the copper-smith, the trunk-maker, the boiler-maker, tilting machinery, &c.

II. ARSON. The crime of wilful fire-raising can rarely become the subject of medico-legal investigation, except when there is a doubt whether the alleged fire may have arisen from spontaneous combustion. Spontaneous combustion may arise in inert matter from

1. Friction or percussion, by which the latent heat of bodies is suddenly converted into sensible heat.

2. By fermentation of vegetable matter,—as in the firing of new hay, of collections of linen rags, roasted bran, and powdered charcoal; in which the heat excited appears to be owing to the rapid absorption of watery vapour, which, when condensed, gives out its latent caloric in sufficient quantity to cause ignition.

3. By chemical action,—as in the effect of drying oils on hemp, flax, cotton, and on some powders,—as that of charcoal, and black oxide of manganese; the action of nitric acid on essential oils, indigo, &c., or the mixture of oil with wool. Under this head also may be advantageously discussed the singular combustions of the human body, which have sometimes led to accusations of murder, when the event was due to spontaneous changes in the living body.

III.—FORGERY AND FALSEIFICATION OF DOCUMENTS.—Forgery. This may be of two kinds:

1. Forgery of Engraved or Printed Bills.—The importance of preventing forgeries, in a great commercial country, where public and private bills form an immense portion of the circulating medium, has given rise to various contrivances for the prevention of frauds. This has been attempted by introducing peculiarities in the manufacture of the paper, as the use of water marks, and colouring the pulp; but ingenious knaves have imitated both successfully. It has been also attempted by employing complicated designs, not easy of imitation. The most ingenious and successful effort of this kind is the multiplication of the same design, by Mr. Perkins's machinery, through which the same figure cut on steel afterwards hardened, may be indefinitely multiplied, by being transferred to copper. The success of this method is proved by the very few forgeries which have taken place on the banks which have employed his plates. Substitution of one sum for another has sometimes been made. This is easiest prevented by the multiplication of the word or figures on the face of the note, and also by care in the manufacture of the printing-ink. It is found that an ink composed of lamp-black, Prussian blue or smalt, with copal varnish, is more difficult of erasure than common printer's ink.

2. Falseification of Deeds, and forgeries of names, have been committed by the erasure of the common ink used in the signatures. Common ink is usually effaced by diluted nitric, or oxalic acids, by solutions of chlorine, by caustic alkalies, and by butter of antimony. All these substances soften or injure the texture of the paper, but the traces of this injury have been effaced by washing, sizing, and pressing the paper. If these steps have not been carefully performed, however, the writing may, in some instances, be restored; the erasure by acids, in that case, becomes manifest on the application of an alkali—the effect of alkalis by acids; but chlorine may leave no trace of its employment, except the extreme whiteness of the paper. In deeds and writings of importance the best preventive would be to use as an ink a solution of copal in oil of lavender, coloured by lamp-black. The defect of this ink is, that it is apt to become thick, and not to flow freely from the pen; but it cannot be erased by the means already noticed.

IV.—COINING OF FALSE MONEY.—The care with which Coining the die is prepared will not always secure against frauds of this sort, as the coin itself offers a ready means of obtaining a mould, of sufficient sharpness for the purpose of the coiner. The object of such persons is to pass off base alloys for pieces of gold and silver. These may be detected by deficient specific gravity; but, in the ordinary business of life, this is not a practicable test. Most of the base alloys are much less sonorous than the precious metals, and the sound is therefore employed to ascertain the genuine coin. All coin is alloyed with copper, which imparts hardness, and prevents loss in wearing; this quantity, in our mint, amounts to two parts of alloy for every twenty-two of pure gold or Forensic silver, or 1-12th. The simplest method of detecting the intermixture of too large a quantity of alloy is by the change of colour produced when a streak is made on touchstone, and compared with the streak formed by needles of metal of ascertained purity; but chemical examination is to be preferred.

1. Debasement of Gold is ascertained by dissolving a given weight of the alloy, cut into small pieces, in pure nitric acid. This will leave the gold, but dissolve the baser metals; and the weight of the residue, washed and dried, gives the quantity of gold present. The nature of the alloy may be found by different chemical tests. There is only one debasement of gold coin not to be thus detected. Gold coin has been debased by platinum. If the attempt be made to form an alloy, it spoils the colour of the gold; but at Rouen it was accomplished by plating the platinum with gold so nicely, as to give the piece its due weight. Cutting such a coin will detect the fraud. If an alloy has been made, it may be detected by the colour being greyish, or by dissolving the whole in nitro-muriatic acid; when the addition of muriate of potassa, or of ammonia, to the acid solution, throws down a yellow precipitate, if platinum be present.

2. Debasement of Silver is usually detected by cupellation. The weight of the button of silver left on the cupel gives the quantity of silver in the alloy. It may also be found by dissolving the alloy in nitric acid, and precipitating the solution by muriate of soda: the precipitate blackens by light, and affords the means of ascertaining the quantity of silver in the compound.

SECT. III.—INJURIES AGAINST THE PERSON.

These may be A, such as do not imply the loss of life; or B, such as usually endanger or destroy life.

A.

I.—DEFLORATION.—The signs of defloration are obscure. The state of the sexual organs have been chiefly relied on as indications of the loss of virginity, and in particular the rupture of the hymen; but the hymen has been found entire in some females who have had carnal intercourse with man, and is sometimes naturally wanting, or may be destroyed by disease. The appearance of the nymphae, and the size of the vaginal orifice, are not certain indications, any more than the appearance of the carunculae mystiformes, or the firmness of the mammae. It is only by considering all the signs together, that we can arrive at any just conclusion.

II.—RAPE.—This crime consists in the forcible knowledge of a woman against her will; her resistance must be continued to the utmost, while she retains her senses or the power of struggling with the ravisher, unless she may have yielded to the immediate fear of death. It is not a rape without these conditions being complete; the woman otherwise is supposed to have consented to the act, which may indeed have commenced in violence, but have terminated with her consent. An infant, however, under ten years of age, cannot give legal consent; and whoever has carnal knowledge of such an infant, either with or without her consent, is guilty of a capital crime. The proofs of rape, besides the consistency of the woman's story, mainly depend on the marks of violence on her person. If a virgin hath been violated, the injury to the sexual organs, with the precautions mentioned under defloration, will be taken into consideration. If a married female be the victim, we must look for bruises on her own person, or injuries she may have inflicted on the ravisher during her resistance, which last are accessory proofs of no small importance. The crime may even be perpetrated on a prostitute. It is rape, forensic if the act be forcible, and against her will. The slightest penetration is sufficient; emission is not now required to be proved. The physical signs of rape soon pass away; and unless the female be inspected within ten days after the alleged violence, we shall, in most cases, vainly seek for confirmation of the allegation from inspection. The charge of rape is not invalidated by the female conceiving, nor by the occurrence of syphilis in the woman.

III.—MUTILATION.—Demembration, mutilation of the Mutilation face, cutting or maiming, are capital crimes by Lord Ellenborough's act. The extent of the injury may often be referred to a medical man; and in a case of slitting the nose, an English judge overruled the objection of the prisoner's counsel, "that the nose was only cut," by stating, "the surgeon swore it was slit;" and that slit was anciently synonymous with cut. Castration was always, in Britain, considered as a capital offence, even when other mayhem (as mutilations are termed in English law) were punished by fine and imprisonment. In France, the perpetrator is condemned to hard labour for life, except where it has been "immediately provoked by an outrage against modesty." Castration, long after the infliction, may be recognised by the cicatrix of the wound.

B.

IV.—CRIMINAL ABORTION.—The laws of Britain recognize this crime only after the period of quickening, on the false idea that then only life enters into the fetus. Quickening is merely the mechanical escape of the gravid uterus from the pelvis into the abdomen, and usually takes place in the fourth month of utero-gestation. Before this has taken place, causing a woman to abort is not a crime in our code, though it be so in that of some other countries, as in France; and ought to be so; for quickening has nothing to do with the life of the fetus, which has been a living being long before. The chief means by which abortion is sought to be accomplished are, by blows and bruises on the abdomen, by the administration of drastic purgatives, or other medicines acting violently on the human frame, by repeated venesection, and by the introduction of pointed instruments into the womb. None of the means, except the last, are certain in their operation, but all are highly dangerous to the mother; and one who only essays abortion may thus commit a double murder. In cases of alleged abortion, the medical witness has to consider the involuntary causes which may produce it; as accidental falls and blows, strong mental emotions, errors of diet and regimen, or spasmodic diseases; and he should balance these against the marks of premeditated design.

V.—INFANTICIDE.—By the laws of Britain, the mother infanticide who concealed her pregnancy till she was delivered of a dead child, or who, during labour, failed to cry out for assistance, or whose infant disappeared after birth, was formerly held guilty of infanticide; and many convictions and executions took place on this cruel statute. In later times very moderate proof of these three circumstances was held sufficient to invalidate the capital charge. Even in England, in cases of the murder of bastard children, contrary to all the usual forms of justice, a statute of James I. threw the onus of proving her innocence on the mother; and it was not until the 43d year of George III. that this iniquitous law was repealed, and the same rules of evidence here applied as in other cases of murder.

This subject involves some very nice points of legal medicine. The proofs of the child being born alive enter into the case. It must be proved to have arrived at the period when there was a probability of its living; its body should be carefully inspected for marks of wounds or bruises; its cavities should be opened, lest there be traces Forensic of injuries sufficient to have caused death, found in the head, abdomen, or chest; the state of the peculiarities in the fetal circulation, and of the organs of respiration, must be examined; and we must observe whether the lungs seem to have been dilated by breathing, or remain in the dense condition and backward position they have before respiration has commenced. This leads us to consider the celebrated docimasia pulmonum, or test by their sinking or floating in water, which was at one time regarded as indisputable proof of the death of the child, before or after birth, but has now been considered as ambiguous. If, however, we try the lungs together with the heart, with that organ separated, each lung separately, and also detached portions of the lungs, we shall generally find little difficulty in deciding the important question, especially if attention be paid to the quantity of blood in the lungs, and the state of the ductus venosus and d. arteriosus, the contents of the air-tubes, and of the alimentary canal. We must carefully distinguish between the effects of artificial insufflation of the lungs after death, and their floating from respiration, or from incipient putrefaction. In cases of artificial insufflation, the whole lungs will not float, and the air may be squeezed out of a cut portion of the lungs, so as to sink in water; whereas, it is not possible, by compression with the thumb and finger, so to free from air a portion of lung that has respired, that it will not float. Putrefaction may be distinguished by the smell, and the air not being in the cells, but in oblong globules in the cellular tissue uniting the cells.

Infanticide from strangulation, from drowning, and from mephitic air, may be distinguished by the marks to be mentioned under asphyxia. Infanticide may be produced by omission, as by neglecting to tie the navel string; in which case the body will appear bloodless, the great vessels near the heart, and that organ itself will be empty. The child may perish, if not removed from the discharges which accompany delivery; and the possibility of this happening, without any fault of the mother, must be taken into consideration. The infant may die from exposure to cold. If it be found in a remote or sequestered situation, that would be ground for suspicion. If there be meconium discharged from its bowels; if it exhibit marks of starvation, in the emptiness of its alimentary canal; or if it appear to have been fed, we may be sure that it was born alive, and probably perished from criminal neglect. Any artificial objects, such as articles of dress, found near the child, should be carefully preserved, as one means of identifying the exposers; and if foot-marks are seen there, they should be accurately measured and noted.

In cases of exposed infants, it is very important to ascertain the real mother. As such exposure usually takes place soon after birth, comparing the age of the infant with the signs of recent delivery on the suspected mother, is the best method of proving the connection between them.

VI.—HOMICIDE.—It is only with culpable homicide, and with murder, that the medical jurist has to deal. When a person is found apparently dead, a medical man may be required to inspect and report on the cause of death. He should, of course, first ascertain whether it be a case of real or only of apparent death. This sometimes is not easy. Singular instances of resuscitation from apparent death are noticed by Winslow, Bruhier, and others, which should make us pause ere we hastily pronounce a person dead, without evident causes for his death appearing on his body. Neither pallor of the face and lips, insensibility to stimuli, cessation of the organs of respiration and circulation, loss of heat, nor even stiffness of the limbs, are infallible criteria. Until, along with these, we have marks of incipient putrefaction or decomposition, we cannot be absolutely certain that a person is quite dead; and, in all cases of doubt, we should wait for incipient putrefaction ere we sanction interment. Where the symptoms appear at all equivocal, we should scarify, or apply hot oil to some parts of the skin.

Here it may be proper to describe the general method of carrying on the medico-legal examination of a body. In cases where a person is found dead, the body should be carefully inspected for external wounds or marks of contusions. Any wound, however minute, should be traced with a probe, and followed to its termination by the knife. Blackish marks should be cut into, in order to ascertain whether they be the effect of the effusion of coagulated blood, or merely the consequences of that infiltration of the skin which takes place in the depending parts of bodies after death. The first is termed ecchymosis; the latter may be distinguished from the former by the name of sugillation. In the subsequent examination of the head, the hair should be removed, the scalp inspected, and afterwards divided from ear to ear, over the vertex; the skull-cap removed; the state of the brain and its membranes carefully marked, and especially any unusual appearances noted down. All should, on the spot, be committed to writing—nothing trusted to the memory, however tenacious. The inspection of the larynx, trachea, and gullet, is best performed by making a cut through the lower lip, and down the fore part of the neck and chest, to the xiphoid cartilage. Transverse cuts should then be extended from the longitudinal one, along the edges of the lower jaw and the collar bones, so as to enable us to turn back the integuments of the neck. The symphysis of the chin should then be sawed through, and the soft parts divided. We can thus separate the two sides of the lower jaw. When the tongue is pulled forward, the fauces, and upper part of the oesophagus and larynx, are freely exposed, and the introduction of acid poisons, or of foreign bodies, may often be thus detected. The state of the cartilages of the larynx and trachea should be noted, as fracture or displacement of these has occasionally detected strangulation. A ligature should be put on the lower part of the gullet, and the tube divided above the ligature.

The abdomen may next be opened, by a cut through the skin from the sternum to the pubes. In new-born infants the whole skin and abdominal muscles may at once be cut through, along the cartilages of the ribs on each side, and thence to the anterior edge of the ileum, curving downward to the pubes. This will, when the flap thus formed is turned down, expose the abdominal viscera sufficiently, without disturbing the vessels of the umbilical cord. In the adult, we may first separate the skin of the abdomen from the muscles, in one line from the sternum to the pubes, and, as it is easily extensible, cut out a flap of the muscles of the abdomen, as above directed, so as to expose the viscera. The skin so divided makes a neater appearance when sewed up, than when the muscles and skin are divided together, as in the infant. A ligature should be put on the duodenum, and division of the intestines made below the ligature; so that we may remove the stomach and its contents, and reserve them for subsequent examination. The other viscera should also be carefully inspected. The thorax should be last examined; because this enables us the better to ascertain the descent of the diaphragm, and the arching of the chest, which takes place in asphyxia, than when we open the chest before the abdomen. The cartilages of the ribs should be divided as close as possible to the ends of the ribs, as thus a larger opening is made in the chest. The position and appearance of the lungs and heart should be noted, and their engorgement with blood, or the emptiness of the great vessels, ascertained. When it is necessary to examine the spinal canal, the body must be laid on a table with the face downwards: an incision is to be made along the whole spine, from the occiput to the sacrum, the integuments are to be separated on each side, so as to expose the posterior portion of the vertebrae, which may be divided near the transverse processes by a saw, the rachitome, or by cutting pliers. A triangular piece should also be sawed out of the occipital bone at the foramen magnum. This will expose the whole spinal canal.

Homicide may be accomplished by several modes that may sometimes be ascertained by examination of the body. Death by Asphyxia or suffocation may be produced by drowning, by hanging, by strangulation, and by mephitic air.

1. Drowning may produce the fatal effect in two different modes. In some the suddenness of the shock, or the surprise instantaneously arrests both the functions of circulation and of respiration; no struggle precedes death. This species of drowning has been justly compared to syncope; and hence has been by Desgranges termed asphyxia syncopalis. In others the circulation goes on for some time after the respiration has been interrupted; the animal struggles, makes vain efforts at inspiration, and portions of air are forced out of the lungs by a convulsive effort of the muscles of respiration. The circulation of un-oxygenated blood through the brain seems to act as poison on that delicate organ; and the consequence is diminution of nervous energy over all the body, by which the play of the heart is enfeebled and the animal soon dies. In this case the brain is usually found congested with dark blood. This state has been aptly termed asphyxia congestiva. This difference in the phenomena may account for the great difference perceived in the bodies of drowned persons, and also for the difference in the chances of recovery after submersion. In the first species the pallor of the countenance is marked, and the features little altered. In the latter, the face will often appear swelled and livid, the tongue be protruded, the nose and air passages filled with frothy mucous, the brain and right side of the heart gorged with black blood. The body which has been sometime immersed is generally pale, the eyes are half open, and the pupils generally much dilated, the chest arched, and the diaphragm pushed down into the abdomen. These last signs are most conspicuous in those who have perished from asphyxia congestiva. When the person has retained his sensibility after falling into the water, the ends of the fingers are often found excoriated by his grasping at any object within his reach; and mud or gravel will often be found lodged below his nails. The blood in drowned persons generally remains fluid. These are the principal signs by which we can distinguish the extinction of life by drowning, from the cases in which the person has been thrown into the water after death. If we find in the stomach water containing any foreign bodies, such as fragments of straws or weeds, similar to those in the water in which the body was found, we may be sure that the person was living when immersed in the water; for no water will enter the stomach after death.

It may, however, be very difficult to distinguish a murder by drowning, from death by accidentally falling into water, or from a suicide. The most material circumstances will be, the marks of struggle near the spot where the body has been immersed, the obstacles in the way, the impressions of the feet of more than one person leading to the water. We must also pay attention to appearances of injuries on the body, which could not have occurred from simply falling into the water; such as marks of strangulation on the neck, or wounds inflicted by deadly instruments.

2. Hanging produces most of the internal appearances just described; such as turgescence of the vessels of the head, livor of the face, fluid black blood in the lungs and right side of the heart, protrusion of the tongue, and the nose loaded with mucous; but besides these, we usually find a mark round the neck; and when the person has undergone a public execution, especially when the drop is employed, there is often luxation of the neck, and fracture of the processus dentatus. Ecchymosis is generally found under the mark of the rope; sometimes this mark is not apparent until some hours after death, but dissection will show the cellular tissue, beneath the rope, dry and compressed. The face is generally less distorted, the eyes less prominent, in those in whom luxation of the neck is produced by the drop, than when the struggle is more protracted. Recovery is hopeless in the first case, but has sometimes followed the asphyxia produced by mere strangulation, which seems to cause a stupor, that is, however, soon fatal, if the person be not soon relieved.

In examining the body of a person found suspended by the neck, we must determine whether this be really the mode in which life was extinguished, or whether the body was suspended after death. The absence of the usual marks of hanging, the position of the rope-mark on the neck, the presence of other mortal injuries, the appearance of the rope are all important objects of consideration. These become of the utmost importance in the difficult cases, where there is a doubt whether the person was murdered or committed suicide. We must rely for a solution of the problem on the indications just noticed, and the previous history of the individual.

3. Strangling may be accomplished by drawing a rope tightly round the neck, or by forcibly compressing the anterior of the windpipe, after the manner of Burke and his imitators. In the first, the mark round the neck will generally be nearly circular and not inclined to the ear or occiput. In the latter, marks of fingers will often be perceived on the neck, or a circular depression will be found on the front of the windpipe, and sometimes some of its cartilaginous rings will be broken or displaced. The signs of suffocation will be equally present, as in hanging; but if the mark of the cord be on the lower part of the neck, it cannot be a case of death by hanging.

Suffocation has sometimes occurred from bulky substances sticking in the gullet, and compressing the trachea. Assassination has also been effected on infants, or on feeble individuals, by covering up the mouth and nose. This last mode leaves no external marks of violence, and can scarcely be detected, except by the appearances of suffocation found after death.

4. Mephitism, or death from irrespirable gases, often happens accidentally, but is seldom the mode of assassination, except in cases of infanticide; and will be noticed under Toxicology.

In every case of suffocation our attempts at reanimation should be directed to renew respiration by inflation of the lungs, to restore the animal heat by exposure to warm pure air, and by assiduous frictions of the surface, to rouse by stimuli, and by brushing the soles of the feet and palms of the hands, to relieve cerebral congestion, when necessary, by moderate and cautious bleeding.

VII. Death from Starvation. Cases may occur where it is important to distinguish this from other modes of the extinction of life. In such cases the cutaneous veins disappear, the skin has become harsh and has a shivered look; the fat has disappeared, and the soft parts are mostly wasted; the gums desert the teeth; the eyes are commonly more or less open and bloodshot; the tongue and fauces are dark and dry; the stomach shrunk, blackish and ulcerated on its internal surface; the intestines resemble a cord; the gall bladder is gorged with bile, which stains the intestines to a considerable extent; the heart is wasted, and the great vessels are almost empty; the body exhales a most offensive odour of putridity, even before life is extinct.

The period required to destroy life in inanition is very

Forensic various, and appears to be shorter in the young and vigorous Medicine, than in persons of middle life, in men than in women. In some comatose diseases, and in persons reduced by previous illness, the life under inanition has occasionally been greatly protracted; and when there has been stupor with occasional intermissions, an astonishingly small quantity of liquid aliment has prolonged life for many weeks, months, or even years. Some of the published cases of fasting are apocryphal; but in others where the quantity of nutriment has been extremely small, the individuals may be considered as in the state of hibernating animals, where the diminished nervous energy renders the waste of the system exceedingly slow. Those who are deprived also of drink perish soonest of inanition; and those who are confined in dry warm air, than those exposed to a moist, cool atmosphere.

VIII. Death from Extremes of Temperature.

1. From extremes of cold. After the sensation of tingling in the fingers and toes, exposure to extreme cold is soon followed by languor, loss of sensation, and irresistible propensity to sleep, which is so oppressive, that even the known fatality of the indulgence while exposed to the cold is insufficient to prevent the sufferer to seek repose. Cold does not seem to produce a painful death. In arctic regions the best preservatives against extreme cold are, woollen garments next the skin, with furs and dressed leather over them, a free use of warm diluents, and avoiding wine and spirits.

2. From a much increased temperature, the fatal effects may be scalding or burning, according to the medium applied. This mode of extinction of life leaves very obvious traces on the body. Sometimes fire has been applied to the body after death, to conceal a murder. This fact suggests the propriety of the medical man examining a scorched body minutely, lest there be wounds on its surface, inflicted during life. If the person has lived sometime after the scorching, in general there will be found a ring of inflammation surrounding the eschars: but this only takes place when the burning has not been so severe as to sink the powers of life beyond the capability of reaction.

An increased temperature may be insufficient to vesicate or destroy the skin, yet may prove fatal; as is well known in what is termed a coup de soleil. This is a species of apoplexy, chiefly induced by the direct influence of the sun on the head, and appears to be similar to the effect of the Khamsin or Simoon of the desert.

3. Death from lightning is not wholly to be attributed to the high temperature, but partly to the impulse or shock instantly affecting the brain, and paralyzing the heart: yet as the marks of singeing are often observed on the bodies of those killed by lightning, it may be here considered. The skin is sometimes discoloured in stripes or oblong patches; at other times the surface has no mark of injury, but the viscera have been observed more or less affected, and occasionally there is a small perforation on the skin. The blood is described in every case as remaining fluid, and the corpse runs rapidly to putrefaction.

IX. Wounds. The examination of wounds, whether fatal or not, often becomes an important branch of legal medicine. Wounds are usually divided into contusions, lacerations, incisions, stabs, gunshot and poisoned wounds. Each kind requires to be minutely examined, and described, as they are in approved works on surgery. The degree of danger from each should be familiar to the jurist; and he should recollect that there is scarcely any wound which may not become incidentally fatal from improper treatment, or peculiarities in constitution. Punctured wounds or stabs require minute attention; for there have been instances in which death has been produced by an instrument not thicker than a pin, thrust into the brain, the spinal marrow, or the heart.

Poisoned wounds belong to Toxicology. Wounds are more or less dangerous according to their locality.

1. Wounds of the head are always dangerous, especially if the blow has been considerable. The person so wounded may die without separation of the integuments or fracture of the bone; as happens in what is termed concussion of the brain. Contusions which do not divide the skin may fracture the skull; or the inner table of the skull may be fractured without the outer being broken or depressed. Even wounds of the integuments may prove fatal, from inflammation extending inwards to the brain. Punctured wounds of the head are more dangerous than cuts, as more likely to excite fatal inflammation. When the brain or its meninges are injured, all such wounds are generally fatal.

Wounds of the face or organs of sense are often dangerous, and always disfiguring. Malicious disfiguring of the face was made a capital felony in the reign of Charles II., by the Carenage act; but the monstrous anomaly pointed out by Filangieri, that disfiguring with the intent to disfigure was punished with death, while the intent to murder was not capital, no longer disgraces our statute book. Wounds of any of the organs of sense are generally dangerous, and always produce serious inconvenience.

2. Wounds of the neck are always very serious wherever more than the integument is divided. The danger of opening large blood-vessels, or injuring important nerves, is imminent; even the division of a considerable vein in the neck has proved immediately fatal, from the entrance of air into the vessel, and its speedy conveyance to the heart. A blow on the side of the neck has instantly proved fatal, either from the blood being forced back into the brain, or from injury to the superior parts of the par vagum, the great sympathetic, or the other cervical nerves. Dislocations and fractures of the bones of the neck prove instantly fatal.

3. Wounds of the Chest are always serious, when the cavity is penetrated, though persons have recovered from wounds of the lungs, and have even survived for some time considerable wounds of the heart. This last is an important fact; because we are not always to consider the spot where the body of a person killed by a wound of the heart, and apparently remaining where he fell, is found, as that in which the death-wound was inflicted. Instances have occurred of persons surviving severe wounds of the heart for several days. Fractured ribs are never without danger; and the same may be said of severe contusions of the chest, from the chance of inflammation extending inwards. Wounds penetrating both sides of the chest are generally considered as fatal, though animals have recovered after having both sides of the thorax penetrated, and the wounds kept open for some minutes.

4. Wounds of the Abdomen, when they do not completely penetrate, may be considered as simple wounds, unless when inflicted with great force, so as to bruise the contents of the cavity; in that case, they may produce death without breach of surface, as sometimes happens from blows or kicks on the belly. Wounds injuring the general peritoneum, or that duplicature of it investing the stomach and intestines, are highly perilous, from the risk of severe inflammation. Wounds of the stomach or intestines, or of the gall bladder, generally prove mortal, from the effusion of their contents into the general cavity producing fatal inflammation. Wounds of the liver, spleen, or kidneys, are generally soon mortal, from the great vascularity of those organs.

5. Wounds of the Extremities, when fatal, may generally be considered so from excessive hemorrhage, from the consequences of inflammation and gangrene, or from the shock to the system, when large portions of the limb are forcibly removed, as in accidents from machinery, and in wounds from fire-arms. Forensic X.—Toxicology.—This most important branch of legal Medicine has been more thoroughly investigated than any other part of Medical Jurisprudence. A poison may be defined as "a substance capable of impairing or extinguishing the vital functions, in a great majority of cases." This limitation is necessary, because some of the most deadly substances, in small doses, may be taken not only with impunity, but with salutary effects; and habit renders doses of them innocuous, which would destroy an individual unaccustomed to their use. Some poisons act directly on the organs to which they are applied; others appear to act by their influence on the nervous system. Some appear to act merely as irritants or escharotics; others by directly impairing vital functions; and some have a twofold action. The manner in which poisons affect the system appears to be either through their direct influence on the extremities of the nerves to which they are applied, or by absorption, and consequently by the circulating fluids. The rapidity with which some poisons, as hydrocyanic acid, act, favours the opinion that their influence is instantaneously conveyed to the vital organs by nervous communication. The detection of poisons, in some instances, in the blood, or in the exhalations or secretions, favours the opinion of the circulation being one channel by which they are carried to the system; a fact which is further confirmed, by the effect of ligature, or of division of vessels, in preventing the constitutional affection of the poison on the system. Some poisons exert their deleterious influence on one organ, or set of organs; others generally affect the system. Poisons, classified according to their effects, may be divided into irritants, narcotic, narcotico-acrid, and septic. Their action is modified by the tissue to which they are applied, the constitution of the individual, the quantity of the poison, and its mechanical state.

The mode of treatment of poisoned persons depends on the nature of the poison. The first indication is undoubtedly to evacuate the poison as speedily as possible, by the stomach-pump or by emetics; the second, to administer antidotes, if any such be known for the particular poison; the third, to shield the stomach and prime via against the acrimony of the substance; and, lastly, to obviate any violent or untoward symptoms they may produce, by all the resources of our art.

The evidence of poisoning may be presumptive, or positive, physical, or moral. The physical proofs are derived from the symptoms, from experiments on the lower animals, and from a chemical investigation of the ingesta or egesta. The symptoms, however, only supply us with probable evidence; but the most important inferences they afford are deduced from the simultaneous occurrence of similar symptoms, in more than one individual previously in good health, soon after a meal on the same articles of diet. Experiments on the lower animals with the remains of the ingesta, or portions of egesta, are not much to be relied on, as all animals are not equally susceptible of the same poisons; and what is deleterious to one is innocuous to another. Some poisons, however, such as arsenic and corrosive sublimate, are equally poisonous to all. Such experiments we consider as scarcely justifiable, except in the cases of some vegetable poisons, which cannot otherwise be readily detected. The evidence from chemical analysis of the stomach, of the ingesta or of the egesta, is the most unexceptionable. The refinements of modern chemistry have enabled us to detect surprisingly minute quantities of inorganic poisons, and even of some vegetable poisons. In such investigations, the contents of the stomach, or egesta, should be put into clean vessels; if too thick, diluted with distilled water, boiled, and when cold, filtered through muslin, and then through paper. If the filtered liquor contain much animal matter, this must be separated, as it obscures the various tests to be applied. This in general is best done by acidulating the liquor with vinegar, by again boiling and filtering. Sometimes it requires to be further clarified, by the addition of animal charcoal, or of nitrate of silver, which separate all the animal or vegetable matter. To portions of the clear and colourless fluid thus obtained various tests are applied, the effects of which will decide the nature of the poison. Sometimes the whole poison may have been so evacuated by vomiting, or taken up by absorption, that not a trace remains in the contents of the stomach. In this case we can occasionally detect it, by cutting the stomach into pieces, boiling them in distilled water, purifying the liquid by some of the processes already described, and then applying the tests. Narcotic poisons are easiest detected by their smell; sometimes we can eliminate one or more of their peculiar ingredients by chemical means, but frequently we have no better means of detecting them than by the symptoms they produce, and the moral evidence of the case, or the morbid appearances on the body after death.

We are not to regard the livid appearance of the body as evidence of poisoning; it is not always present in cases of poisoning, and may arise from other causes. The rapid putrefaction of the body is as fallacious an indication. The very reverse is sometimes the fact. The classes of irritant and narcotic-acrid poisons are usually indicated by inflammatory appearances in the prime via; but these are not invariably present; and cases often occur of which the moral evidence may be strong, yet the direct evidence may amount to no more than a probability.

The moral evidence of poisoning may sometimes be best collected by the medical attendant. He may be the only witness to the conduct of the accused; he may have observed him suspiciously active in removing every trace of the potion administered, or of the egesta in which a poison might be detected; he may have observed the guilty confusion of the suspected person, or heard his attempts to explain a fatal mistake, if the administration has been traced to him; or the physician may have been the chief depositary of the dying declaration of the sufferer. All these things it is his duty to note down, and to transmit to the proper authorities.

Poisons are derived from the inorganic or organic kingdoms of nature. The first class may be metallic, earthy, alkaline, and simple chemical substances, and gaseous bodies; the second vegetable and animal poisons.

1.—Metallic Poisons.—Of these arsenic, quicksilver, metallic copper, lead, antimony, zinc, tin, bismuth, chrome, silver, gold, are the most important.

1. Arsenic is poisonous in all its combinations. Its most usual preparations given as poisons are, the blackish oxide or fly powder, the white oxide or arsenious acid, the sulphurets, and the combination of arsenic and arsenic acids with alkalis. All are very deadly, even in small doses, whether swallowed, introduced into the anus or the vagina, applied to the abraded surface, or even when extensively applied to the whole skin. The symptoms commence usually within an hour after the administration; and are, nausea, vomiting, great heat and pain in the stomach, purging, intense thirst, severe spasms in the limbs and body, prostration of strength, pallor of the face, a feeble pulse; sometimes convulsions precede death. In a few cases the symptoms of an irritant poison are wanting, and the arsenic appears to be fatal by immediately inducing paralysis of the heart.

The fauces, gullet, and stomach are often found marked by inflamed patches of a deep vinaceous colour, produced by blood effused under the villous coat of the stomach. Sometimes the villous coat appears corroded or thickened, but the stomach is seldom perforated. When the villous coat has suffered erosion, the poison has generally been given in the solid form, and grains of it may often be picked Forensic off the surface of the stomach for analysis. The inflammation seldom reaches to the jejunum; but, though the greatest portion of the small intestines and the colon escape, marks of irritation are often observed about the rectum, especially if the purging has been violent. Various antidotes have been proposed, such as charcoal and magnesia; but the only substance that seems to deserve any reputation is the recently prepared hydrated peroxide of iron, promptly administered in large doses.

The means of detection, when the arsenic is solid, are easy. Introducing it, with charcoal powder if it be white arsenic, or with black flux if it be orpiment, into a small tube, and applying gradually the heat of a spirit lamp, will afford a blackish, shining, metallic crust, the interior of which is crystalline. A portion of this, exposed to heat, exhales as a white smoke, and gives out an alliaceous odour. Another portion, slowly heated in a tube open at both ends, is converted into minute tetrahedral crystals. When it exists in solution in the contents of the stomach, we have to clarify the liquid, by the means already mentioned, and to apply tests; of which the most approved is a stream of sulphurated hydrogen, which throws down a lively yellow precipitate; the ammoniac-nitrate of silver, which gives a yellow precipitate, that soon fades to a brown; ammoniac-sulphate of copper, which gives a green precipitate. Either of these precipitates heated with black or soda flux, in a glass tube, will afford the crust already described. These indications leave no doubt of the presence of arsenic; and from the \( \frac{1}{3} \) or \( \frac{2}{3} \) of a grain may be converted into a sensible metallic crust. Arsenic seems to have a tendency to preserve from putrefaction the stomachs of persons poisoned by it; and it has been detected in bodies that have been from four months to two years buried.

2. Mercury or Quicksilver.—This metal in its pure state has been supposed innocent; but when in the state of vapour it is well known to be speedily deleterious, and to produce all the symptoms of mercurial poison. The most usual mercurial poisons are corrosive sublimate, or bichloride of mercury, its oxides, and sub-salts. The long-continued use of calomel is capable also of acting as a poison; but almost the only mercurial poison criminally administered is corrosive sublimate, though, from its detestable taste, it cannot be given by the mouth as a secret poison.

The usual indications are a styptic taste, then burning of the throat, violent vomiting, great distress in the stomach and bowels, violent cholice and severe purging, blood mingled with the matter brought up by vomiting, or ejected by stool. The symptoms often simulate dysentery: the face at first is often flushed, the eyes sparkling; soon the powers of life sink, the voice is lost, cold clammy sweats bedew the surface, perception of external objects is lost, and convulsions close the scene. When the substance is given in small doses, or if the mercurial be a milder preparation, after dysenteric symptoms ptyalism supervenes; the person may sink from the violence of that affection; the fauces may become ulcerated, and gangrene may ensue. If ptyalism follow the administration of a single large dose of mercurial, it is always to be regarded as a formidable symptom. When the person survives, he may suffer from mercurial palsy.

The effects of mercurial poisons are indicated after death by the following appearances. The fauces are generally more affected than from arsenic, and the inflammatory appearances are more diffused over the alimentary canal. Destruction of the coats of the stomach are often observed, either the consequence of the escharotic power of corrosive sublimate, or of ulceration. Peritoneal inflammation is not uncommon; and irritation of the urinary organs, perceived during life, is marked by inflammatory indications found after death.

We possess in whites of eggs, milk, and gluten of wheat, very effectual antidotes for the poison of corrosive sublimate, provided they be given soon after the poison. The first is the most powerful. The secondary symptoms must be met by antiphlogistic remedies and venesection.

Mercurial poisons are easily detected when we obtain them in substance, but not so readily when mingled with the contents of the stomach. Corrosive sublimate is readily decomposed by several animal substances, and therefore we are not likely to detect it unchanged in the contents of the stomach. It is there usually converted into calomel, either in whole or in part. When held in solution, it is easily detected by Sylvester's method, i.e., by dropping a little of the suspected liquid, slightly acidulated, on a gold plate, or a gilt card, and touching the gold surface, through the liquid, with a piece of zinc or iron wire. Professor Traill employs a similar method to separate the whole mercury from its solution. He wraps a gold leaf round a slip of zinc, and immerses it in the suspected liquor, slightly acidulated—the mercury is precipitated; and scraping off the gold and the tarnished surface of the zinc, he introduces them into a small tube, and the heat of a spirit lamp is sufficient to produce a ring of brilliant metallic globules. He has employed a similar method to separate arsenic from its solutions.

In all probability the mercurial will not be found in the stomach in a soluble state. In this case we have to form the contents of the stomach into a pulp, and to pass a stream of chlorine through the mass, when the mercurial present will be converted into bichloride, which may be separated by filtration; drive off the excess of chlorine by boiling the liquid, and then either precipitate the mercury, by introducing into the liquid a cylinder of pure tin, according to Devergie's method, or by Traill's combination of zinc and gold leaf. The tarnished surface of the metals in either case is to be scraped, and the powder so obtained introduced into the tube and heated, as already described.

When we have much corrosive sublimate to operate on, we may try it by lime water, which throws it down of a deep yellow; by alkalis, which form with it an orange precipitate; by protomuriate of tin, which gives a slate-grey powder; and by hydriodate of potassa, which forms a splendid scarlet precipitate.

3. Copper.—The poisonous effects of the salts of copper have long been known; but though little likely to be used as secret poisons, they sometimes produce death from being accidentally mingled with food, as in the use of culinary utensils of copper. The symptoms are those of other irritant poisons, to which is added spasmodic rigidity of the limbs, in some cases amounting almost to tetanus. Salts of copper may produce salivation, and also jaundice. The morbid appearances are not very characteristic.

Albumen of eggs appears an antidote of some power against the salts of copper, and therefore, after evacuating the stomach, the whites of raw eggs should be administered. Inflammation should be obviated by antiphlogistic means.

The poison of copper may be sought for by boiling the contents of the stomach with acetic acid; this will dissolve every preparation of copper, and enable us to separate them from animal and vegetable matter by the filter. We may, if necessary, concentrate the solution by evaporation; and if the addition of ammonia give the solution a blue colour, we may be satisfied that it contains copper. A stream of sulphuretted hydrogen throws down a brown precipitate from the solution of copper; and if the quantity of copper be considerable, a piece of bright polished iron will become coated with a film of copper.

4. Lead.—The poison of lead is of considerable consequence, although never used as a secret instrument of revenge. Its oxides and salts all appear to be deleterious, but those from which accidents have most commonly happened are litharge, white lead, and sugar of lead. These Forensic often find their way into the stomach, from little-suspected Medicine; sources, and produce a species of poisoning with very peculiar symptoms. Leaden pipes and cisterns are acted on by water, especially by soft rain-water, and the carbonate of lead thus formed being soluble in an excess of carbonic acid, is liable to enter the human system with the food. Acescent articles of diet act on leaden vessels, and, when aided by heat, on the plumbiferous glazes of our earthenware. These are the most general sources of this poison; but persons engaged in works where white lead is largely used, smelters of lead ores, painters, and potters, are liable to the same deleterious influence. The symptoms produced are obstinate constipation, severe tenesmus, with the symptoms commonly known by the name of painter's colic, colic of Poitou, and of Deronshire. After these have subsisted for some time, the person begins to have paralysis of the limbs, first of one or both arms; in general the extensor muscles suffer before the flexors, and the palsy may then become general in that limb, or extend to other parts. The preparations of lead, when given in large doses, appear to act as irritant poisons.

Orfila found that animals poisoned by sugar of lead had a preternatural whiteness of the villous coat of the stomach, if they perished speedily; but, if their death were protracted, the inner coat of the stomach was reddened. The stomach has often been found corrugated after death.

Frequent ablation of the surface is the best prophylactic for those much exposed to the powder of the preparations of lead; and when lead has been introduced into the system with the food, the best means of obviating the return of the evil is by rigidly excluding lead from all culinary and economic purposes. Hard water is less liable to act on lead than soft water, and hence the impropriety of lead cisterns for rain water. Mercury seems to have a beneficial effect in lead colic, especially when conjoined with opium.

Lead is easily detected. To whatever articles it is suspected to enter add vinegar, and boil; filter the solution and all the lead will be in the clear liquor. If in large quantity, it may be detected by the sweetish astringent taste of the liquid; part of which may be tried by the addition of a solution of sulphuretted hydrogen, or of hydro-sulphuret of ammonia, which instantly darkens the most dilute solution of lead; another portion may be tried by bichromate of potassa, which throws down solutions of lead of a brilliant yellow; a similar colour is formed with them and hydriodate of potassa.

5. Antimony is rarely a poison; because its most active and best known preparations are violently emetic, and thus counteract its effects. Emetic tartar, when given to the lower animals, if vomiting be prevented by tying the gullet, causes inflammation of the lungs and stomach; and this would probably be its effects on man. The lungs appeared a mixture of orange-red, and violet-blue, and they were gorged with blood, which prevented the usual crepitus. It was also fatal when applied to a wound. The stomach was violet coloured, thickened, and covered with tough mucus, the intestines empty, in a man killed by emetic tartar.

The best antidote for this poison is decoction of peruvian bark, especially of cinchona cordifolia.

The detection is not difficult: sulphuretted hydrogen throws down a rich orange-red precipitate. When the antimony is mixed with animal and vegetable matter, add first a little muriatic acid to precipitate the contaminating substances, and then tartaric acid to dissolve any antimonial present. This will afford by filtration a clear liquid for the application of the tests. The sulphuret is best reduced by Dr. Turner's process; i.e., passing a stream of hydrogen over it when heated to redness in a tube.

6. The other metals, though affording some poisonous salts, scarcely require notice in this place. Zinc in solution may be detected by a stream of sulphuretted hydrogen affording a whitish precipitate. The muriate of tin affords one of a rich purple, the powder of Cassius, with deuto-muriate of gold; and when strong, coagulates milk completely. Sub-nitrate of bismuth may be detected by calcining in a moderate heat the contents of the stomach, and adding diluted nitric acid to form a solution, from which water throws down a white precipitate. The soluble salts of silver are thrown down by alkaline and earthy muriates; and the precipitate is easily fusible into horn-silver. A plate of copper becomes silvered by immersion in the solution of silver. Gold may be detected by solution in nitro-muriatic acid; which solution affords the purple powder of Cassius with muriate of tin; and the neutral solutions of gold instantly gild silver or copper immersed in them.

II. Earthy and Alkaline Poisons.

1. Baryta.—Both the carbonate and pure baryta are very poisonous, as are the soluble salts of this earth. The symptoms are those of irritant poisons: the senses then become blunted, the respiration feeble, and convulsions close the scene. The stomach is found inflamed, and the brain shews congestive apoplexy. The antidotes are any of the alkaline sulphates, which instantly form with all the poisonous salts of baryta, insoluble, inert compounds. Sulphuric acid, or sulphates, are also the tests of this earth; but it might be confounded with strontia, the salts of which do not seem poisonous, except in as far as they are acrid. The best distinction is obtained by procuring a muriate of the suspected salt, and dissolving it in alcohol. The muriate of baryta imparts a yellow colour to the flame of spirit; the muriate of strontia, a fine red.

2. Lime is only poisonous as an acid. The antidotes for it are phosphates of soda or potassa, and water impregnated with carbonic acid. The detection of the salts of lime is easy. Its properties when pure are alkaline: it forms with sulphuric acid a substance of little solubility; but phosphoric and oxalic acids precipitate it from all its soluble combinations.

3. Potassa and Soda.—The pure alkalis and their carbonates are poisonous. Several fatal accidents have happened from them. They act as strong irritant poisons, producing intense heat and pain in the abdomen, then cold sweats, tremors, and convulsive twitchings in the limbs, the stools are tinged with blood, and membranous flakes are mixed with the egesta. When the person lives some time, general peritoneal inflammation is observed after death. Nitrate, and chlorate of potassa are irritant poisons in large doses, producing dangerous inflammation of the stomach and bowels.

The best remedies are large quantities of mild oil. The tests of the alkalis are obtained from their combinations with different acids, and the manner in which they colour the flame of the blowpipe. When nitrate or chlorate of potassa can be had in the solid form, the first may be known by its ready deflagration with charcoal in a crucible; the second by putting a drop of sulphuric acid on a mixture of the salt with sugar, which it instantly ignites.

4. Ammonia and its salts. They all act rapidly as irritant poisons, and have besides a violent effect on the nervous system, especially on the nerves of the spinal cord. This last effect is principally produced by pure ammonia and its carbonate. Convulsions are caused by the too long continued inhalation of the vapour of ammonia, which has several times proved fatal to man, terminating in severe bronchitis. For this species of poisoning, muriatic acid vapour is the best remedy. On the reception of carbonate of ammonia in the stomach, we should administer diluted vinegar instantly.

We detect the presence of ammonial vapour by the smell, and by a rod dipt in muriatic acid, which gives rise to white fumes of muriate of ammonia.

5. Alkaline sulphurets are all poisonous, chiefly from the Forensic readiness with which they give out a large quantity of sulphurated hydrogen gas, which is poisonous when inhaled, and when injected in quantity into the alimentary canal.

The villous coat of the stomach, in cases of poisoning by alkaline sulphures, resembles in colour the skin of a toad; and the muscular coat is congested with blood. The alkaline sulphures act as narcotic-acid poisons. Their presence is ascertained by a weak acid, and exposing a piece of paper dipped in sugar of lead to the fumes.

III. ACID POISONS. The three mineral acids are only poisonous from their corrosive qualities, destroying rapidly the tissues to which they are applied.

1. Sulphuric acid, when strong, decomposes and blackens animal matter by evolving their carbon. It disorganises the fauces, gullet, and stomach; when not speedily fatal it lays the foundation of stricture of the gullet, and the patient is long harassed by dysuria and constipation. It is a capital felony to throw acid maliciously in the face.

2. Nitric acid destroys the animal tissues, and gives them a yellow hue, especially in the fauces, and when applied to the skin.

3. Muriatic acid destroys the tissues also, but renders the fauces usually whitish, as if the surface were of ivory. The symptoms produced by the three acids are similar, and the best remedies are the same for all, viz.—the copious use of mixtures of chalk or magnesia with milk.

The three acids destroy the clothes, corroding them when strong, and when diluted, staining them of a reddish brown. This circumstance becomes of importance in cases of maliciously throwing acid on any person, when no part of the acid liquid has been preserved. The stained portions of clothes, soaked in distilled water, will give out the acid; if sulphuric acid be present, it is best detected by nitrate of baryta, which gives a white precipitate, insoluble in pure nitric acid. Muriatic acid is detected by the addition of nitrate of silver, which throws down insoluble muriate of silver. Nitric acid is best recognised by its effect in destroying the colour of sulphate of indigo, when heated with it in a tube.

4. Oxalic acid is a most deadly poison. It differs from other acids derived from the vegetable kingdom in not containing hydrogen; being like the mineral acids, a binary compound. Its taste is so intensely sour that it cannot be employed as a secret poison; but it has been swallowed by mistake for sulphate of magnesia, so as to prove fatal. Its alkaline salts are almost equally poisonous, especially the binoxalate of potassa, or salt of sorrel, and they are speedily fatal when applied to wounds. Oxalic acid renders the tongue red and inflamed, and it corrodes the stomach; burning pain in the prime vie speedily come on, cold clammy sweats, a faint and fluttering pulse succeed, and palsy of the heart soon appears; proving that this substance is not only an acid but a true narcotic. Unfortunately its effects are so violent and sudden that there can little be done by art to save the patient. Instant evacuation of the stomach, and the exhibition of chalk mixtures are the best means to be employed. Even when the person survives the immediate effects, he often dies of the inflammation or the corrosion of the alimentary canal.

The best mode of detecting oxalic acid is to precipitate portions of it by solutions of lime and magnesia. The precipitate by the first is not decomposable by any acid: sulphate of copper gives a precipitate with oxalic acid, insoluble in a little muriatic acid; and the precipitate with nitrate of silver, when dried, deflagrates with a gentle heat.

IV.—SIMPLE SUBSTANCES WITH POISONOUS QUALITIES.

1. Phosphorus, even in very small quantities, is poisonous: two grains have proved fatal to a man. In that case there were suppurations on the belly and thighs, the scrotum was bluish and phosphorescent, the chest contained much fluid, dark blood, and the muscular coat of the stomach appeared inflamed, with dark spots about the cardiac and pyloric orifices. Evacuation of the stomach, and the administration of mucilaginous, but not oleaginous substances, are all the means we should employ to give relief in such cases. When the patient lives for some time, it will be difficult to detect the poison, unless the morbid appearances above noted may be considered as characteristic. Solid phosphorus is easily detected, by its inflammability.

2. Iodine, and Hydriodate of Potassa, are active substances, which, if given in excess, are apt to produce irritation of the system: vomiting, excessive languor, a feeble pulse, pains in the stomach, and cramps in the limbs; bilious vomiting and purging have followed large doses of iodine. It stimulates the liver, causes absorption of indolent glandular tumours; and, it is said, that its long-continued use has caused the disappearance of the testes and mamme.

In dogs poisoned by it, the stomach was found inflamed, with numerous ulcerated points on its villous coat. No antidote is known. Its detection is easy. Boiled solutions of starch are delicate tests of the presence of iodine, or of hydriodic acid, by the intense blue colour produced. If hydriodate of potassa be present, the colour is evolved, on adding to the starch a drop or two of sulphuric acid.

3. Bromine is more poisonous than the last substance, but it is so rare a substance, that it is unnecessary to describe its effects or mode of detection.

V.—GASEOUS POISONS.—Of these some are fatal from Gaseous irritation the produce, A; others are narcotic, B.

A.

1. Chlorine.—This gas destroys life, if cautiously inhaled, by the irritation it produces. It causes violent constriction of the epiglottis, and severe pain in the chest, even when diluted. It disinfects air contaminated by animal emanations. Its solution in water kills dogs; and when injected into a vein, it speedily destroys life. It is most certainly detected by its smell.

2. Hydrochloric gas, or muriatic acid gas, is still more irritating and destructive. It is largely emitted in the manufacture of soda from salt, and is then most hostile to vegetation; yet it contaminating the atmosphere, so as to destroy plants.

3. Sulphurous acid gas is also most suffocating; is, even when much diluted, very destructive to vegetation; and has, as emanating from burning sulphur, sometimes been employed to commit infanticide. It renders the lungs very livid.

4. Nitric oxide, and nitrous acid vapour, are poisonous irritant gases, that cannot be respired, unless largely diluted. The attempt to respire the former nearly proved fatal to Davy. The fumes of the latter have accidentally proved fatal to individuals, producing burning sensations in the throat and chest, an expectoration of yellowish matter, and alvine dejections of a bright yellow colour. Before death the body becomes livid, the breathing laborious. Vapour of ammonia cautiously inhaled may relieve from the effects of this gas, of hydrochloric, and of sulphurous acid gases: but we have no means of detecting any of these poisonous gases, in the small quantity they ever can exist in the human chest, except by the sense of smell.

5. Ammonia is not only irritating when received into the lungs, but is, as we have already said, narcotic-acid.

B.

6. Nitrous Oxide, the exhilarating gas of Davy, is narcotic, yet can scarcely be considered as poisonous, since it may be inhaled several times a-day without injury; but it seems to have a tendency to cause cerebral congestion. 7. Sulphuretted Hydrogen is one of the most poisonous gases, destroying life when injected into the intestines, or into the cellular tissue, when received into the lungs, or even when extensively applied to the surface of the body. It is largely given out in the corruption of some kinds of animal matter. Many serious accidents from this gas have happened in clearing out the Parisian fosses d'aïsance. The symptoms are instantaneous asphyxia, with discharges of bloody froth from the mouth, and convulsive movements of the limbs; motion and sensibility soon cease, the lips become livid, the eyes close, and lose their lustre, the surface becomes cold, the action of the heart is tumultuous, then feeble, and before death complete tetanus often comes on. Even when the gas does not kill, it produces severe torments, nausea, and drowsiness. The body of one killed by it quickly becomes putrid; the skin is livid, and soon meteorized; the brain tender, and of a greenish hue. The proper treatment of persons suffering from this gas is to carry them into pure air, to dash cold water and vinegar over the body, to rub the surface diligently with warm flannels, but to admit air freely to the surface, while the palms and soles are to be strongly brushed. Lavements of cold water and vinegar should be first used, and then lavements containing common salt; when the heart beats violently blood should be abstracted.

This gas is well known by its smell resembling that of rotten eggs. Solutions of sugar of lead are very delicate tests of its presence in minute quantity.

8. Carburetted Hydrogen, of various qualities, is given out by stagnant waters. It is one of the results of combustion, and is abundantly produced in coal mines, where it is the formidable fire damp. When the atmosphere is much contaminated with it, it oppresses the breathing, and produces headache and giddiness. When mixed in the proportion of about $\frac{1}{2}$, with the atmosphere of mines, it will explode on the approach of a flame; yet in such an atmosphere persons will continue to work for some time with impunity; but even if there be no risk of explosion, the narcotic effects of the gas begin to be perceived on those long exposed to it.

9. Carbonic Oxide, mixed with other gases, is given out by burning fuel, especially if moist, and burning slowly. It scarcely becomes an object to the toxicologist in its pure state. It is inflammable, rather lighter than atmospheric air, and has a disagreeable smell. It may be respired when diluted; but produces temporary intoxication, and when injected into the veins gives the blood a brown colour.

10. Carbonic Acid.—This gas is well known to be heavier than atmospheric air, to be totally irrespirable when pure, and to be speedily fatal to animals plunged in it. It is always present in the air in minute quantity; but is largely given out by the burning of all sorts of fuel, is produced in every species of fermentation, is formed in the respiration of all animals, and, under certain circumstances, it is given out by plants, particularly in the dark. From these sources, the air, in confined situations, may become impregnated with it, in a proportion inconsistent with the safety of man. Numerous instances of its fatal effects have been observed in the neighbourhood of large fires, in breweries, in crowded apartments; and in rooms where many plants are growing, it is unhealthy to sleep. When a confined atmosphere is much mixed with it, uneasy respiration is speedily felt, and the person may escape the danger by seeking the open air; but at other times drowsiness or stupor comes on, before any warning is given, and the individual loses the power of attempting his escape. When the gas is undiluted, it is almost immediately fatal to animals immersed in it; and even if the animal be made to respire pure air, while the whole body, except the head, is immersed in carbonic acid, life will be extinguished. After death from this gas, the features remain placid, the eyes open and brilliant, the body long retains its heat and flexibility. When the person has not been exposed long enough to extinguish life, the breathing may be stertorous and oppressive, the face flushed, the pulse feeble, the eyes prominent and wildly rolling about, the tongue swollen, and the saliva flowing out of the mouth.

The proper treatment consists in removing the patient into the open air, or into a well-ventilated room; the surface should be sprinkled with vinegar and water, and every few minutes rubbed dry with hot towels. If the valve bellows be at hand, the foul air should be first drawn from the lungs, and its place immediately supplied by fresh air, thrown in by the same machine. This alternation may be two or three times repeated, and then we should imitate natural respiration as much as possible, throwing in air by the bellows, and aiding the expulsion of the air by gentle pressure on the chest. Brushing the soles of the feet and palms of the hands with stiff brushes, stimulating the nose by a feather, or by ammonia, are useful auxiliaries. When animation is restored, it is time enough to put the patient to bed.

VI.—Vegetable Poisons.—These include most of the Vegetable narcotic and narcotic-acrid poisons of Orfila. Narcotism begins with a sense of fulness in the head, then succeed a sort of intoxication, dizziness, headache, loss of voluntary motion, almost amounting to paralysis, sometimes convulsions, and finally, stupor and coma. These symptoms may not all be present; for each poison has its peculiar modification of the general symptoms. The post mortem examinations of those who perish by narcotic poisons do not generally throw much light on their mode of destroying life; and there are some diseases that bear considerable resemblance to narcotism. Thus, Apoplexy chiefly differs in there having usually been some warning before the fatal attack, and in coming on during a meal. Narcotism is generally perceived from half an hour to one hour, or more, after taking the poison. Narcotism is more gradual than apoplexy, and at first the person may be roused from his stupor. Apoplectics generally survive for a day, or often much longer. Epilepsy may generally be distinguished by the history of the case, by the abruptness of the attack, by the person being instantly rendered insensible, and by its rarely proving fatal on the first attack. One species of fatal syncope is more difficult to be distinguished from narcotism; and if it has not been witnessed, we do not know how it can be recognised after death.

1. Opium.—The deadly effects of this substance have been long known; and it was supposed to be a proximate vegetable principle, simple in its nature, and peculiar in its effects. Modern chemistry has shewn that opium, like many other active vegetable substances, owes its qualities to an alkaloid, which may be separated, by chemical processes, from many other ingredients. The first of these alkaloids was detected in opium about 1812; and the care with which this important drug has been since examined, has shewn it to be an exceedingly compound substance, consisting of not less than of thirteen, or perhaps of fourteen different vegetable principles, of which six are crystallizable. Of these, in a toxicological point of view, the most important are Morphia and Meconic acid. These two ingredients appear to exist in combination in opium; and when magnesia is added to a watery solution of opium, an insoluble meconate of magnesia is formed, from which the morphia, sparingly soluble in water, is taken up by alcohol; or, if we add muriate of lime to the liquid, instead of magnesia, we obtain meconate of lime, as an insoluble precipitate, and a soluble muriate of morphia; which last, when purified by several nice chemical manipulations, is obtained in minute, white, silky crystals. This is the valuable part Forensic of opium to the medical practitioner, as it is powerfully hypnotic, and is less liable to cause headache, nausea, and itching of the skin, than crude opium.

When either this substance or opium are administered in an over-dose, the symptoms are drowsiness and insensibility, but this state is often preceded by a slight excitement; the face assumes a ghastly hue, the jaw falls, the eye-lids remain half open, the pupils are strongly contracted, stupor and complete coma succeed; convulsions are rare in adults, but often are seen in infants. Adults in general die easy from this poison. Opium produces its fatal effect, however introduced into the system, and even when applied to a raw surface, has destroyed life. Morphia is stronger than opium, in the proportion of 1 to 6.

The principal morbid appearances are great turgescence of the vessels of the brain, and sometimes serious effusion between its membranes, or in its ventricles; the lungs are gorged with blood, the stomach rarely appears inflamed, the blood is found fluid in the heart, and the body runs rapidly to decay.

Evacuation by the stomach pump, or by emetics, is the remedy chiefly to be trusted; and after the patient is roused, we must prevent him falling asleep while any tendency to stupor is perceived. Artificial respiration appears to have saved one person who was found comatose. No antidote is known.

The best tests of crude opium are those which show the presence of morphia and meconic acid. The contents of the stomach, in a case of the poisoning with opium, may have the smell of that drug. The whole should be emptied into a clean mortar, and reduced to a thin pulp by the addition of distilled water; acidulate the whole with acetic acid, strain and filter, then reduce the liquor to the consistence of a syrup by a gentle heat; add alcohol gradually, boil, and filter when cold. The spirituous solution will contain all the morphia. Again, evaporate to the consistence of syrup, and add magnesia, which will throw down meconate of magnesia and the morphia in the form of a greyish powder, which may be freed from much of its colouring matter, by washing it with cold water, and then with cold proof spirit. The morphia may now be separated from the meconate of magnesia by hot strong alcohol; concentrate this last solution, which will have a bitter taste, which, on adding a drop of nitric acid, will strike an orange yellow colour, soon passing to golden yellow; and will give a dark-blue with permuriate of iron.

The meconate should be decomposed by muriate of baryta, which will form an insoluble meconate of baryta; from which the addition of very diluted sulphuric acid separates the meconic acid. This acid has a silky lustre in the state of crystals, and affords, with permuriate of iron, a very intense red. There is only one source of fallacy in operating with meconic acid from the human stomach, which must be guarded against, namely, that the sulpho-cyanates of the alkalis precipitate permuriate of iron of a red colour, and some of the secretions, as the saliva contain a sulpho-cyanate. If the solution of morphia be strong there is no danger of mistake; because of the intensity of the colour produced. Professor Forbes has also shewn that the two solutions affect the prismatic spectrum in a different manner; though perhaps this test is less applicable to medico-legal causes, where the quantity of ingredients is generally very minute.

2. Hyoscyamus niger. The whole plant is narcotic, especially the roots, which have several times caused fatal effects, by being eaten instead of parsnips. The symptoms are active delirium, in which persons have danced and reeled about until stupor supervened. In persons fully under this stupor, stimuli cease to rouse, and the eye is insensible to light, or even to being touched. Emetics are the remedies; but we have no particular tests of this poison.

3. Besides Hyoscyamus, other solanaceae are narcotic. This is especially the case with solanum nigrum and s. mammosum. Both owe their activity to an alkaloid, Solanacea; which is capable of exciting vomiting, hurried respiration and stupor.

4. Lactuca virosa is a poisonous plant, with a juice that is highly narcotic, and has the smell of opium. This juice, when imbibed, forms the lactucarium of the shops, which was at first derived from the lactuca sativa, but is obtained in greater quantity, and of precisely the same quality, from l. virosa. Stupor and coma follow an over-dose of lactucarium.

5. Hydrocyanic acid, or Prussic acid forms the poisonous ingredient in an important class of vegetables. It is yielded by the kernels of the bitter almond, and of several other species of that genus; by the leaves of the cherry laurel, or prunus lauro-cerasus, by the prunus padus; and probably is contained in the seeds of the prunaceae, and in all vegetable productions with the odour of bitter almonds. The acid, when concentrated, is the most deadly of all poisons; producing almost instant death, whether swallowed or introduced by a wound. Even the diluted hydrocyanic acid of the apothecary's shop is fatal in a very moderate dose; and the essential oil of bitter almonds is not less so. An infusion of the leaves of cherry-laurel is a very deadly poison; bitter almonds have sometimes proved fatal; and the same effect has followed on eating the blossoms of the common peach, prunus persica, in a salad. When the preparation is concentrated, the death is very speedy: the breathing immediately becomes laborious, convulsive movements of the limbs come on; in dogs it ends in violent tetanus. After death the eyes are glistening, the pupils dilated, the muscles of the spinal column stiff, the countenance pale and often composed, the abdomen drawn in; the veins of the brain are found to be loaded with black blood, and the blood in the heart and great vessels is generally fluid. In some instances the blood and cavities of the body have exhaled a strong odour of prussic acid; and the blood has been said occasionally to have exhibited a bluish tint when the strong acid has been administered. The bile has often been observed to be of a dark blue hue in such cases.

No remedy can be of service in poisoning by this substance, unless instantly administered; but ammonia appears to have a great power in alleviating the symptoms when the quantity of hydrocyanic acid has not been very great. Ammonia diluted with water should be introduced into the stomach; its fumes sufficiently diluted with air allowed to enter the lungs, taking care not to excoriate the air passages by the too free use of the ammonia. Another very powerful antidote is chlorine. It is most advantageous to employ the vapour of water containing about one fourth part of its volume of chlorine gas. This may be inspired without risk; it has saved the lower animals when the poison had been administered for five minutes before its application, even after the convulsive stage had passed, and that of insensibility had supervened. In Orfila's experiments, in ten minutes after inspiring diluted chlorine in this manner, the recovery of the animals was certain. Herbst of Göttingen states, that dashing cold water on the surface of the body, is a powerful antidote in such cases: it is most successful before the convulsive stage, but is useful during the spasms.

The tests of hydrocyanic acid are certain when we can obtain it in quantity; but when we must look for it in the body, the smell is its best criterion. The stomach and the blood will sometimes have its peculiar odour for more than three days after death; and if the body has been buried within twenty-four hours, the odour will occasionally remain till the eighth day. When we can obtain a little of the liquid acid; nitrate of silver is a very delicate test. A white precipitate is formed, which, when dried and heated Forensic in a tube, gives off cyanogen, a gas that burns with a rose- coloured flame. If we add to the suspected liquid sulphate of copper, a rich emerald green solution is formed; and if Toxicology to another portion of the liquor we previously add a drop or two of potassa, that test will throw down a greenish salt, which is partially dissolved by hydrochloric acid, leav- ing behind a cyanide of copper, which will yield cyanogen like the precipitate of silver. This test will detect prussic acid in 20,000 times its weight of water.

4. Substances yielding strychnia. The vegetable sub- stances yielding this new alkaloid all act in nearly the same manner, and are very poisonous. The alkaloid was first obtained from the *strychnos nux vomica*, and *s. ignatii*. One nearly similar in its properties is found in the bark of *brouca antidysenterica*, to which the name of *Brucea* has been given. This substance is likewise found in nux vomica united to strychnia. Both are highly poisonous, producing convulsions and tetanus; both are intensely bitter. Strych- nia is used in paralysis, with advantage, in doses from one- eighth to one-fourth of a grain. Now that it is an officinal preparation, it may be employed as a poison; but there is too sure a substitute, in malicious hands, in the seeds of the two plants from which strychnia was first obtained. A dose of fifteen grains of the powder of nux vomica has been fatal.

The symptoms from this powder and from a much small- er dose of strychnia are similar. Spasms speedily ensue with anxiety and agitation, the limbs become stiff, the face and hands livid, from the impossibility of respiration, pro- duced by the fixation of the muscles of the chest. These severe affections come on in paroxysms; the intervals ex- hibit nausea, a feebler pulse, and profuse perspiration: the repetition of the fits destroy life, and the victim seldom lives above an hour.

The best remedies, after evacuation of the stomach, ap- pear to be the simple substances chlorine and iodine.

Where the death has been rapid there are little or no marks of inflammation to be seen in the stomach; but when it has been lingering, the stomach and intestines show traces of violent inflammation; their colour is a violet, and incipient gangrene has been observed in some cases; ser- ous effusion has been found in the head, the blood has re- mained fluid, and the body often retains, after death, the rigidity of the tetanus, in which the sufferer died; but in dogs poisoned by it the limbs are sometimes relaxed after death.

The powder of *s. ignatii* is stronger than that of *s. nux vomica*: both adhere obstinately to the villous coat of the stomach, and will generally be found there after death. They may be distinguished by their intense bitter taste, by be- coming orange-red when nitric acid is added, a hue which soon passes to golden yellow.

The celebrated Javan poison is prepared from the *antiaris toxicaria* and *strychnos lancea*; plants belonging to the natu- ral order of the *Apocynaceae*: another plant of the same fam- ily, *cerbera tanghin*, is so deadly, that a single seed, it is said, will destroy twenty persons.

The *woorari* or *woorara* poison of South America is said to be derived from a *strychnos*; but this cannot be, if what Humboldt relates be correct, namely,—that the South American Indians use it as a purgative. We have found it fatal to animals in very minute quantity when inserted under the skin.

The bark of a South American tree has proved poisonous, when administered instead of true Angostura bark, *galipea officialis*, or *bonplandia trifoliata*.

When we suspect any substance containing strychnia to be in the stomach, digest its contents with alcohol, and con- centrate this tincture, which will be intensely bitter; preci- pitate by ammonia, and this precipitate, when a drop or two of nitric acid is added, will become orange-red if any strychnia be present.

5. Tobacco is a well known narcotic, of which the detec- tion will be difficult, except by the smell.

6. *Atropa Belladonna*, or deadly night shade, is a strong narcotic poison. All the plant is poisonous, especially the leaves and the fruit. The symptoms produced are deliri- um, dilated pupils, and loss of vision. Sometimes it causes hysterical bursts of laughter, the lips, tongue and throat are parched, there is a great sense of sinking, with tremulous movements of the hands; but convulsions are rare. Many instances of poisoning have happened from eating the berries and the young shoots. The active principles is an alkaloid, *Atropin*.

7. *Datura Stramonium* is another poison sometimes em- ployed on the continent to facilitate robbery or rape; and in this country it has been administered by mistake. It owes its activity to an alkaloid, *daturia*, which abounds also in *d. tatula*. The extract of stramonium produces dryness of the fauces, intoxication and active delirium, with cerebral congestion.

8. Various *Umbelliferous plants* are poisonous; such as *conium maculatum*, *ethusa cynapium*, and *lactuca virosa*. The roots and leaves contain a poisonous juice, and the symptoms are those of narcotics, with some degree of irri- tation. Various authors have spoken of the *anamthe cro- cata* as very poisonous; but Dr. Christison gave it largely to dogs, without killing them. *Conium maculatum* owes its activity to an oily alkaline principle, *coni*, which smells strongly of mice, and becomes, though a clear liquid when cold, opaque on being heated.

9. Several of the *Ranunculaceae* are acrid and narcotic, as the *ranunculus sceleratus*, *r. flammula*, *r. bulbosus*, *r. lingua*, *r. acris*, and *r. arecensis*; but we have no mode of detecting their poison.

10. *Aconitum napellus* produces delirium and stupor, with burning in the throat, vomiting, and purging.

11. *Helleborus niger* is a narcotic-acrid poison of great activity.

12. Several other poisonous plants may be mentioned, such as *anemone pulsatilla*, and *cytisus laburnum*; the seeds of the latter are narcotic. In all these cases the best remedies are emetics.

13. *Digitalis purpurea* owes its activity to *Digitalia*, an alkaloid, which may be obtained from it. The chief char- acteristic of digitalis is its extraordinary power in reducing the force and frequency of the pulse; on which account it is used in medicine, but it is poisonous even in small doses.

14. The other narcotic-acrid poisons of the vegetable kingdom we shall briefly notice, indicating such as have yielded alkaloids to analysis. Of these *menispermum coc- culus* is one, the active principle of which is *picrorhiza*; *dolphinum staphyleagria*, the seeds of which yield *delphi- nia*; *chelidonium majus*; *arum maculatum*; *juniperus sabi- na*; *veratrum album*, which yields *veratria*, an alkaloid lately introduced as an external application, and nearly re- sembling another poisonous alkaloid, *coelchiaca*, obtained from *coelchiaca autumnale*; *bryonia alba*, said to afford *bryonina*; *euphorbia officinarum*; *hipponane mamicinella*; various species of *jatropha*, which yet by cooking yield wholesome food; the seeds of *ricinus communis*; seeds of *croton tiglium*; *cucumis colocynthis*; *monodica elaterium*; *scilla maritima*; various species of *daphne*; several species of *rhus*; *hebradendron cambugoides*; *convolvulus jalapa*, and *e. scammonia*. To these some add *narcissus pseudo- narcissus*, *gratiola officinalis*, *caltha palustris*, and *lobelia inflata*.

15. Poisonous Fungi. Several of this natural order are poisonous, especially those belonging to the genera *Amanti- ca* and *Agaricus*. Their poisonous qualities appear to de- Forensic pend on two principles; one of which is volatile, and Medicine disappears on boiling, drying, or macerating in a weak acid.

To this principle Le Tellier ascribes the irritant quality of poisonous mushrooms. The other is not volatile, is soluble in water, unites with some acids into crystallizable compounds, and appears to be an alkaloid now termed Fungia: on this the narcotic properties of these plants depend. The time in which the symptoms occur, after the fungi have been eaten, is very various; often not until twelve or even twenty-four hours. The sufferers are often relieved by vomiting; but if not, the surface becomes livid and cold, violent colic ensues, and death is preceded by delirium and deep coma. The corpse is livid all over, the blood fluid, and sanguine discharges are apt to flow from the mouth, nose and eyes.

16. Secale cornutum. The ergot of rye produces, when eaten in bread, many of the symptoms of mushroom poison. Decandolle ascribes this disease of grain to a fungus of the genus Selotrium; and it has been found to yield a principle resembling fungia. The tendency of this substance to produce dry gangrene is generally admitted by German and French writers. There is a learned dissertation on it by Dr. Wiggers, in which its fungoid origin, and its peculiar action in promoting the expulsive efforts of the gravid uterus, seem to be established.

17. Alcohol and Ether may be here considered, as being derived by art from vegetable matter. They are well known narcotics, producing at first intoxication, and afterwards stupor and cerebral congestion. They are also irritants, the stomach of persons killed by them being often inflamed. When the moderate use of spirit does not produce death, it may give rise to delirium tremens. The smell of spirit is often perceived in the cavities of the chest and abdomen of those who have died from drinking. The stomach-pump and milk are the best remedies.

18. Camphor, a concrete essential oil, has pretty strong narcotic qualities. It is best detected by its peculiar odour.

VII. Animal Poisons.

1. Cantharides. An acrid poison, is contained in the body of the cantharis vesicatoria. It is found to reside in a whitish matter, resembling spermaceti in colour and consistence, which is united to three other marked principles. The first is a green oil, soluble in spirit, but not in water; the second a blackish matter, soluble in water, not in spirit; the third a yellowish viscid matter, soluble both in water and in spirit. This last is united in the insect with Cantharidine, and renders it soluble in water, which it is not when pure.

The symptoms of poisoning by cantharides are, intense burning heat in the prime vein, painful deglutition, pain in the stomach and bowels, bloody vomiting, painful micturition, and priapism, intense desire to void urine, and distressing pain in the whole urinary organs; frightful convulsions and tetanic spasms usher in the fatal termination. When the flies in substance have been swallowed, the fragments of their green elytra are found adhering to the villous coat of the stomach; and this has been observed even after the body has been buried for months. There is no antidote for this poison. Evacuants and mucilages are the best remedies. Oil given by the mouth increases the evil, by dissolving the cantharidine, but oil thrown into the bladder is useful in allaying the irritation.

2. Fish Poison.—This singular subject is little understood, except that, in certain seas, and in certain seasons, fishes, at other times wholesome, prove deadly poisons. This is chiefly the case with the yellow-billed sprat, the barracuda, the grey snapper, the sparus venenosa, and grey labrus of the West Indies; with several species of diodon and tetrodon, and with aploactylus punctatus, of the Southern Ocean. The rapidity and fatality of the poison has been described by Chisholm, Ferguson, and Thomas. The symptoms are, irritation in the throat, tingling of the surface, burning heat in the stomach and bowels, colic, nausea, spasms, giddiness, coma, and death. It is said that persons have died whilst masticating a portion of the fish, ere any of it was swallowed. The juice of the sugar cane, and various sweet liqueurs, are said to be useful in the slighter cases.

Fishes in this country are sometimes poisonous; and muscles have occasionally, with us, produced death, with less rapidity, but with symptoms of the same kind. The cause of the poisonous quality of fish is, with some probability, attributed to their having fed on acid molluscs.

The flesh of birds is occasionally poisonous; as happens to the phasianidae of North America, when they have fed on the buds of the kalmia latifolia. The honey of the bee, in like manner, is poisonous, when they have fed on the sugar of the rhododendron and kalmia, as is described by Xenophon, Pallas, and Dr. Smith Barton. In the former case the honey produced a species of madness; in the latter, the symptoms were similar to what occurred to the soldiers of Xenophon.

3. Animals have a poison generated in them by disease, which is capable of infecting those who eat, or even touch their flesh. The best known instances of this is in the pestis bovina or murrain among domestic animals, by which their flesh and juices become deadly poison to other animals. This appears somewhat analogous to the accidents that happen in dissection.

4. The bites of rabid animals belong to the same class of poisons. The bite, for instance, of a rabid dog, will destroy other animals; after some time they become delirious, then paralytic, and invariably die rabid. In man similar symptoms occur, to which is superadded hydrophobia—a symptom never observed by Mr. Youatt in any animal except man. Excision of the wound, or destruction of the part by caustic, is the best prophylactic; belladonna and scutellaria lateriflora seem to have some preventive power, according to the same authority; and excessive bleeding seems to have arrested or cured the disease in India.

5. Bites of Snakes.—Poisonous snakes are provided with two or more teeth placed on a moveable bone, on each side of the upper jaw, and corresponding to the maxillary bones of other animals. These teeth or fangs are hollow, and have their roots connected with a duct, that conveys the poison from a bag placed under the principal muscles that close the jaws; so that when the animal bites, the poison is squeezed from the bag, and is instilled, through the hollow of the fangs, into the wound. The symptoms, in general, are in proportion to the quantity of the poison, compared to the size of the animal bitten, the smallest animals suffering most. The general symptoms are, pain in the part wounded, trembling, weakened respiration and circulation, and coma. The most poisonous snakes are the rattlesnake of America, and the cobra de capello of India; the viper of this country and of France sometimes produces fatal accidents. Excision of the part, sucking, or cupping the wound are to be tried; and both ammonia and arsenic given internally appear to have considerable power in curing the bites, even of the most deadly snakes.

6. The stings and bites of Arachnids and Insecta, are poisons of a similar kind. The complex apparatus of the sting of the bee and wasp convey poison to the wound, so acrid, that horses, asses, and also men, have died from numerous stings. The sting of the scorpion, and bite of scolopendra morisiana, as well as of spiders, are inflicted with a poisoned apparatus analogous in structure to the fangs of snakes.

VIII. Imaginary, Pretended, and Imputed Poisonings. SONINGS, require much patience and attention on the part of the medical jurist; to them no general rule can be applied, but they must be treated according to the nature of each particular case.

PART II.—MEDICAL POLICE.

SECTION I.—CIRCUMSTANCES AFFECTING THE HEALTH OF INDIVIDUALS.

I. CLEANLINESS.—This subject may be considered under three heads.

1. Personal cleanliness is valued by all nations in proportion to their advance in civilization, and exercises an important influence on the health of individuals. Most savage nations are disgustingly deficient in this virtue; but the polished nations of antiquity paid great attention to it, as is evinced by their general use of baths, the stupendous ruins of which still surprise us in the remains of their cities. In modern times, especially in Great Britain, warm and cold bathing are far less employed than is desirable; and we cannot help regretting the want of public baths for all ranks, especially in our manufacturing towns, where the luxury of warm or tepid bathing might be very cheaply obtained, by collecting the waste water from the condensing backs of steam engines. Bathing, by removing sordes and remains of perspiration, keeps the skin in a fit state for its important functions. Public baths should be established in every town, and all children should be taught to swim. The warm and vapour baths of northern Europe prove how cheaply such luxuries might be obtained for the great mass of the community.

2. Domestic cleanliness is perhaps better understood by the Dutch and the English than by any other nations in the world. This virtue has been long practised in Holland, but is comparatively only of late origin in Britain. The picture which Erasmus draws of English manners is not very flattering; and our own historians prove that it was not until after the civil wars of the 17th century that the English became a cleanly people. Now no nation can surpass them in domestic cleanliness, and none equal them in domestic comfort. The effect on the health of the inhabitants is shewn by the less frequent attacks of severe epidemic diseases in modern times, and perhaps also by the increased value of life annuities.

3. Ventilation of Habitations is one important part of domestic economy, now better understood; and Strutt, Sylvester, and Murray have taught us how ventilation may be combined with warmth. The renewal of the air, vitiated by respiration and combustion, is secured by simple contrivances, and the air admitted into apartments is warmed by passing between a close stove or cockle and an exterior covering.

II. ALIMENT.—Under this head may be considered,

1. Preparation of Food. Alimentary matters are rendered more wholesome and nutritive by cooking; and the mystery of that art is not unworthy of consideration, even were it not also the means of economizing the sustenance, and increasing the gratification of man.

2. Culinary Utensils deserve attention here, because the wholesomeness of aliment often is materially affected by them. There is risk of cooking food, especially of the acetic or oleaginous kinds, in copper vessels, though the danger is diminished by keeping the utensils always bright, and not suffering the food to remain in them after removal from the fire. Vessels of lead and pewter should be entirely banished from the kitchen, as they are never without danger, from the ease with which they are acted on by acids. Tinning copper vessels renders them safe, as long as the coating of tin lasts; but the vessels usually made of pewter, an alloy that contains lead, should be replaced by those of block tin, or of tinned iron. The objection to the last kind of vessels is their little durability, and the lead solder with which they are put together. Vessels of iron are durable and cheap, but they blacken some kinds of food: this is best obviated by a coating of tin. Vessels of gold and silver are far too expensive for ordinary use; but copper is often covered with a thin plate of silver, forming what is termed plated ware, which is excellent while the silver remains on the copper. A thinner coat of silver is applied, in some instances, by means of an amalgam of silver, and a similar process is commonly used to gild the inside of silver or of plated ware. Pottery is a valuable addition to culinary utensils. It is of all qualities, from the purest porcelain of China or of Europe, to the coarsest earthenware. The glazes which contain lead are objectionable, where acids are to be used, but if well baked, such glazes are not readily acted on. For chemical experiments the porcelain of China or of Germany, in which there is no lead, is always preferred, and it would be so also for culinary purposes, but for the expense. These glazes are made with felspar, or with mixtures of flint and alkalies.

3. Adulterations of Food may be accidental or designed. We have just stated how lead and copper may find their way into food, but there are other accidental adulterations. Farina, or flour, may be rendered unwholesome by the presence of the ergot, the smut of wheat, and the seeds of lotium temulentum, which last act as a narcotic. Flour may also be mixed with sand, from the use of too soft millstones; with other impurities, from want of care in winnowing or grinding; or by fraudulent mixtures of chalk and gypsum. Bread may be mixed with chalk, magnesia, potassa, soda, or alum, to conceal bad flour; and it has been sometimes adulterated with white lead. These adulterations are easily detected. On rubbing down the bread into a pulp with water, the heavy particles will subside to the bottom, and may be collected; the alum, alkalis, or lead may be detected by chemical tests. Butcher meat may be unwholesome from disease in the animal, or by long keeping. Butter may be deteriorated by containing too much salt or water. Water may be unwholesome or disagreeable from corrupting animal or vegetable matter; from being too hard, that is, containing too much saline or earthy ingredients. Soft water may be adulterated by passing through leaden pipes, or standing in cisterns of that metal. Milk may be fraudulently mixed with water, or with magnesia and chalk. Malt liquors have been purposely adulterated by cocculus indicus, lotium temulentum, &c., to increase their intoxicating qualities. Wines have been chiefly adulterated by brandy, to give them strength; by preparations of lead, to correct acidity, and impart astrigency. This last ingredient is best detected by a test, consisting of a solution of tartaric acid, impregnated with sulphuretted hydrogen. The chief adulterations of spirit are by water, which is detected by the hydrometer; and by lead, accidentally introduced from the worms of the stills. Lead is readily thrown down by infusion of galls, which will convert new unwholesome spirits into good spirit. Vinegar is liable to contain lead and copper, from the pipes and cocks through which it flows. These metals are easily detected by sulphuretted hydrogen and ammonia.

III. POLICE OF APOTHECARIES SHOPS.—The supply of good drugs is regulated, in many countries, by the drug-shop government. Inspectors are appointed, who examine and report on the state of the drugs found in the premises of dealers, and any infringement of the laws is rigorously punished. In our country the inspections are a mere form, of little or no utility. They should be made by persons paid by the state, and competent to the task, whose office should be honourable.

IV. CLOTHING.—The importance of paying attention to Clothing. the qualities of clothing is generally admitted. The advantage of flannel or cotton next the skin, to persons of a consumptive habit, or of otherwise delicate constitutions, and also to soldiers and sailors, or other persons whose occupations are laborious, is acknowledged. The use of linen next the skin is suitable for the young and robust; but as persons advance in life, cotton or woollen under-garments are advisable.

1. The Male dress should afford sufficient protection to the parts it covers, and should not impede the free use of the limbs. The covering of the head should defend the eyes from excess of light, and the head from the sun. Any thing tight about the neck is injurious. Those who take much exercise will find useful support from broad belts round the waist; especially as they advance in life.

2. The Female dress should keep the body comfortably warm. Compression of the chest and abdomen of females is far too general; and the ribs of most of our ladies are deformed by tight lacing. This practice diminishes the cavity of the chest; it confines the stomach and liver excessively, and has a tendency to contract the width of the pelvis. By the first, consumptive diseases are induced; by the second, the function of digestion is injured; by the last, the perils of child-bed are increased. The practice of tight-lacing is ancient. It is severely stigmatized by Juvenal; and is condemned by all modern authors. Excessive exposure of the bust is also too general among women, and often lays the foundation of disease.

V. TEMPERANCE.—Its importance to health, to vigorous youth, and to honoured age, need not be insisted on. Gluttony is not less destructive, and is even more disgusting than drunkenness; both are sure to end in debasement of the mental faculties, and destruction of the bodily health.

VI. EXERCISE.—Regular exercise in the open air is highly conducive to health; and those who are interested in the improvement and happiness of the lower classes in our towns cannot help lamenting the little that has been done to encourage our artisans and shop-keepers to take out-door exercise in pure air.

The philanthropist must remark with regret the circumscription of the means of enjoying fresh air, which the enclosure of commons and of waste lands, near towns and villages, has produced, and the discouragement, by officious magistrates, of the out-door games and pastimes of the lower orders. Part of the sums, so frequently left to endow hospitals and alms-houses, would be more rationally expended on gymnasia for the encouragement of healthy sports in the open air, or on public walks for the recreation of our citizens.

VII. PROSTITUTION.—In most parts of the Continent the state has interfered, not, as is falsely alleged by some, to raise a revenue from this polluted source, but to secure the rising generation, as much as possible, against the fearful consequences of diseases, that sap the foundations of a nation's strength, by impairing the sources of a healthy progeny. The unfortunate class of females, who may generally be considered as the victims of male licentiousness, are there regularly registered, and subject to domiciliary visits of the authorities, who send them to hospitals, when disease first makes its appearance. The arguments against this practice are not more rational than it would be to forbid the medical practitioner to lend his aid in other cases, where the imprudence of the sufferer was the cause of his malady.

VIII. CELIBACY AND MARRIAGE.—In the most polished states of antiquity marriage was enjoined by positive enactments, and enforced by penal statutes; in modern times legislators wisely leave it to the sense and discretion of individuals. In fact the propensity to celibacy is so small in most persons, that marriage may be safely entrusted to individual will. The tendency to increase and multiply is so forcible that it will generally be found to produce a population up to the very limit of the means of providing for children. It was for advocating this philosophical truth, and for pointing out the natural checks to a redundant, and miserable, because destitute, population, that Malthus has been abused by sciolists and pretended philanthropists, who appear, from their senseless declamations, either never to have read his works, or not to have comprehended their import.

IX. LACTATION AND CARE OF OFFSPRING.—The important duty of rearing the helpless infant devolves by nature on the female parent; and in general it can never be so well performed by any other individual. In an artificial state of society, however, many females become mothers who are not able to nurse their children. In such cases we would recommend the employment of a wet nurse, as affording the best chance of rearing the infant. The child should not be long fed exclusively from the breast; because its stomach should be gradually accustomed to other food before it is weaned. The infant is totally dependent on the care of those around for its preservation. To retain it healthy, it should undergo daily ablutions, have its clothes of suitable warmth, easy, and frequently changed. Its food should be chiefly of milk and farinaceous matter for the first two or three years. It should have regular exercise in the open air; and not be confined in its early years to too sedentary occupations. The dreadful mortality in founding hospitals proves the importance of the circumstances alluded to under this head.

X. EFFECTS OF PROFESSION AND TRADE ON HEALTH.—This is a very important consideration, and may be divided into various heads.

1. Diseases incident to affluent idleness are chiefly such as arise from indolence and want of some definite object of pursuit; hypochondriasis, tedium vitae, dyspepsia, gout. For these the best remedies are, rural amusements, intellectual pursuits, mingled with sufficient inducements to take exercise in the open air.

2. Diseases of Literary Men are chiefly produced by want of attention to regular exercise in the open air, giving rise to dyspepsia and constipation; by inequalities in the time of eating and sleeping; and by excessive use of the eyes in artificial light. They are best obviated by abridging the hours of study, and mingling sedentary avocations with active and social occupations. Literary men, however, especially in France, have been a long-lived race.

3. Clergymen have a wholesome intermixture of sedentary with active duties; and, if their lungs be sound, they are generally long-lived.

4. Lawyers, when their occupations are chiefly at the desk, are subject to the diseases of sedentary persons; but barristers, when not excessively harassed by toil, may generally be considered as engaged in a healthy occupation. Many of our judges attain extreme old age.

5. Medical Men, from the general activity of their pursuits, their knowledge of the causes that promote health, and the wholesome exercise of mind and body induced by their profession, are generally considered as a long-lived class; but in this, as in other learned professions, small account is made of those who die before they have become known, of those who pine away from penury and hope deferred, or whom a desire to better their condition sends abroad to perish on inhospitable or pestilential shores. Yet taking the whole together, the medical profession is certainly favourable to longevity.

6. Schoolmasters, Clerks, &c., are subject to the usual diseases of sedentary persons, and to those produced by passing a great part of the day in vitiated air, with the sternum leaning on a desk. Such persons should live at some distance from the scene of their labours, that they may be compelled to take exercise in the open air. 7. These observations apply also to Merchants, to Master-manufacturers, and Shop-keepers. A British merchant has, when successful, an enviable life. The morning is dedicated to business, and the afternoon to his family and friends; while his home is usually remote from the crowded streets, in which his counting-house is necessarily placed.

8. The shopman, however, generally leads a very different life. He is late and early in the shop, the whole day is spent in serving customers, and in many instances his hours of rest are abridged by the duties of his business, which afford him no time to take exercise in the open air. This is peculiarly hard on young persons, perhaps sent from the country to be immersed in the smoky atmosphere of a crowded, narrow street. Multitudes of both sexes annually fall victims to this change.

9. Soldiers and Sailors, when they escape the perils of training to their laborious occupations, are often healthy, if temperate, and if care be taken of their health by their superiors. Their ailments often arise from their own intemperance, as much as from the casualties of their calling. Excessive fatigue is certainly unfavourable to longevity; and when we find very old persons in this class, we may attribute it in a great measure to the iron nature of constitutions, which have enabled them to resist the hardships to which they must have been subjected in their younger years. Soldiers on duty are more exposed than sailors to wet and cold, to unwholesome climates, and to bad fare. A sailor carries with him his provisions and his change of raiment; and in the British navy he has much attention paid to his health while on board his ship. Long marches are apt to produce diseases of the hip joint, and hernia, especially in young soldiers. The sailor is liable also to hernia from strains in the course of his laborious duty.

10. Agricultural Labourers have generally a very healthy occupation, when the returns of their industry afford them sufficient aliment and comfortable clothing. Their situation is much more favourable to health than that of the town-mechanic. The same may be said of carters, postilions, and coachmen; except that the latter are often exposed at night to the inclemencies of the weather, and are not always remarkable for sobriety.

11. Quarrymen and Stone-masons are liable to serious injury, from the minute dust they create entering the air passages along with their breath. This often gives rise to a species of consumption; and such persons are seldom long-lived. It affects the stone masons of Scotland more than those of England: the former work under sheds, the latter in the open air. Marble-cutters for the same reason are unhealthy; and even the employment of a sculptor cannot be considered as a good one for a person of delicate lungs.

12. Carpenters and Joiners exercise healthy trades, because they require activity, and are freely exposed to the air in many of their operations. It is very different, however, with artisans whose trades are chiefly carried on in a vitiated atmosphere.

13. The trade of the Weaver is always rather unhealthy from his working in a confined space; but the introduction of machinery has reduced the pittance of the hand-loom weaver below what can support life with any comfort, and his habitation is proportionally wretched. There is in this occupation exercise to the limbs; but the breast leans against the beam, which, with wretched fare and depressed spirits, render the trade of the weaver unfavourable to health.

14. Milliners and Tailors are confined in hot, and ill-ventilated rooms, they work too many hours in the day, and often have the natural hours of rest greatly abridged. Milliners are liable to become short-sighted, and the practice of biting the thread generally injures their front teeth. The lives of young females are often sacrificed to this business. Tailors assume a faulty position whilst at work; and the consequence is, that when they walk, they have a peculiar strut; the increased power imparted to the muscles of the back, from long supporting the weight of the head, causes the shoulders to be preternaturally drawn back. They are also very subject to phthisis.

15. Shoemakers are more healthy; but the pressure of the last against the sternum and stomach is sometimes injurious.

16. Miners and Well-sinkers are engaged in laborious trades, in which they are exposed for considerable periods to breathe a vitiated atmosphere; and are further liable to the bad effects of inhaling dust, which predisposes to asthma.

17. Artizans working amidst putrid animal matters seem more liable to plague and typhoid fevers than most other classes.

18. Artizans exposed to inhale minute particles of dust are very liable to pectoral diseases. This is especially the case with knife and needle grinders. They are subject to the disease called grinder's rot, an incurable consumption, which renders this occupation most deadly. Currents of air, and interposed plates of glass, have been used to remedy which evil. Large magnets have been employed to arrest the iron dust, but it cannot abate that from the grindstone itself, which is not less fatal.

19. Workers in lead, brass, and copper, are subject to disease, from those substances finding their way into the system, as already stated.

20. Bleachers and Dyers are liable to suffer from acrid fumes, in some instances, and also from sudden changes of temperature.

21. Snuff Makers and Millers are exposed to dust; and the former to the consequences of inhaling also a narcotic; but the effect is seldom very marked on either.

22. Chimney Sweepers are liable to consumption, and to a peculiar cutaneous disease, the chimney sweeper's cancer, which chiefly affects the scrotum. Early excision removes it; but it is liable to recur.

23. Cotton, silk, and flax spinning by machinery expose the operatives to bad air, dust, and confinement in hot rooms. This is especially injurious to the young, who are much employed, from eight years and upwards, in such manufactories. The hours of work of all classes in them are too long. Woollen factories seem to be less unhealthy on the whole; but in them the employment of very young children, and too long hours of labour, are to be regretted.

24. Persons exposed to a high temperature, such as Cooks, Confessors, Bakers, are liable to rheumatism, from sudden changes of temperature. Bakers were remarked to be the most general victims of the plague, at Marseilles, in the beginning of the last century. Sugar-refiners are exposed to much heat, and to sudden chills. Smelters of iron, and other ores, are subject to the same; to cough, from dust, especially if they be founders; and their eyes become weak, from the intense glare of the metal. Glass-blowers not only suffer from these causes, but also from the excessive exertions of their lungs, which often give rise to haemoptysis and asthma.

SECTION II.—CIRCUMSTANCES AFFECTING THE HEALTH OF COMMUNITIES.

I. Climate.—The effect of climate, the most general of these circumstances, depends chiefly on the temperature, the hygrometric state of the air, and the general force and direction of the winds. The temperature of any place is well known to depend, in a great degree, on its latitude. The inclination of the earth's axis to the plane of its orbit has diffused the influence of the sun's rays more extensively over the surface than if the same points had always a ver- The changes in temperature had been marked long before there was an instrument for measuring their extent, and hence the distribution of the earth's surface into parallel zones denominated climates; but the invention of the thermometer shewed how ill this arrangement accorded with observation; and it was soon found that there were very different climates under the same parallels. The average or mean temperature is obtained by a series of thermometrical observations, carried on in the open air, and in the shade. Large springs and deep caverns usually have the mean temperature of the place where they occur; and it has been found that a series of observations made every hour through April, will give a pretty accurate mean temperature of that place for the whole year.

Temperature, however, is also considerably modified by longitude. Thus it is found that the mean temperature of any latitude in western Europe is higher than that of the corresponding latitude in eastern Asia, or in America, as may be seen by casting the eye over Humboldt's chart of isothermal lines. A comparison of similar observations indicated to Sir David Brewster that there were, in each continent, certain meridians on which the mean temperature is the lowest in that parallel. These he termed the cold meridians, in approaching to which the mean temperature falls on either hand.

But the principal circumstance which modifies the effect of latitude is elevation above the sea. As we ascend mountains, the temperature falls; and in every region, if its mountains be sufficiently lofty, they are the abodes of perpetual congelation. The limit varies with the latitude; it is highest under the equator, and diminishes as we approach the poles; thus, at the equator, the point of perpetual congelation is more than 15,000 feet above the sea; in Britain it is about 5000. The climate of a place, then, varies with the latitude, with the longitude, and with the elevation.

Even when the mean temperature is the same, places may differ greatly in the extremes of heat and cold in summer and in winter. The chief agent in equalizing heat is the ocean, the temperature of the mass of which remains nearly the same in all latitudes. This renders the summers of islands less hot, and their winters less cold, than that of continents under the same parallels. The peculiarities of climate affect the vegetable productions of a country, and its salinity is greatly modified by the nature of its surface. A region shrouded in forests is generally colder than one exposed to the rays of the sun; and the exhalations from swamps and marshes materially affect its fitness as a residence for man. Such countries are subject to violent intermittent and remittent fevers, especially when the marshes are acted on by intense solar heat; and in tropical regions such places are pestilential. Several other diseases appear to depend on climate, as the goitres and cretinism of the Alps, and other mountainous countries, the elephantiasis of Africa and the West Indies, and the strumous affections of cold climates.

All these peculiarities must be considered by those consulted on.

II. THE SITES FOR TOWNS AND HABITATIONS.—If the medical man be asked to give an opinion on any particular site, let him consider,

1. The purity and hygrometric state of the air.—The average proportions of the cognizable ingredients of atmospheric air are,

| Measure | Weight | |---------|--------| | Nitrogen | 77.50 | | Oxygen | 20.00 | | Carbonic acid | 0.08 | | Aqueous vapour | 1.42 |

The proportions of the gaseous ingredients are nearly the same everywhere; but the proportion of aqueous vapour varies greatly, according to the temperature and pressure of the atmosphere. It is the source of clouds, dew, fog, and rain, according to the suddenness of its precipitation. The quantity present in air may be estimated by Leslie's hygrometer. The quantity of rain which falls in any place should be ascertained by the rain gauge; and the quickness of evaporation by experiment, or by observations with Leslie's atmometer. The number of rainy days should also be noted; for the quantity of rain is not proportional to the number of wet days. In hot climates it rains more seldom, but more falls than in temperate regions. Thus, the mean annual rain in the West Indies averages 120 inches; at Calcutta it is 81; at Rome—39; at Liverpool—32; at Edinburgh—24; at Petersburgh—16. In any climate, more rain in mountainous districts than in plains. Thus, 50 inches fall in Argyllshire, whilst at Glasgow the rain is about—30; at Elgin—24 inches.

The changes in barometric pressure should also be noted. These are extremely small within the tropics, or even in southern Europe, but fluctuate in northern Europe even to \( \frac{1}{10} \) of the whole column.

2. A supply of potable Water is a most essential requisite. It should not be hard, it should be free of any peculiar taste or smell; and the nearer its specific gravity approaches 10002, so much the better. The capability of carrying water through pipes, to any station, is important, when a colony is to be founded. Running water of a good quality is also very important; but it should be recollected that stagnant water is not wholesome.

3. Fuel is another essential requisite, both for cooking and for warmth. A plentiful supply of wood, coal, or peat is indispensable where many human beings are to be congregated. Open fire-places are cheerful, but not economical modes of warming apartments; stoves are more frugal; hot-air-flues combine ventilation with warmth, but require considerable attention in their management; steam-tubes convey an equable temperature, but are less convenient than the circulation of hot water, in the apparatus devised by Mr. Perkins.

4. Vicinity of Trees is an important circumstance; but it must not be forgotten that a station buried in deep forests is seldom wholesome, and in hot climates is often pestilential.

5. Vicinity of Hills and Mountains is also deserving of consideration. If they be very lofty, in hot climates, the plains at their feet are often pestilential, producing black vomit and jungle fever; yet removal to the mountains immediately relieves the sufferer, as is witnessed in the ascent from Vera Cruz to Xalapa, and from southern Hindustan to the Neighbourhood.

6. Vicinity of Marshes, in every country, is to be shunned, in fixing on a site for human habitations. Marshes produce malignant remittents in hot seasons, and give rise to severe hepatic disease. The marsh fevers of Walcheren, and the malaria of Italy, originate in stagnant water; and the fatality of some of our stations in the West and East Indies are to be attributed to swamps. Some of them, as British Guiana, have become more healthy as the country is more drained and cultivated.

7. Vicinity of the Sea is always an important element in choosing a station. In hot climates the sea-breeze mitigates the heat of day, and renders it endurable. This breeze, in summer, is very regular even at Gibraltar. The vicinity of the sea also mitigates the cold of winter. Sometimes it renders a station unhealthy, when the recession of the tide exposes a great extent of a muddy beach. This is especially the case at the mouths of great rivers; yet such stations, though unwholesome, are often politically important, as naval stations, or as keys to the back-country. Marshes, into which sea-water occasionally enters, are observed to be more pestilential than mere fresh-water swamps. III. Drains and sewers are important public works, on the proper construction of which the salubrity of a station may greatly depend. They should have such a fall as to carry off impurities, and to prevent an accumulation of stagnant water. The Greeks and Romans excelled in their attention to such works; but the unhealthiness of many places in Italy, in the present day, is owing to the neglect of those useful structures.

IV. Paving of streets, and care of public ways, are objects also worthy of the attention of the medical man, though chiefly in the province of the civil engineer.

V. Cemeteries.—Little attention has been, in this part of Europe, bestowed on the police of repositories for the dead. Burial in churchyards, in the midst of a crowded population, and even within churches, is still suffered to disgrace our cities. The French have set a good example; and the Turks have been long noted for the decent propriety, and judicious position of their cemeteries, which are always beyond their towns. The same is the practice of the Chinese, and of many nations whom we call barbarous. A better system is commencing among us, in the new cemeteries of Glasgow, Liverpool, and a few other places; and it is fervently to be hoped, that ere long our towns will cease to be infected with patrid emanations from crowded churchyards, and the temple of God to be polluted with the frail remains of mortality. The cemeteries of London are a disgrace to the metropolis; they are rather better at Edinburgh; but the cemeteries ought to have been removed altogether beyond the city; and the retired valley between Salisbury Craig and Arthur's Seat, offers an admirable site for a spacious and magnificent necropolis. The best mode of sepulture is probably in the earth, without vaults; but anything is preferable to the horrid practice in Rome, of disposing of the carcases of the poor in huge caverns, often opening into the very churches.

VI. Hospitals.—The erection of hospitals is intimately connected with the subject of medical police. We cannot enter on a consideration of each sort of hospital, but state in general terms, that the wards should be lofty, with windows on one side, and galleries on the other for exercise to convalescents. Ventilation should be secured by some of the means already indicated; the wards should be provided with privies, and baths appropriated to each; the bedsteads should be of iron, as less liable to harbour vermin; airing grounds and convalescent rooms should be attached to all hospitals. In a lunatic asylum, each class of patients should have separate airing grounds; and occupations suited to their cases should be provided for convalescents. Foundling hospitals, from the mortality in them, even under the best management, seem to be amongst the most pestilent institutions of mistaken benevolence. Such considerations induced a German author to propose as an appropriate inscription over the gates of such establishments, "Children murdered here at the public expense." Hospitals for the sick, military hospitals, and barracks, all may fall under medical police.

VII. Schools.—Seminaries for the instruction of youth merit more attention from the legislature than they have received. The rooms are often defective in ventilation; and the modes of warming them in cold weather are often very inefficient. In some schools too little attention is paid to vary the diet of children; and though seldom deficient in quantity, at large public and private schools, there often exists inattention to render it palatable, or to suit it to peculiarities of constitution. In many schools the hours of study, for very young children, are too long. The degrading practice of public flogging, even almost to manhood, in some schools, is brutalizing to the inflictor, and destructive of the delicate sensibilities of ingenious youth. We must also stamp with our strongest disapprobation the practice of flogging, which prevails at some English schools, and is calculated to foster the vices of both tyrants and slaves. In female seminaries the lessons are generally too long, the pupils too sedentary, too little in the open air; and many female accomplishments, as they are termed, are apt to produce lateral curvature of the spine, as was fully proved by the late Mr. Shaw.

VIII. Prisons.—The state of our prisons is much improved since the time of Howard. The principal improvements are in the county prisons of England, in many of which much attention is paid to preserving the health of prisoners, by clean rooms, commodious airing grounds, and humane regard to their diet, and the cleanliness of their persons. In most of the prisons of this country, however, much is still defective, in what relates to the classification of prisoners, and separating juvenile delinquents from hardened offenders. In the county jails of Lancashire and Cheshire, much has been done to render prisons what they ought to be; but even in some of the best English prisons there are still no hospitals for the sick inmates; and the jails of Scotland are far behind those of the two counties alluded to in every respect. As far as lodging and diet go, there is no room for improvement in many British jails; and this humane attention is rewarded by the disappearance of jail-fever from our island. The subject of prison discipline is a wide field. The benevolent exertions of Mrs. Fry and her Quaker associates prove, that much good would flow from attention to the instruction and moral improvement of the unhappy inmates of our prisons.

IX. Lazzarettoes and quarantine Establishments are of Italian origin, at the period when the commerce of the East was engrossed by the free cities of Italy. The doctrine of contagion is not of modern origin, as has been ignorantly alleged. Notwithstanding the clamour of interested individuals, a few years ago, no rational medical man denies the contagious nature of the plague; and we have no doubt that the immunity of this island from that dreadfull scourge, for 170 years, notwithstanding our multiplied relations with the East, is mainly owing to the rigour with which the quarantine laws have been enforced. Some of these regulations may err on the side of excess of caution; but this is far preferable to rash experiments, prompted by crude medical speculations, and supported, as they were attempted to be, by distortion of facts. The quarantine laws were revised in 1825, and the code is now, upon the whole, good. The quarantine stations for Britain are Standgatecreek, Deal, Milford-haven, Liverpool, Holyloch in the Clyde, and Inverkeithing bay in the Forth.

X. Punishments.—This subject, the last of the present dissertation, is worthy of the attention of the legislator, and of the medical jurist.

1. Corporal Punishments, inflicted by sentences of our courts, extend to imprisonment, whipping, and forced labour.

Imprisonment is adjudged for several offences, and even for inability to pay a debt. When the health of a prisoner might suffer from confinement in a damp or unwholesome jail, the humanity of judges has frequently mitigated the severity of the sentence, on the representations of medical witnesses. It would be unjust to inflict a greater punishment than the law contemplated, by the mode of confinement; but in general our jails are far more comfortable, as far as lodging and diet are concerned, than the usual habitations of the very poor; and therefore imprisonment, in some instances, may have lost some of its salutary terrors in preventing crime.

Whipping is sometimes inflicted by sentence of the court, either publicly or privately; it is now generally applied to juvenile offenders in prison, and is far less frequently inflicted in public than formerly, especially since the abolition of the pillory for ordinary crimes. Flogging is still permitted to a limited extent both in our army and the navy. A medical man is always by on such occasions; and should he declare the punishment enough, even one lash more, at that time inflicted, is a crime, and would subject the officer who ordered it to indictment for murder, should the sufferer die. Hard labour is now generally inflicted by the tread-mill, a contrivance by which the united weight of the prisoners condemned to it puts in motion a wheel, which moves machinery. The defect of this punishment is its inequality. To active persons, accustomed to walking, it is a light exercise; but to sedentary persons it is a most grievous punishment, giving intolerable pain to the muscles of the legs and the spine. To the disgrace of our country, it has been inflicted on females. Their muscles are too weak, and their habits little suited to such labour; and it is liable to induce prolapsus uteri, or miscarriage, if the prisoner be pregnant; or serious diseases of the female system, in various ailments of the sex. It arms, too, with a dangerous and tyrannical power ignorant justices and unfeeling magistrates. The law should forbid this infliction on females in all cases, and prevent the erection of tread-mills in all prisons not liable to the legal inspection of grand juries; which it seems houses of correction in England are not, they being "not under the jurisdiction of the sheriff of a county." The beating of hemp was formerly with us the infliction for petty crimes; and in Holland it was rasping of dye-woods in the Rasphuis, which was always considered as a severe punishment. In America the penitentiary system of forced labour has been tried, and is still a subject of discussion. Solitary confinement has also been employed there; which some have considered worse than death.

2. Capital punishments.—In this country, excepting in cases of nobles for treason, hanging is invariably the mode employed by law. This is with justice preferred to any other mode of public execution, as the evidence of those, who have recovered after suspension, renders it probable that the person suffers very little pain, from his becoming speedily insensible; and when the drop is employed, the injury to the neck seems generally to extinguish life instantaneously.

Beheading is in this country performed with the axe, in Germany with the sword, and in France with the guillotine; the prototype of which seems to be the Scottish maiden, still to be seen in the Antiquarian Society's Museum in Edinburgh. The axe often requires a repetition of the blow; and the sword is liable to the same objection. The maiden chopped off the head by the descent of an axe loaded with lead. The guillotine slices it off, entering one side of the neck by an oblique edge. All sorts of beheading present a very ghastly spectacle, and habituate to the sight of human blood; besides which, serious doubts have been started as to the possibility of the head for a short time retaining its sensibility.

3. Pleas in bar of execution.—When a person is condemned to die, execution of the sentence may be deferred on three pleas.

Insanity may be pleaded by the relatives of the condemned, and a jury may be appointed to try the sanity or insanity of the prisoner.

The youth of the party is the second. There is no age fixed by British law, at which the perpetrator may not be executed for heinous crimes. In 1629 a child between eight and nine years of age was executed in England for an atrocious murder; one of ten years was condemned in 1748 at York; and a boy of thirteen was executed in this city, within the present century, for a murder. Blackstone states the lowest degree of non-age, by the practice of the English courts, to be seven years.

Pregnancy is the last plea admitted in our courts. When this is alleged, a jury of matrons is appointed by the judge to inspect the party, and if the allegation be found true, she is respite till after delivery. These persons are very incompetent to so delicate a task. It should be entrusted to accoucheurs, who, from the appearance of the mammae, and the application of the stethoscope to the abdomen in the latter months, will readily ascertain the truth or falsehood of the allegation.