Medical Jurisprudence. PART III continued. 3. Of Homicide generally.-4. Of Real and Appa- rent Death.-5. Of the Physiological Causes, and Phenomena of Sudden Death.-6. Of Syncope.- 7. Of Suffocation, by Drowning, Hanging, and other causes.-8. Death by exposure to Cold-Heat -Lightning-Starvation.-9. Application of the Physiological Facts established in the preceding chapters, to the general treatment of Asphyxia.—10. Of the Coroner's Inquest.-11. Suicide-12. Of Murder generally-by Wounding or Blows-by Poisoning.-13. Of Poisons, Chemically, Physio- logically, and Pathologically considered.-14. Of Homicide, by Misadventure or Accident.-15. A Sy- nopsis of the Objects of Inquiry in Cases of sudden and mysterious Sickness and Death,—Commentary thereon, including practical rules for Dissection.- 16. Abortion and Infanticide-with Physiological Illustrations.-17. Of Criminal Responsibility, and 3. OF HOMICIDE GENERALLY. To aid the administration of justice in cases of homicide is not only the most useful, but the most frequent, application of medical jurisprudence; this subject, as well for its complexity as for its importance, must be subdivided into many heads. It is first necessary that the medical practitioner should determine by examination, inspection, or dissection, whether the matter ought to be referred to the criminal tribunals, or whether the decease of the party is to be attributed to any of those natural causes, which are generally classed as "Death by the Visitation of God." In some instances this examination will take place in aid of the coroner's inquest, in others it will be preparatory to it; in both cases it is equally important that it should be minutely, faithfully, and ably conducted; for it is on the medical report that the first impressions will be founded, and the prejudices created by it in the public mind may not easily be effaced by any subsequent investigation. If, however, it be determined that the cause of death has been violent, it is then necessary to enquire to which of the classes of homicide the act is to be attributed. "Homicide, properly so called, is either against a man's own life, or that of another." 1 Hawk. P. C. 102. The first offence constitutes the crime of suicide or felo de se. The second has many varieties; it may be justifiable, excusable, or wilful; and this last again, may be with, or without, malice prepense, which constitutes the difference between manslaughter and murder; both are felony, the one with, (a) the other without, the benefit of clergy; to these and their numerous subdivisions we shall separately direct the attention of our reader; having first, by a general view of the physiology of death, and some practical observations on the best modes of investigation, prepared the way for a minuter examination of many of those various modes of destruction to which human life is liable. (a) "But there is a particular kind of manslaughter proper to be considered here, from which the benefit of the clergy is taken away by Ja. 1, c. 8." "Where any person shall stab or thrust any person or persons that hath not then first striken the party which shall so stab or thrust, so as the person or persons so stabbed or thrust, shall thereof die within the space of six months then next following, although it cannot be proved that the same was done of malice forethought." See 1 Hawk. P. C. This statute was passed in consequence of the numerous murders committed by the Scots, who with their dirks stabbed before an ordinary weapon could be drawn. For an extraordinary case on this statute, and much learning on the subject, see the trial of William Chetwynd for the murder of Thomas Rickets. 18 How St. Tri.p. 290. |
