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,[1] 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.