The question of race in connection with the subject of identification

is of more than usual importance in the United States, owing to our

motley population, composed as it is of aboriginal Americans, Chinamen,

negroes, and of Europeans and their descendants. I well remember the

first human bones that I saw exhumed. They were discovered in digging

the foundation of a building near a kitchen-midden on one of the

tributaries of the Chesapeake Bay. The apparent oldness of the bones

and the finding of stone arrow-heads, tomahawks, and fragments of

aboriginal pottery in the immediate vicinity were additional accessory

facts that strengthened the presumption of the bones being those of a

Choptank Indian.

Roughly speaking, there is not much trouble in recognizing the

platycnemic tibiæ of the mound-builder, the skull of a Flathead Indian,

an Inca skull, a negro skull, or even the skull peculiar to the lower

order of Irish.

In many very old skulls a considerable portion of hair is often found

attached. This of course may lend assistance in the matter of race

identity. A few years since I undertook at the Smithsonian Institution

a series of micro-photographs of the structure and arrangement of hair,

with a view to race classification as suggested by Professor Huxley.

Various specimens of hair from the yellow races were compared with

that of fair and of blue-eyed persons, with the hair of negroes, with

reindeer hair, and with the hair-like appendage found on the fringy

extremity of the baleen plates in the mouth of a “bowhead” whale. The

experiments, though far from satisfactory, were sufficiently conclusive

to enable one to recognize approximately the horse-like hair of some of

the yellow races, that of the negro, and that of a blond Caucasian.

Beyond the forementioned characteristics, the task of race recognition

from observation of the skull is one of great difficulty and perplexity

with illusory results. A considerable experience of several years with

the large collection of skulls in the Army Medical Museum enables me to

speak advisedly on this point.[573]

Although the technical procedures of craniometry require special

measurements and employ an arsenal of special instruments, the results

are far from conclusive as regards the determination of human types.

Time and space do not permit the mention even in epitome of the

various methods most relied upon by trained craniologists. Among the

oldest operations of cephalometry, as well as the most incomplete,

is the measurement of the so-called facial angle, which is employed

to distinguish the skull of a lower order of animal from that of the

negro and the white man. This angle, acute in the skulls of the lower

animals, approaches a right angle as we ascend the zoological scale;

being from 30° to 65° in the various apes; 75° in the Mongolian; about

70° in the negro, and between 80° and 90° for whites. The prognathous

(projecting) jaws of the negro cranium are distinctive, as well as

the shape of the nasal opening, which in the black is an equilateral

triangle, while it is isosceles in the white. The books usually speak

of the Eskimo skull as pyramidal, which in point of fact is not true.

Inspection and examination of a large collection of Eskimo crania

has changed and greatly modified some of the previous notions of the

conventional Eskimo skull. From more than one hundred, collected in the

vicinity of Bering Strait,[574] I find that the skulls present very

considerable variations among themselves; some being brachycephalic,

others dolichocephalic. In many the facial angle is 80°, and in

one instance 84°, which exceeds that observed by me in many German

skulls. Nor is the prominence of the zygomatic arches such a constant

difference in the configuration as to justify one in speaking of the

skull as pyramidal. On the contrary, in many of the specimens lines

drawn from the most projecting part of the zygomatic arch and touching

the sides of the frontal bone, instead of forming a triangle on being

elongated, might, like the asymptotes of a parabola, be extended to

infinity and never meet. The index of the foramen magnum in these

skulls is about the same as that of European crania. The internal

capacity shows marked difference, the cubic contents of the endocranium

averaging that of the French or Germans.

As some modern writers lay great stress on the measurement of the

cranial capacity, not only as an aid to race identification, but as an

adjunct in the study of the criminal and insane classes, it may not be

amiss to give the salient facts relative thereto.

It is admitted that the cranial capacity may vary with the intellectual

state, hydrocephalic skulls, of course, being excluded. Microcephalic

adults give a figure inferior to that of gorillas, some being as low

as 419 c.c. Andaman Islanders and autochthonous Australians appear, in

respect to cranial capacity, to be most badly off. The capacity of an

Andaman has been found as low as 1,094 c.c.; while that of Australians

(autochthonous) and of some American tribes show an average capacity

of 1,224 c.c. in the normal as well as in their deformed crania. The

cranial capacity increases in the yellow races and attains its maximum

in the white races. In the middle European race 1,500 c.c. may be

accepted as the average; 1,750 c.c. is the maximum, and anything above

is macrocephalic; while the minimum is 1,206 c.c., which is rather too

low than too high. According to Topinard’s nomenclature of the cranial

capacity, macrocephalic in the adult European male are those having

a capacity of 1,950 c.c. and above; a large skull is one of 1,950 to

1,650 c.c.; average or ordinary, 1,650 to 1,450 c.c.; small, 1,450 to

1,150 c.c.; microcephalic 1,150 c.c. and below. It would seem that the

skulls of the insane are below the type, a measurement of sixteen male

skulls giving an average of only 1,449 c.c. Scotchmen head the list

with the most voluminous skulls, and according to a tabular statement

made up from Welcker, Aitken, Broca, and Meigs, the English come next,

with a capacity of 1,572 c.c. Then follow Eskimo, 1,483 c.c.; Germans,

1,448 c.c.; French, 1,403 to 1,461 c.c.; South African negroes, 1,372

c.c.; Ancient Peruvians, 1,361 c.c.; Malay, 1,328 c.c.; Mexican, 1,290

c.c.; Hottentot and Polynesian, each 1,230 c.c.; Australians, 1,364

c.c.; and Nubians, 1,313 c.c. The cranial capacity in man, like that

of the anthropoid apes, varies according to sex, the difference being

so great that it is necessary to measure separately.

In the troglodyte skulls of prehistoric times the variation is not

more than 99.5 c.c.; but in the contemporaneous races the difference

varies from 143 to 220 c.c. French craniologists usually speak of the

Auvernats as possessing the highest cerebral capacity (1,523 c.c.), and

mention the skull of a Parisian of 1,900 c.c. as the highest known.

Some Eskimo skulls, however, measure from 1,650 to 1,715 c.c., and

two eurycephalic Indian skulls in the anatomical section of the Army

Medical Museum measure respectively 1,785 and 1,920 c.c.

Mr. Havelock Ellis, speaking of the psychic characteristics of

criminals, says that the lower human races present a far larger

proportion of anatomical abnormities than the ordinary European

population; and Sir William Turner writes of the skulls collected

during the _Challenger_ expedition that although their number is

certainly too limited to base any broad generalization on, as to the

relative frequency of occurrence of particular variations in the

different races, there is obviously a larger proportion of important

variations than would occur in a corresponding number of skulls of

the white races. Thus, for example, the squamo-frontal articulation

is found in less than two per cent of European skulls, while it is

found in twenty per cent of negroes, according to Ecker, and 16.9 in

Australian skulls, according to Virchow. Again, the spheno-pterygoid

foramen is found in 4.8 per cent of European skulls and in 20 per cent

of American Indians; 30 per cent in Africans; 32 per cent in Asiatics,

and 50 per cent in Australians. The wormian bones are also more common

among the lower races; as a rule, the cranial sutures coalesce much

earlier and the teeth are more precocious.

PHOTOGRAPHY, though of undoubted service in craniometry, has been

applied as a crucial test in the matter of identity and found wanting.

It is objected to on the ground that it has no character of precision,

and that photographs of the skull have the common defect of being

central, not orthogonal projections, such as anthropometry requires.

Besides, the lenses of cameras are not uniformly perfect. Anatomists

know, moreover, that salient differences in any collection of crania

prevent methodical enumeration and constitute the stumbling-block of

ethnic craniology. Cephalometry shows, further, that dolichocephalic,

mesaticephalic, and brachycephalic skulls do not belong exclusively to

the white, the yellow, or the black race, but exist among the three as

a result of evolution.

On this subject Professor Lombroso, among the foremost contemporaneous

medico-legal writers, cites the cranial asymmetry of Pericles, of

Romagnosi, of Bichat, of Kant, of Chenevix, and of Dante, who presented

an abnormal development of the left parietal bone and two osteomata

on the frontal bone. Besides, there is the Neanderthaloid skull of

Robert Bruce and the ultra-dolichocephaly noticeable in the skull of

O’Connell, which contrasts with the mesocephaly of the Irish. The

median occipital fossa is noticeable in the skull of Scarpa, while

Volta’s skull shows several characteristics which anthropologists

consider to belong to the lower races, such as prominence of the

styloid apophyses, simplicity of the coronal suture, traces of the

median frontal suture, obtuse facial angle (73°), and moreover the

remarkable cranial sclerosis, which at places attains a thickness

of 16 mm. (five-eighths of an inch). Further mention is made of the

submicrocephaly in Descartes, Tissot, Hoffman, Schumann, and others.

De Quatrefages noted the greatest degree of macrocephaly in a lunatic,

the next in a man of genius. Cranial capacity in men of genius is

usually above the average, having been found as high as 1,660 c.c. in

Thackeray, 1,830 c.c. in Cuvier, and 2,012 c.c. in Tourgueneff. The

capacity is often found above the average in insanity, but numerous

exceptions occur in which it drops below the ordinary average, as in

the submicrocephalic skulls of Liebig, Döllinger, Hausmann, Gambetta,

Dante, and Shelley.

From what has just been said, it follows that skull measurements for

medico-legal purposes have no more significance than the fact that some

men are taller and some shorter than others. The medical jurist should,

therefore, not be too dogmatic in drawing conclusions as to race from

the skull alone. To complete the diagnosis in the matter of skeletal

race peculiarity, the splay foot of the negro with the unusual backward

projection of the heel-bone, as well as the greater relative length of

the tibia and of the radius, may be taken into consideration. There

are other characteristics of the lower jaw and of the facial bones

generally, the study of which leads up to the realm of transcendental

anatomy; so their further consideration would hardly appeal to the

“dispassionate, sympathetic, contemplative jury” of our enlightened

countrymen.

DETERMINATION OF HEIGHT OR STATURE.

When we have the entire skeleton to deal with, the height or stature

may be determined with a reasonable degree of certainty by allowing

from one to two inches for the soft parts. Most of the proportions

given in works on artistic anatomy approach mathematical exactness. For

instance, if both upper and lower extremities are extended after the

manner of spokes in a wheel, and a point corresponding to the umbilicus

be taken as a centre, the circumference of a circle described therefrom

should touch the bottom of the feet and the tips of the middle

fingers. When the arms are extended horizontally the line included in

the middle-finger tips equals the height in the generality of men,

although in exceptional cases it may vary. The negro giant, Nelson

Pickett, is reported to have been eight feet four inches high, while

his outstretched arms measured nine feet from tip to tip. Ordinarily

the upper part of the symphysis pubis is the centre of the body. Some

anatomists contend that this important point is really below the

symphysis in the average man. The length of the foot about equals that

of the head. According to Quetelet, its length is just one-ninth of the

body in women, a little more than one-ninth in men. The conventional

representation of the human foot with a second longer toe is, according

to Professor Flower (see “Fashion in Deformity”), of negro origin and

does not represent what is most usual in our race and time. Statistics

of measurements made in England by several observers on hundreds of

barefooted children fail to show one instance in which _the second toe

is the longer_.[575]

Taken singly the bones may enable an approximate estimate of the height

of the person when alive; but it should be remembered in connection

with this subject that the height is not a fixed quantity, since it

differs according to upright or recumbent position, also before and

after a night’s rest. Moreover, the alleged height of the deceased may

have been taken in boots and is probably incorrect.

Many tables of measurements have been constructed for the purpose

of determining the height from the dimensions of the bones; but the

relation that exists between the total height and the dimensions of

different bones varies according to age, sex, asymmetry, and individual

peculiarities, hence the tables will not bear the critical examination

that warrants their use with assured correctness, even in a majority

of cases. The femur is the bone that gives the best results in these

measurements. Isolated fragments have been included in the enumeration;

the nose and the middle finger multiplied by 32 and by 19 or 20 giving

the approximate height. While the foregoing calculations will not bear

scientific scrutiny, they are of sufficient importance to be taken in

connection with other facts in determining the probable length of the

skeleton. Among the most trustworthy of these tables are those of Dr.

Dwight, of Harvard University.

DETERMINATION OF AGE.

The age is a still more difficult matter to state precisely. Even

during life one may be as much as ten years out in guessing the age of

an adult, while the error may be from fifteen to twenty years in the

case of a corpse. Dr. Tourdes mentions a case where the age was guessed

as sixty and sixty-five in a deceased person aged eighty-five.

The state of the osseous system and the condition and number of the

teeth, which strictly speaking are not bone, are among the surest

guides in the determination of age. The signs furnished thereby may

vary according to the periods of increase, maturity, and decline.

During fœtal life and even at the epoch of birth the bone centres are

few. The distal end of the femur, the proximal end of the tibia, and

the astragalus are ossified at birth. Points of ossification appear

in successive order of development. The exact period at which the

bones begin to ossify and the progress of bony union being detailed

in standard works on anatomy, it would be superfluous to repeat them

here. These changes are, however, not absolutely certain as to time

and order, as the tip of the acromion process of the scapula sometimes

remains ununited throughout life; the ossification of the sternum and

of the costal cartilages is very uncertain, while the teeth, like

certain railway trains, are only due when they arrive.

From the character of the progress of consolidation of the skeleton

the age may be estimated with a reasonable approach to accuracy up to

twenty-five or thirty years, which is the stationary period as regards

alteration in the osseous system. Above this period it is difficult

to arrive at the age. About forty the cranial sutures[576] begin to

disappear, although the time of the closure of the sutures varies

within large limits; the coccyx becomes consolidated; ossification

begins in the thyroid cartilage and in that of the first rib (although

this state of the rib is regarded by many as pathological); the

lower jaw, which in the fœtus and in infancy formed an obtuse angle,

now assumes nearly a right angle. As senility progresses toward

decrepitude, the bones become lighter and more brittle, owing to

fatty atrophy, and their medullary canal larger; the jaw returns to

its infantile shape from loss of teeth and atrophy of the alveolar

processes; the bodies of the vertebræ (according to some authorities)

bevel off in front; osteophytes are formed, and the neck of the femur

approaches the horizontal. (See Abortion and Infanticide.)

DETERMINATION OF SEX.

In the matter of sex there should be no difficulty, after noting the

proof furnished by the aggregate characteristics of both male and

female skeletons. The points of contrast between the two skeletons

are not so striking before the age of puberty. Generally speaking the

cranial capacity of an adult woman is less, although it is contended

that since the great majority of males of the human species are taller,

heavier, and larger than the females, it follows that if due allowance

be made for these variations, it will appear that the brain capacity

of woman is relatively very little, if at all, inferior to that of

man. The mastoid processes of the female skull are smaller; the lower

jaw-bone is relatively smaller and lighter; the ribs are lighter and

compressed; the spine is relatively longer; the collar and shoulder

bones and the sternum[577] are smaller and lighter; there is a less

pronounced angle in the femur, the neck of which approaches a right

angle, while smallness of the patella in front and narrowness of the

articulating surfaces of the tibia and femur, which in man form the

lateral prominences, are said to make the knee-joint in women a sexual

characteristic. But it is the striking contrast in the pelvis that

furnishes a sexual significance that is of greater value than all the

rest of the skeleton together. From a glance at the text-book account

of the pelvis, it does not appear that much anatomical knowledge is

necessary to identify the important points that give shape to the

female pelvis. Its greater diameter (except the vertical), larger and

more curved sacrum and coccyx, and great spread of the arch of the

pubes are well-nigh incontestible signs. The differences as detailed

in the books can be objected to only on the possibility of a so-called

hermaphrodite pelvis in one of the other sex. We sometimes see a very

large pelvis in a subject who by a teratological freak became a man.

Masculine characteristics are, however, oftener found in women than

feminine characteristics in men; hence the conclusion that the presence

of feminine characteristics leaves but little doubt as to the sex, but

that certain masculine indications, while giving a great probability

for the male sex, are not absolutely decisive. (See Hermaphroditism.)

The finding of fœtal bones around or about the supposed female skeleton

is suggestive. It could not be inferred from this fact alone that the

woman was or was not pregnant at the time of death, since the absence

of fœtal remains on the one hand might imply their entire decomposition

in advance of those of the adult; on the other hand, the indiscriminate

habit of undertakers, who often bury still-borns with adults, may

account for their presence.

ACCIDENTAL SIGNS AND EVOLUTION OF THE TEETH.

The trade or occupation leaves but few marks on the bones that are

useful in the matter of identification. It is in the recent and

well-preserved cadaver, or, better still, in the living subject, that

the _professional signs_ are of importance. As a rule, the relatively

larger scapulæ point to the fact of a day-laborer; necrosis of the

lower jaw suggests a worker in phosphorus; worn and discolored teeth

a user of tobacco, and aurification of the teeth might suggest the

previous social condition. Gold crowns and fillings and dental

prosthesis generally are among the most common and, at the same time,

among the most useful signs of identification. By this means the bones

of persons killed by Indians on the Western plains have been recognized

years afterward. The traveller Powell, massacred in Abyssinia, was

recognized in this way. From the presence of artificial teeth and the

mechanical appliances for fixing them, dentists may recognize their

own work beyond a doubt. One of the most common-hackneyed of these

cases is that of Professor Webster.[578] Later cases, in which this

kind of proof established convincing and conclusive identification,

are those of Dr. Cronin, assassinated in Chicago in 1889, and of the

bomb-thrower, Norcross. Every now and then accounts appear in the daily

press of corpses having been recognized by inspection of the teeth.

In Washington, only a short time since, the remains of an unknown

man were exhumed from the Potter’s Field for judicial reasons. The

unrecognized body had been found in the Potomac in an advanced stage

of decomposition. From the signs furnished by the teeth the remains

were identified as those of a person who had disappeared mysteriously

and under circumstances that pointed to his having been murdered

at a Virginian gambling den, and his body thrown into the river.

In connection with this subject the Goss-Udderzook tragedy is of

instructive interest.

In every important case a cast of the mouth should be taken, in order

to set at rest any question that may subsequently arise as to the

condition of the jaw, the absence of teeth, their irregularity or

other dental peculiarities. A cast of the mouth of the deceased in the

Hillmon case showed all the teeth to be regular and perfect, while

it is alleged that Hillmon’s teeth were just the opposite. External

signs furnished by dentition may assist greatly in fixing both age and

identity. The evolution of the human dental system has been so well

studied from intra-uterine life to old age that we may approximately

tell the age, especially of children, from the teeth alone. This sign,

so valuable in childhood, loses its value as the dentition progresses.

Elaborate tables and dental formulæ to be found elsewhere deal with

the two periods of dentition, the relative position and number of the

teeth, and the like.

At birth the jaws show points of ossification only; but children are

sometimes born with central incisors, as the writer has, in common

with others, noted in several instances. The _first dentition_ takes

place from the seventh to the thirtieth month; the _second_ between

four and five years. In rachitic children these periods are later;

but a syphilitic taint may hasten their development. The twenty-eight

teeth characterize early youth. Wisdom teeth appear between eighteen

and twenty-five, sometimes as late as thirty years. The presence of

thirty-two teeth indicates maturity. This number is sometimes exceeded.

Dr. Tidy, in his work on “Legal Medicine,” reports having seen several

children between six and seven years with forty-eight teeth. Instances

are recorded of cutting the teeth at advanced age, seventy and one

hundred and eighteen years; of adults who have never had teeth; of

supernumerary teeth, and of a third dentition. What purported to be a

third dentition came under my notice some years ago, in the person of

an old negro “voodoo doctor.” A more recent case, said to have occurred

in an old man of seventy-four, at Seymour, Ind., is reported in the

_Weekly Medical Review_, St. Louis, Mo., April 16th, 1892, p. 314.

The pathological signs furnished by the teeth should, of course, be

looked upon as a personal characteristic that may lend additional light

in the question of identity.

CONGENITAL PECULIARITIES, DEFORMITIES, AND INJURIES.

But congenital peculiarities or injuries of other parts of the skeleton

are studied to greater advantage in determining proof or disproof of

identity. We may recognize cranial asymmetry; the peculiar conformation

of the idiot skull; the prognathous skull of the negro; the pyramidal

skull of some of the yellow races, and the oval head of the white

man; besides the ethnic artificial deformities already touched upon

in considering the question of race. A metopic cranium, a cleft

palate, a deformed spine or pelvis, a larger left scapula—indicative

of left-handedness; a shortened extremity; bowed legs, club foot, the

presence of extra fingers or toes, and the relative length of the

fingers are each and all valuable facts in judiciary anthropology. In

women of Spanish extraction the fifth finger is almost as long as the

fourth—a fact so well known that glove-makers take advantage of it in

sending gloves to Mexico, the Antilles, or to South America.

An estimate of the length of the hand seems to be a matter of

difficulty, notwithstanding the extensive observation of high

authority. In the majority of cases the ring-finger is longer than the

index.

Important evidence is furnished from the existence of _injuries_ such

as fractures, whether old or recent; the marks of gunshot wounds, of

trephining, amputation, excision, or other surgical operation on the

bones. The remains of an old, ununited fracture in his left humerus

enabled Sir William Fergusson to verify and settle all doubt as to

the identity of the body of the great missionary and explorer, Dr.

Livingston.[579] The existence of an injury may constitute evidence of

great importance to the accused, as happened in the case of an English

gentleman charged with murder, where the trial turned on the deposit of

callus in a broken rib, the only bone produced in court. From the state

of this callus there could be no doubt that the fracture must have

been produced about eight or ten days before death, and could not have

belonged to the deceased. There was, therefore, complete failure of the

identity, and the accused was discharged.[580]

On the other hand, circumstances may arise in which the existence or

not of an injury is a fact of great importance to the prosecution.

Among other specimens in the Army Medical Museum at Washington, the

bones of the forearm of Wirtz, executed for inhuman treatment of

prisoners during the Civil War, show no remains or trace of fracture;

yet it was claimed in defence at the trial that he could not have been

guilty of the atrocities attributed to him, for the reason that this

arm was disabled from a fracture.

_Disease of the bones_, whether hereditary or acquired, is an

essential descriptive element in reconstituting individuality.

Caries and necrosis, rickets, spinal disease, ankylosis, and other

external manifestations of bone lesion may furnish pointers of such

value as often to be incontestible. They are so evident as not to

require detailed mention; but much care in such cases is necessary to

distinguish between disease, decay, and violence, and artefacta. The

last may have resulted from the axe or spade of the grave-digger or

from post-mortem lesions made at the necropsy, as in the remains of

the notorious Beau Hickman of Washington, whose body on being exhumed

showed that sundry amputations and reamputations had been made on the

principal limbs. Having died in a public hospital, the cadaver had been

utilized in rehearsal of these operations previous to its burial in the

Potter’s Field.

Injuries of the phalanges, known as “baseball fingers,” are valuable

indications. This was one of the facts of identification in the

celebrated Cronin case.

DURATION OF BURIAL.

The condition of the exhumed bones may throw some light on the question

as to the probable length of time they have been under ground, as well

as the probable cause of death. If the bones were entirely denuded of

soft parts we should hardly expect them to be those of a corpse buried

only three or four months previously. The noting of such an injury as

a fracture inflicted by some sharp instrument on a skull found in a

cesspool was sufficient, with other evidence of a general character, to

convict a prisoner tried at the Derby Lent Assizes in 1847.

In all cases of the kind under consideration, special attention should

be paid to the surroundings, every little detail of which should be

noted with the utmost accuracy; for such articles as clothes, jewelry,

buttons, and in fact anything that may furnish an inference,[581] may

not only throw light on the identity of the person, but otherwise

assist justice. Cases are recorded in which the identity has been

established principally by the clothing found with the skeleton.

In Taylor’s “Medical Jurisprudence” a case is mentioned where the

skeleton, portions of clothes, buttons, and boots of a Cornish miner

were identified after twenty-six years’ submersion in water. Somewhat

similar circumstances, a few years ago, enabled the arctic explorer,

Lieutenant Schwatka, and others to identify the remains of Lieutenant

Irving, of the ill-fated Franklin party.

In exceptional circumstances, as that of great cold, for instance,

organic remains may be preserved indefinitely. Visitors to the Junior

United Service Club in London may remember the mammoth bones discovered

in digging the foundation of the club-house. Accounts of remarkable

preservation of bodies discovered a long time after the occurrence of

Alpine accidents, and the finding of well-preserved mammoth remains in

the Siberian ice, are matters of common knowledge. A few years since,

in assisting to take the remains of a mammoth from an ice cliff in

Escholtz Bay, Alaska, I came across the skull of a musk-ox and the

rib of a reindeer which showed the deformity and callus of a united

fracture, yet there are geological reasons for believing that thousands

of years must have elapsed since these remains were entombed in the ice.

A precaution to be taken in judicial investigation of bones is to

ascertain whether they belong to more than one body, as they may have

been put together with a view to deceive. Each bone should be examined

separately, to ascertain whether it is a right or left bone or belongs

to the same skeleton. They should be put together with intelligence

and care, and if incomplete parts of a skeleton they may be laid in

sand or putty and photographed, or the medical man may go further and,

Agassiz-like, reconstruct the skeleton from the fragments. In the case

of a fracture the bones should be sawn longitudinally in order to study

the callus.

THE HAIR AND NAILS.

Since the hair and nails resist decomposition an unusually long

time, and are even believed to grow after somatic death, they may be

considered as accessories of such value in the question that occupies

us as to make it possible to verify certain characteristics regarding

the remains of the cadaver even after years of inhumation. For

instance, hypertrophy of the great toe-nail, the length and color of

the hair, baldness, or a long beard might furnish evidence of the best

kind. Both hair and nails may, however, change after death. A case is

mentioned[582] in which the hair changed from a dark brown to red after

twenty years of burial. Accredited cases of the growth of hair after

death are also on record. Dr. Caldwell, of Iowa, states that he was

present in 1862 at the exhumation of a body which had been buried for

four years. He found that the coffin had given at the joints and that

the hair protruded through the openings. He had evidence to show that

the deceased was shaved before burial, nevertheless the hair of the

head measured eighteen inches, the whiskers eight inches, and the hair

of the breast four to six inches.[583] Quite recently in unearthing the

remains of an old cemetery in Washington, D. C., a number of persons

noticed that when the body of a young girl, supposed to be about twelve

or thirteen years of age, was taken up it was found that her hair

had grown until it extended from her crown to her feet. Many careful

observations seem to prove the molecular life of the hair and nails

after somatic death. It suffices to quote the well-known case mentioned

in Ogston’s “Medical Jurisprudence,” of several medical students who

were brought to trial for having in custody the dead body of an idiot

boy. When found on the dissecting-table the body was so disfigured

that there was only one means left of proving its identity. The boy

had a whim during life of permitting his nails to grow, and had not

allowed them to be cut for many years previous to his death. They had

completely curled round the tips of his fingers and toes till they had

thus come to extend along the palmar and plantar surfaces in a strange

way. The counsel for the prosecution availed himself of the knowledge

of this fact, and his proof seemed to be complete, when a medical

man came forward and gave in evidence that it was not an unusual

circumstance for the nails to grow for several inches after death. This

astounding statement so nonplussed the judge that the case was allowed

to drop as not proven.

In exceptional cases the hair may be _green_. I saw a case some years

since, for which no cause could be assigned, and only a few days ago

I saw another in a man who worked in a brass-foundry. At the Cronin

trial a barber, who had counted the victim among his customers,

recognized the shape of the head and texture of the hair. Subsequent

evidence of medical experts was conclusive as to the identity of hair

found clinging to a trunk, the hair cut from the head of the murdered

man, and that of a single hair discovered on a cake of soap. This

single strand, being lighter in color in some portions than in others,

seemed to indicate that it could not have come from the head of the

deceased, whose hair was brown. But it was shown that hair placed on

soap or other alkaline substances becomes bleached in a manner similar

to the color of a single thread. This evidence of vital importance

linked the hair found in the trunk with that cut from Dr. Cronin’s

head, and went far toward proving that one of the murderers had washed

his hands with the soap after the deed had been done.

Reviewing the signs furnished by the osseous system, it will be seen

that the study of the skeleton alone is beyond contradiction more

satisfactory and more important in establishing identity than that

of all the other organs. Consequently a correct interpretation of

the facts observed and judicious application of the rules deducible

therefrom may in the matter of a human skeleton put its identity

beyond a reasonable doubt. But the expert should remember that as no

two cases are just alike, unexpected questions and unforeseen features

may present themselves, giving to each case merits of its own. At best

the medical man’s conclusions will be probabilities, not certainties;

therefore his expressions of opinion should be the more guarded, as

upon it may hang the life of an innocent man.

IDENTIFICATION OF MUTILATED REMAINS.

Many of the foregoing remarks on the identity of the skeleton apply

in cases where mutilated remains or a portion only of the body has

been recovered. Circumstances often occur in which bodies may require

identification after having been drowned and partly eaten by fishes

or crabs, or after having been partly eaten by buzzards, or torn into

fragments by animals, as has happened in the remains of a dead infant

partly devoured by a dog, and in the case of a farmer who died in the

woods and was subsequently eaten by his own hogs. After accidents

and fires where many persons perish; after a railway disaster where

bodies have been mangled, drowned, burnt, and frozen, all in the same

accident; or after an explosion from steam or gas or in a mine, or

from gunpowder, dynamite, or other substance, the human remains are

generally in such a state as to defy all attempts at recognition.

To dispose of a dead body in order to avoid detection, criminals will

mutilate, disfigure, and chop into fragments the remains, which they

afterward place in a trunk, a wardrobe, or throw into a sewer or other

hiding-place. Scarcely a year passes that judiciary medicine is not

concerned with cases of the kind. The frequency of such crimes has been

attributed by some to the so-called contagion of murder; others offer

the simple law of the series in explanation; others still believe that

imitation is the principal cause. While there is no doubt a grain of

truth in each of these, less philosophic minds will look upon such a

beastly proceeding as a mark of the complete satisfaction sought by the

destructive instinct.

Why such things should be is of less concern than the fact that

criminal mutilation of the dead body is not confined to any age or

country. Though more frequent in the last fifteen years, it takes up

quite a space in the history of human cruelty. The violent passion,

wrath, and vengeance that caused the prophet Isaiah to be sawn in two

at the age of one hundred years by order of Manasses and Agag cut into

pieces by Samuel have not materially changed in the days of Jack the

Ripper; and we find such crimes in antipodal parts of the world, among

varied sociological conditions, no matter whether it be the North

American Indian, who scalps and mutilates his enemy and places the

severed penis in the mouth, or the civilized European, who cuts up the

body of his victim and serves it in a curry at a feast of assembled

friends.[584]

This new point of judiciary medicine has lately been elaborated by

European writers under the title of _Dépeçage Criminel_, a term which

applies to the operation resorted to by an assassin having for its end

the getting rid of the body of the victim and to render more difficult

the establishment of its identity.

The cleverness of experts scarcely keeps pace nowadays with the more

complicated proceedings adopted by criminals. In fact, at a trial of

this kind truth and science are often the under dogs in a fight, than

which none in forensic medicine is longer and more embarrassing. To

cause a rapid disappearance of the proofs of a homicide, with a view

to escape the investigations of justice, murderers have been known

literally to make hash of the victim which was subsequently eaten by

themselves and others. Gruner relates the case of a man who, having

killed and cut into pieces his victim, boiled and roasted the fragments

and ate them with his wife. Such examples, however, suggest morbid

rather than passional phenomena, which manifestly call for rigid

scrutiny into the mental state of the culprit, who may be more of a

lunatic than a malefactor.

In cases of infanticide new-born children are sometimes cut into pieces

and the fragments burnt in order to facilitate the disappearance of the

cadaver. There does not appear to be, however, any well-authenticated

instance of the operation having been done on a living child. Generally

the dismemberment is done in order to cause more ready disappearance of

the remains.

The medico-legal problem to be solved in cases of criminal mutilation

is to establish the identity of the victim and that of the author of

the crime.

Many apparently trivial circumstances may assist in the formation of an

opinion as to the identity of the culprit. If the victim be an adult,

a man is the author of the deed; if an infant, a woman, the mother, is

almost always the guilty one. The London _Lancet_ (May 30th, 1863, p.

617) reports a case in which the body of a child, of apparently four to

six months, was found in the sewage of a water-closet, minus an arm cut

off below the shoulder, presumably that a vaccination-mark might not be

adduced as evidence. A young woman was suspected. Several women deposed

having seen a dusky-brown mother’s mark near the child’s navel. After

steeping in pure water a portion of the skin said to include the mark,

and after washing, the mark gradually reappeared at the end of three

days, perfectly distinct. It was recognized by witnesses and produced

at the trial as corroborative evidence. The accused was found guilty.

In a case of infanticide at Tarare, in 1884, the upper extremity of a

fœtus was found to have been disarticulated after the manner of carving

the wing of a fowl. This having suggested to Dr. Lacassagne a cook as

the author of the crime, she was speedily discovered and convicted. A

few years later an analogous case occurred in Florence and was reported

by Dr. A. Montalti.

The instrument used for mutilating the body may furnish a suggestion

of identity, to be dispelled or affirmed upon further investigation.

The mode of section observed in various instances has led to the

recognition of a butcher as the culprit. An expert would have but

little trouble in distinguishing the hacking and mangling of a body

from the careful cutting and preservation of muscles and blood-vessels

in dissections made by medical students, whom the public, by the way,

invariably suspect in cases of mutilation. If it can be ascertained

that the instrument used was operated either by a left-handed person or

by an ambidexter, such a fact may prove of importance. Sometimes the

fragments are tied or sewn up in a package. The manner in which the

knot is tied may indicate the occupation of the culprit. In one case

the regularity of the sewing revealed that it was the work of a woman.

Examination of the remains of clothing and of neighboring objects where

the crime was committed may result in the identification of the victim

or of the murderer. Indeed, it is the careful noting of trivial facts

and their combination that is so valuable in all investigations of

this class. A compound fact made up of minor facts, which considered

severally would possess but little value, may sometimes solve the

puzzle in a case where no single fact of conclusive value is obtainable.

Having collected as much of the mutilated remains as possible, the

first step toward identification is to replace the pieces in anatomical

order, to note carefully their correspondence or otherwise, and to

ascertain whether the fragments belong to the same body or to two or

several individuals. This is often a delicate and difficult matter,

especially where decomposition is advanced or where the horror has been

pushed to its utmost limits, as in the case of a fratricide committed

in France by several persons, who fragmented the cadaver with a saw and

hatchet; boiled the remains and fed them to hogs; and, after crushing

the bones with a hammer, threw the fragments into a deep gorge.

Again, the body may be divided into numerous pieces, a hundred or

more, and disposed of in widely different localities, as in a pond, a

manure-heap, a river, or a cesspool. The chopped-up remains of infants

have been boiled in lye and afterward thrown into a privy or put in a

barrel of vinegar. A mother has also been known to cook with cabbage

the dismembered remains of her six-months’ child and serve it at a meal

of which both she and her husband partook.

Numerous counterparts of such cases happening in late years could

be cited where the object was to favor the disappearance of the

cadaver, and in which the establishment of the identity turned on

the examination of some small part of the organism; the uterus, the

spermatic cord, the lobe of the ear, the hair, or the teeth furnishing

a positive demonstration that led to judiciary results.

PUTREFACTION goes on very fast in a corpse that has been mutilated; but

it is slower in parts which, on being separated just after death, have

become bloodless in consequence of the hemorrhage. After submersion

the outward signs of putrefaction put a notable obstacle in the

way of identification, and after drowning the body becomes rapidly

unrecognizable.

Supposing it impossible to reconstitute the cadaver in all its

essential parts, it is always possible, by following the instructions

already given for examining the skeleton, to infer from one or

several parts of the cadaver the sex, age, height, and sometimes

pathological peculiarities of the victim. Examination of the skeleton

and teeth is of capital importance in an investigation of this class.

The indications furnished thereby having already been touched upon,

and being about all that we are justified in saying, it is only

necessary to repeat that many of the details relative to these special

indications are so confusing as to suggest caution in using the

statistical tables of even high authority, as the observations they

rest on are not of sufficient extent to deserve confidence.

A survey of the head, limbs, trunk, and genital parts will give the

most useful indications. The HEAD, in fact, is the surest index

for justice, and one that lends promptness in the discovery of the

assassin. Typical illustrations of this occur in the Goss-Udderzook

case and in the recent example of the bomb-thrower, Norcross. In the

case of a woman murdered by her husband at Antwerp in 1877 and cut

into one hundred and fifty-three pieces and her remains thrown into

a privy, the color of the hair, the lobule of a torn ear, and the

uterus of a woman having had children furnished special signs that

led to identity and condemnation. Examination of the _brain_ and its

membranes, though furnishing no very notable characteristics in the

matter of identification, may nevertheless be regarded as a natural

corollary to that of the skull. Brain weight, which is greatest

between thirty and forty years, 1,200 to 1,450 grams in man, 1,100 to

1,500 in woman, diminishes toward the sixtieth year. It is said that

the diminution takes place a few years sooner in the opposite sex.

The estimated loss of weight in a person of eighty years is admitted

to be from 90 to 150 grams. Another sign of age is the tendency to

degeneration found in the pineal gland, the cortical substance, the

optic and striate thalami, and in the brain capillaries.

The state of the eyes, if not too decomposed, may still become a sign

of identity. For instance, the color of the iris, an arcus senilis,

a pterygium, a cataract or an operation for the same, an iridectomy,

etc., are signs that occasion may utilize.

The TRUNK may show, as it has in several instances, incised wounds

that caused death before the mutilation. Besides, the organs therein

contained may by their weight, dimension, and tissue alteration

indicate the progress of age and of degeneration. Modifications of the

circulatory and respiratory apparatus are obviously characteristic. As

age advances the only organ whose weight increases with the number of

years, the heart, may become hypertrophied or dilated; its coronary

arteries may undergo an alteration; the pericardium thickens, and in

fact arterial atheroma and degeneration generally may begin between

thirty-five and forty years. It should, however, be borne in mind that

these signs of senility may come much later or even not at all. In a

man of eighty-four years Tourdes found no notable tissue lesion; in

another of one hundred and four Lobstein found no trace of ossification

of the arteries of the trunk and upper extremities, and in Thomas

Parr, aged one hundred and fifty-two years, Harvey found absolutely no

lesion of this kind. Although toward eighty years the heart increases

in weight in both sexes, the opposite has been observed in exceptional

cases. Placing the average weight of this organ in the adult at 266

grams for men, 220 for women, it will be found that progress in weight

gives toward the eightieth year an increase of 90 grams for men and

60 for women. Yet a case of cardiac atrophy is reported in a woman of

eighty whose heart weighed but 170 grams.

Diminished weight of the lungs becomes accentuated with years.

Especially is this the case after pseudo-melanosis and senile

emphysema. The state of the lungs of stone-cutters and miners and

various thoracic and abdominal diseases may likewise become signs of

identity. A cirrhosed liver, an enlarged spleen, a senile kidney, and

the like, are sufficiently obvious in their bearings on this question.

Like the trunk, the ARMS AND LEGS, in cases of the class under

consideration, show but few traces of disfigurement other than the

fact of their having been disjointed. The manner in which the sections

were made and the proceedings employed for the disarticulation would

equally affirm an experienced hand or the reverse. Such facts have of

late years assisted in the discovery and condemnation both of a farmer

and of a medical student, and also in the case of the cook already

mentioned, who cut off her child’s arm after the manner of carving the

wing of a fowl. The existence of deformity, injury, and disease in the

limbs should, of course, claim attention, but their relativity in an

investigation of the kind is too apparent to require further comment.

Mutilation of the GENITAL ORGANS is not so common. Persons familiar

with border warfare have observed the savage custom of cutting off

the victim’s penis and placing it in his mouth. In more civilized

communities the culprits are generally women in whom hatred and

ferocity prompt an act that marks the evident satisfaction sought by

the destructive instinct. Sometimes, however, the genital organs have

been cut from the cadaver of a woman, presumably for the purpose of

concealing traces of rape that may have preceded the murder. The signs

furnished by the female genital organs as to virginity, maternity,

and the menopause are so easily demonstrated at the necropsy as to

become positive proofs of identity. The uterus loses both in size

and weight with age. This along with hard, atrophied, and germless

ovaries attests the stoppage of menstruation. The question of identity

may turn on the age at which menstruation ceases, as happened in an

action of ejectment in the case of Doe on the demise of Clark _vs._

Tatom. The period known as change of life, when the uterus and ovaries

lose their function, though placed at forty-five and fifty years, is

quite uncertain. In spite of _averages_, menstruation is occasionally

continued to seventy and upward.[585]

The signs furnished by the genital organs of the male are of less

importance. Atrophy and diminished weight of the testicles and rarity

or absence of the spermatozoids are indications of senility; although

spermatozoids have been observed at ninety-four years. The structure

of the spermatic cord at different periods of life from the last

of intra-uterine to the first of extra-uterine life, in puberty,

and in old age, is accompanied by characteristic modifications of

development and regression, which are of interest on the question of

medico-forensic diagnosis of identity, as shown by Dr. Pellacani.[586]

Congenital deformity of the genital parts, as epispadias or

hypospadias; marks of circumcision, useful in India to identify

Mussulmans above eleven years; traces of disease that may have left

extensive cicatrices, as phagadenic chancre, suppurating buboes, etc.,

may also furnish characteristics of evidential value.

ENTIRE CADAVER DEAD BUT A SHORT TIME.

In the case of a body that has been dead a short time only, recognition

from the features, even by the nearest relatives, is often a matter

of the greatest difficulty. The change produced in the color and form

of the body, especially after drowning, is a formidable obstacle to

identification by likeness and general type of face. Pages could be

filled with the mere mention of the multiplied instances of mistaken

identity of the living, many of whom have been punished because they

had the misfortune to resemble some one else. How much more careful,

then, should be the medical examination of the remains in the progress

of decay, with the distortion and discoloration of the features, and

the consequent change or destruction of the peculiar expression of

the countenance by which human features are usually distinguished and

identified.

Among the innumerable instances of mistaken personal identity and cases

of resemblance mentioned in history and fable, from the time of Ulysses

down to the days of Rip Van Winkle’s dog Schneider, it appears that

this animal is credited with more sagacity than man in the matter of

recognizing his master even after years of absence. Indeed, recognition

by animals may be considered a proof of identity. Many persons can

recall instances of the kind, though perhaps not so dramatic as the one

of the dog in the Odyssey, who recognized his master after twenty years

of absence and died immediately thereafter.

As a matter of fact, time and circumstances will so alter resemblance

as to account for some of these most striking proofs of the fallibility

of human testimony that we see illustrated in chapters on mistaken

identity. We easily forget the true image of persons and things,

and time promptly modifies them. The evidence of the senses may be

so little trusted in this regard that father, mother, husband, and

nurse may attest a false identity in the case of their own children.

A nurse has been known to testify to the identity of the severed head

of a woman whom thirteen other persons were sure they recognized from

characteristic signs, when the supposed victim put in an appearance and

thus attested her own existence. The head of the unrecognized victim of

this strange controversy is preserved in the museum of the Strassburg

Faculty.

In another case of historical notoriety in France, forty witnesses on

each side swore to the personality; while in the celebrated Tichbourne

trial no less than eighty-five witnesses maintained positively, under

the most rigid and scrutinizing cross-examination, that a certain

person was Sir Roger Charles Doughty Tichbourne, a baronet; at the same

time a corresponding number were equally unshaken in their conviction

that he was a Wapping butcher, Arthur Orton.

Resemblances often bring about remarkable coincidences. A case is said

to have occurred in Covington, Ky., where two men met, each the double

of the other in form, stature, and feature, each having lost a right

leg, amputated at the knee, and each being blind in the left eye from

accident.

Puzzle and perplexity are not confined to remarkable cases and judicial

errors; for so many people are unskilled in correct observation that

it is a matter of common occurrence for two individuals to be mistaken

the one for the other. The writer for some years has frequently been

mistaken for a certain naval officer he is said to resemble, while the

officer in question has become so accustomed to being called “Doctor”

that he answers to the title without protest.

A case that has of late been much quoted in the journals is that of

Tiggs. What was supposed to be his mangled body was identified by

his wife, and further identification was forthcoming from one of his

children and the employer of the deceased. The coroner had granted

a certificate for burial, and as the hearse neared the door, to the

surprise of all parties the real Tiggs entered the house and gave a

satisfactory account of his absence.

Most mistakes of this kind are the result of existing imperfections

in the average human mind or in its use. So few people are skilled in

minute observation that Lord Mansfield’s dictum regarding the “likeness

as an argument of a child being the son of a parent” should be received

with a certain degree of reserve, especially in the question of

identity from likeness after death. In Ogston’s “Medical Jurisprudence”

a case is related of a father who could not recognize the body of his

son drowned at sea ten days previously. The mother, however, identified

her boy from the existence of two pimple-looking projections on the

front of the chest, which proved to be supplementary mammæ.

As a rule, the changes in the face and countenance two weeks after

death are such that it is well-nigh impossible to establish identity

from the features alone. Yet in exceptional cases the external results

of putrefactive decomposition have been so delayed or modified as

to produce very small changes in the features even after many years

of burial. Bodies have been known to retain a remarkable state of

preservation for long periods in such circumstances as burial in a

peat bog, in the sand of the desert, and in the frozen ground of cold

countries.

Even _photography_ in the matter of identity is not to be trusted.

Though an important accessory to other evidence, it is often, and very

properly, objected to by lawyers on the ground of being incompetent,

irrelevant, and immaterial. The picture presented for comparison may

not be an original one or it may have been taken years previously. The

difficulty in recognizing one’s own most intimate friends from pictures

taken only a few years back is a matter of common knowledge. Besides,

the negative from which the picture was taken may have been retouched

or altered, consequently it would not be the same as produced by the

camera, and is, therefore, valueless as evidence. It is held to be

incompetent to prove a photograph by merely asking a witness whether or

not he recognizes the picture in question as that of a certain person.

In all cases where photographic pictures are required in a court of

law the authorities are that the artist who took the picture must be

produced and show that he took the picture, and that it is a correct

representation of the original of which it claims to be a picture. If

possible the negatives themselves should be called for and reproduced.

Dr. Tidy states that he has known a volume of smoke appear in a print

as issuing from a chimney, and used as evidence of the existence of a

nuisance, when no smoke existed in the original negative. Only slight

familiarity with the method of taking photographic pictures and the

chemistry involved in the process suffices to show that many little

details of sensitizing, exposing, developing, and printing greatly

change the general appearance of the face. Some of the tricks that may

be played with photography, illustrating its comparative incompetency

as evidence in the matter of personal identification, I have seen in a

series of pictures at the Department of Justice in Washington. All were

photographs of the same person taken in such varying circumstances that

no two are alike or recognizable as the same person, until scrutiny

is brought to bear on the profile of the nose.[587] In considering

photography in its bearing on this branch of medicine, it must also be

borne in mind that a certain degree of imperfection arises from want

of uniformity in the lenses of cameras. I have already mentioned the

want of precision in photographing the skull, the common defect being

central not orthogonal projection such as anthropometry requires.

SURFACE SIGNS OF IDENTITY.

Examination of the surface of the skin and of its appendages may in

certain cases take decisive importance. Valuable medical proof is often

furnished by scars, nævi, growths on the skin, pock-marks, traces of

skin disease or of scrofula, and by the so-called professional stigmata

which would suggest the trade, character of work, or occupation of

the deceased. Thus cigarette-stains on the fingers of smokers, or

silver-stains on the hands of photographers, the horny palm of the

laborer, or the soft, delicate hand of one not accustomed to work,

would be indicative. The alterations in the hand make it, so to

speak, the seat of election; for in the majority of trades that may

be mentioned it is the hand alone that bears the principal marks of

daily work that indicate the calling. A case is recorded of a person

who previously to his assassination was lame and walked with a crutch.

Although the body was cut into fragments, an examination revealed in

the palm of the hands characteristic callosities, showing prolonged use

of support of this kind. In another instance of criminal mutilation a

tattoo-mark found on the arm proved an overwhelming charge against the

assassin and drew forth his confession. An accused was also convicted

of murder after establishing the only missing link, the question of

identity, which turned on the finding of cupping-marks and a tattoo

on the body of the murdered man. Personal identity of the bodies of

infants has, moreover, been proved by means of a small blister; by a

patch of downy hair; by the similarity existing between two pieces

of thread used to tie the umbilical cord; and by the severed end of

that part of the funis attached to the infant fitting precisely to the

corresponding portion attached to the after-birth. In addition to these

a methodical examination may put in evidence other facts that may be

derived from diverse influences that leave characteristic traces.

SIGNS FURNISHED BY MARKS, SCARS, STAINS, ETC., ON THE SKIN.

But of all the surface signs, whether congenital or acquired, that

may throw light on the antecedents of the decedent, birth-marks,

freckles, cicatrices, tattooes, and the professional signs furnish the

best indications. Birth-marks (_nævi materni_), from their supposed

indelibility, have given rise to discussion at many celebrated

trials. As a rule, these marks are permanent and seldom lose their

distinctness, though in exceptional cases they may undergo atrophy

in the first years of life. Hence testimony as to the existence of

birth-marks may often be uncertain when it has reference to a period a

long way back. In a recorded case of supposed recognition of a person

having a mark of this kind on her face, the alleged victim turned up

and established her identity as well as the fact that she did not have

the birth-mark attributed to her.

Before the introduction of the electrolytic method it was customary

to resort to cauterization, excision, vaccination, and tattooing the

pigmentary spot in order to modify or remove these congenital marks.

Such proceedings usually left more or less of an indelible scar which

occasion might utilize in the matter of medico-legal diagnosis. The

traces of nævi may, however, be entirely removed by electrolysis. I

have recently seen a nævus of large dimension on the face of a young

woman so completely destroyed as to leave no trace of the operation.

The _possibility of the disappearance of a scar_ in such circumstances

depends here, as it does in other instances, on the depth of the wound.

A cicatrix being the result of a solution of continuity in the derma,

the question arises whether a wound that has divided the derma without

loss of substance and healed by first intention leaves any perceptible

scar. Some are of the opinion that a cicatricial line persists, but

grows fainter with time. Histological examination in a question of

this kind might prove conclusive by showing the structure of the

fibrocellular tissue that constitutes the cicatrix. In the case of very

superficial burns or wounds, the scar may completely disappear if the

epidermis alone or the superficial part of the derma is attacked; on

the other hand, if there has been long suppuration or loss of substance

from ulcers, chancres, or buboes, especially on the neck, groins,

legs, or genital parts, traces of their lesion will be found. It may,

therefore, be asserted as a general rule that all scars resulting from

wounds and from skin diseases which involve any loss of substance are

_indelible_. A scar on the face is one of the points at issue in the

celebrated Hillmon case already mentioned.

As the matter of cicatrices is treated in the section on WOUNDS,

further mention here would be superfluous.

TATTOOING.

Of all the scars that speak, none in judiciary medicine affords better

signs of identity by their permanency and durable character and the

difficulty of causing their disappearance than those furnished by

tattoo-marks.

The custom of tattooing having existed from the earliest historical

epochs is of interest not only from an ethnological but from a medical

and pathological point of view, while it is of great importance in

its relation to medical jurisprudence in cases of contested personal

identification which may be either established or refuted by this

sign. So trustworthy is it in many instances as to become a veritable

ideograph that may indicate the personal antecedents, vocation, social

state, certain events of one’s life, and even their date.

Without going into the history of a subject mentioned by Hippocrates,

Plato, Cæsar, and Cicero, it may be pertinent to say that tattooing is

prohibited by the Bible (Leviticus xix., 28) and is condemned by the

Fathers of the Church, Tertullian among others, who gives the following

rather singular reason for interdicting its use among women: “_Certum

sumus Spiritum Sanctum magis masculis tale aliquid subscribere potuisse

si feminis subscripsisset._” (_De Virginibus_ velandis. Lutetiæ

Parisorum, 1675, fº, p. 178.)

In addition to much that has been written by French, German,[588] and

Italian authors, who have put tattooing in an important place in legal

medicine, the matter of tattoo-marks a few years since claimed the

attention of the law courts of England, the Chief Justice, Cockburn, in

the Tichbourne case, having described this species of evidence as of

“vital importance,” and in itself final and conclusive. This celebrated

trial has brought to light about all the knowledge that can be used in

the investigation of this sign as a mark of identity. Absence of the

tattoo-marks in this case justified the jury in their finding that the

defendant was not and could not be Roger Tichbourne, whereupon the

alleged claimant was proved to be an impostor, found guilty of perjury,

and sentenced to penal servitude.[589]

The practice of tattooing is found pretty much over the world, notably

in the Polynesian Islands and in some parts of Japan. It is, however,

not found in Russia, being contrary to the superstitions of the people,

who regard a mark of this kind as an alliance or contract with evil

spirits. Its use appears to be penal only, and is limited to Siberian

convicts. The degrading habit, confined to a low order of development,

exists at the present time as a survival of a superstitious practice of

paganism, probably owing to perversion of the sexual instinct, and is

still common among school-boys, sailors, soldiers, criminals, and the

lowest order of prostitutes living in so-called civilized communities.

Indeed, unanimity of opinion among medical and anthropological writers

assigns erotic passion as the most frequent cause of tattooing, and

shows the constant connection between tattoo-marks and crime. Penal

statistics show the greater number of tattooed criminals among the

lowest order, as those who have committed crimes against the person;

while the fewest are found among swindlers and forgers, the most

intelligent class of criminals. Even amid intellectual advancement

and æsthetic sensibility far in advance of the primitive man, such as

exists in London and New York, for instance, are to be found persons

who make good incomes by catering to this depraved taste for savage

ornamentation. Persons who have been to Jerusalem may remember the

tattooers, who try to induce travellers to have a cross tattooed on the

arm as a souvenir of the pilgrimage. If a writer in the _Revue des Deux

Mondes_, 15th June, 1881, is to be believed, it appears that the Prince

of Wales on his journey to the Holy Land had a Jerusalem Cross tattooed

on his arm, April 2d, 1862. The “Cruise of the _Bacchante_” also tells

how the Duke of York was tattooed while in Japan.

The process is now rapidly done, an Edison electric pen being utilized

for the purpose, and some of the wretched martyrs have the hardihood

to be tattooed from head to foot with grotesque designs in several

colors. I know of several instances: one of a man in Providence, R.

I.; another of a Portuguese barber, who has striped poles, razors,

brushes, and other emblems of his calling over the entire body. Another

man has likenesses of Abe Lincoln and of Kaiser Wilhelm of Germany on

his respective shins. A Nova Scotian, tattooed from head to foot, has

among other designs that of “St. George and the Dragon” on his back;

while a Texas ranchman, six feet two inches tall, underwent the torture

of eight weeks’ profanation of his body in order to appear in blue,

brown, and red, with an irreverent image on his back of the Immaculate

Conception and thirty-one angels.[590]

A singular mixture of erotic and religious emblems is often found among

the varied and fantastic signs used in tattooing. I recall the case

of a man who had represented on his back a fox-hunt, in which riders

followed the hounds in full pursuit of a fox about to take cover in

the anus. In another case of a man accused of criminal attempt on two

little girls, examination of the sexual organs revealed a tattoo on the

back of the penis representing the devil with horns and red cheeks and

lips. When the little girls were asked if the accused had shown them

his virile member, they answered, “This man unbuttoned himself and said

to us: ‘I am going to make you see the devil.’” In the face of such

affirmations, the accused confessed his crime and was condemned. Other

tattoo signs of the grossest emblems of unnatural passion have been

found among low prostitutes, pederasts, and tribades.

Statistics founded on numerous facts show many cases of tattooing

of the penis and even of the labia majora in the lowest order of

prostitutes, but these unclean images and revelations of lustful

instinct do not occur in the same order of frequency as those noted

on the forearm, the deltoid, or the inferior extremities. So valuable

are these marks in their bearing on the class, vocation, character,

and tastes of a person that the finding of anchors and ships would

indicate a sailor; while flags, sabres, cannon, and other warlike signs

would indicate a soldier, etc. It is also noticeable that in the

tattooing practised by lunatics the image relates in some way to the

nature of the peculiar form of mental disease from which they suffer,

and it is chiefly among the more severe and incurable cases of mental

degeneration that these signs are found. (See Dr. Riva’s article, “Il

tatuaggio nel Manicomio d’Ancona,” _Cronica del Manicomio d’Ancona_,

November, 1888.)

Almost always the motive that prompts these disfigurements of the

skin is the result of impulse, of thoughtlessness, or of orgy, and

almost all the tattooed come to repent of their folly. The subject

of _détatouage_ has of late taken a polemic turn in some of the

Continental journals. There are besides many cases on record of

severe accidents and complications following the operation, such as

severe inflammation, erysipelas, abscess, and gangrene. Dr. Beuchon

gives statistics of forty-seven cases, in which four were followed

by mutilation and eight by death either directly or in consequence

of an amputation. A certain proportion of what is known as _syphilis

insontium_ is to be found among the reported statistics of tattooing.

Dr. Bispham, of Philadelphia, informs me that while at Blockley

Hospital he saw thirty cases of syphilis that had been communicated by

the same tattooer.

Tattooing may sometimes be _accidental_. I have seen a departmental

clerk with an elongated tattoo on the back of his hand caused by

accidental wounding with an inked pen. A bursting shell during a

naval engagement has caused a characteristic tattoo on the face of a

well-known officer to be seen any day in Washington. Two cases of the

bluish-black discoloration of the skin from taking nitrate of silver

have also come under my observation. Both occurred in medical men,

one of whom lives in Florida, the other in the District of Columbia.

Silver discolorations of this kind are indelible, but I learn from

one of these gentlemen that large doses of iodide of potassium cause

temporary fading of the discoloration, which returns on stopping the

medicine.[591]

The _indelibility of tattoo-marks_ is such that their traces may be

easily recognized in the cadaver, though in a somewhat advanced

stage of putrefaction. They have even been recognized on a gangrenous

limb. Sometimes, however, it is impossible to recognize at first

sight whether there has or has not been a tattoo. A strong light and

a magnifying glass and a microscopic examination of the neighboring

ganglia to detect the presence of coloring matter may assist in

removing doubt. It has been found on the bodies of tattooed cadavers

that the ganglia are filled with grains of coloring matter of the

same nature as that employed in making the tattoo. Attempts to remove

tattoo-marks generally leave a vicious scar that is equally indelible.

An efficacious method is to tattoo the mark with a solution of

tannin, which is followed by brushing over with nitrate of silver.

A red cicatrix follows, and when the epidermis separates the tattoo

disappears. A better method, however, is by means of the electric

needle already mentioned in speaking of the electrolysis of nævi.

That _a tattoo-mark may disappear_ by the effects of time and leave no

trace is a matter that Cooper reports after examining the mutilated

remains of a cadaver, and the statistics of Caspar, Tardieu, and

Hutin place it as high as nine in the hundred. An officer of the

United States Revenue Marine lately called my attention to several

superficial tattooes on the back of his hand which had disappeared. The

deeper ones, however, remained. The _spontaneous disappearance of a

tattoo_ seems to be possible when the operation has been done in such

a superficial way as not to have passed the rete Malpighii, or when

the tattooing has been done with some substance not very tenacious,

as vermilion, which appears to be easily eliminated. But when the

particles of coloring matter penetrate into the fibro-elastic tissue of

the derma, the disappearance of the tattoo is rare.

In seventy-eight individuals tattooed with vermilion alone, Hutin

found eleven upon whom the tattoo had disappeared. Out of one hundred

and four tattooes made with a single color, India-ink, writing ink,

blue or back, not a single one had completely disappeared. The results

are identical if the tattooes are made with two colors. Thus in 153

tattooes with vermilion and India-ink, one instance showed a fading of

the black, in another it had completely disappeared, the red being well

marked; twenty times the red was partly effaced, the black being well

marked; and in sixteen cases the red had completely disappeared, the

black remaining visible.[592]

A tattoo-mark may sometimes be altered, in which case it proves

deceptive as an index. A workman changing his trade seeks to transform

the insignia of his first calling into those of the second, or a

criminal in order to avoid identity will make a change. In the former

instance the transformation is not difficult to detect, but in the

latter so much care is required to recognize the change that penal

science has relegated the sign to a secondary place.

As to the length of time since a tattoo-mark has been executed,

authorities are that it is impossible to tell after two or three weeks.

Whether a tattoo-mark is real or feigned is easily settled by simply

washing the part. This question, as well as that of the judicial

consequences of such marks, is hardly pertinent to the matter in hand.

VALUE OF PROFESSIONAL STIGMATA.

The so-called professional signs are of undoubted value in the surface

examination for establishing identity, but it does not seem that

their importance warrants the extreme prolixity given to them by some

Continental writers, and even by one in the city of Mexico, Dr. Jose

Ramos.[593] For instance, it is pretended that cataract is more common

among jewellers because of the fineness of their work; yet out of 952

cataracts, of which a record has been kept, only two cases occurred in

jewellers. Besides, there is not one special sign or physical trace

left on the body by which a prostitute may be known, notwithstanding

the fact that in life the collective appearance would seldom deceive an

experienced man.

Only in the case of sodomy, where anal coitus has been frequent, would

characteristic signs be found. On anal examination of 446 prostitutes,

Dr. Coutagne[594] found the signs of post-perineal coitus in 180.

He cites the case of a young prostitute presenting the astonishing

contrast of a gaping anus surrounded by characteristic rhagades, with

the genital parts of an extreme freshness, a very narrow vagina, and

non-retracted hymen, constituting by their reunion a still firm ring.

A fact yet more curious is shown by a specimen in the collection of

the museum of the laboratory of legal medicine at Lyons. The genital

organs of the cadaver of a woman of twenty-eight or thirty years showed

a hymen intact and firm, but on examining the anal region it was

surprising to find an infundibuliform deformity with all the signs of

sodomitical habits, which of course rectified the opinion that had been

made regarding the chastity of this woman.

Many of the signs enumerated as peculiar to different callings have

no special anatomical characteristic that is easy to distinguish with

precision, consequently they do not present a degree of certainty or

constancy sufficient to be invoked as strong medico-legal proof of

identity. Moreover, the effects of time or treatment may have caused

alteration or disappearance of many of the signs in question, which

would at best be of negative rather than of absolute value.

To arrive at an impartial appreciation of the relative value of the

professional stigmata as signs of identity, a certain number of the

signs should be thrown aside as illusory. Others, on the contrary, are

durable, special, and constant, and assist in establishing the identity

accordingly as the lesions or alterations are complete or evident; but

it should be borne in mind that the physical alterations and chemical

modifications resulting from the exercise of certain trades are not in

our country so important from a medico-legal point of view as they are

in Europe, where class distinctions are more defined.

VALUE OF STAINS AND DIFFERENT IMPRINTS.

In the same manner that a very small portion or fragment of the human

body may suffice to establish the _corpus delicti_, so will minute

remains or traces, as finger-marks, footprints, and other material

surroundings, even smells or traces of perfume, be of great assistance

to justice in determining the identity of both culprit and victim, and

at the same time throw light on the attendant circumstances of the

deed. The traces of a bloody hand or foot, smears of tar or paint,

the various spots or stains found on fabrics, instruments, etc., may

involve questions of great nicety the relativity of which is apparent,

especially in criminal trials. Newspapers have familiarized the public

with many cases of the kind, in which medical experts have demonstrated

blood and other stains with sufficient accuracy and positiveness to

satisfy a jury. The Cronin case is a notable instance.

IMPRINTS MADE BY FINGER-TIPS are known to be singularly persistent.

In four specimens of inked digit marks of Sir William Herschel, made

in the years 1860, 1874, 1885, and 1888 respectively, though there

was a difference of twenty-eight years between the first and last, no

difference could be perceived between the impressions. The forms of

the spirals remained the same, not only in general character, but in

minute and measurable details, as in the distances from the centre

of the spiral and in the direction at which each new ridge took its

rise. Sir William Herschel has made great use of digit-marks for

the purposes of legal attestation among natives of India.[595] The

extraordinary persistence of the papillary ridges on the inner surface

of the hands throughout life has been a theme of discussion by the

Royal Society,[596] and Mr. Galton has devised a method of indexing

finger-marks.[597]

The IMPRESS OF A NAKED FOOT covered with blood may serve to direct the

investigations of justice. In a criminal affair in France, where eight

individuals were implicated, comparative experiments upon the identity

of the foot, made with a view to determine to which of the individuals

ought to be attributed the bloody footprints found near a wardrobe,

it was shown that a degree of recognition could be established on

reproducing the footprints with defibrinated blood. From the eight

imprints of the left foot of each individual, impregnated with blood,

measures and comparisons could be made, thus helping to establish the

difference or the resemblance with those found near the wardrobe.

Imprints thus obtained may be looked upon as a kind of documentary

evidence, but too much importance should not be attached to them as

articles tending to prove criminality. The futility of such evidence

is shown in the varying sizes of different impressions of the foot of

the same person—first in rapid progression, secondly by standing,

and third by slow advance. The results appear less sure in the case of

footprints made in mud, sand, dust, or snow. Nevertheless many facts

relating thereto may be noted with great certainty. The question has

been mooted as to whether or not the impress left upon the soil gives

always the exact dimensions of the foot that has made them. One side

has contended that the footprints _are a little smaller_, while the

other refutes this opinion and thinks that they are _a little larger_.

The consistency of the soil, which does not seem to have entered into

the discussion, doubtless accounts for the small differences that have

given rise to this discrepancy of opinion. The outline of the sole of

the foot and the relative position of the toes are more or less neatly

designed as the ground is more or less wet or soft. The means employed

for taking impressions of foot or other tracks in mud, etc., show

considerable ingenuity on the part of those who have elaborated the

subject. To discover foot-marks in mud, powdered stearic acid is spread

over the imprint and a heat of at least 212° is applied from above. By

this means a solid mould may be taken of the imprint. These researches

have been extended to the exact reproduction of imprints left upon snow

by pouring melted gelatine upon the imprint previously sprinkled with a

little common table salt, which rapidly lowers the temperature of the

snow about fifteen degrees and permits the mould to be taken without

too much hurry. The study has been extended to the configuration of the

plantar imprints in tabetics, but it does not appear so far to be of

much medico-legal value.

The question may arise as to the length of time since the imprints

were made. This would, of course, depend upon many circumstances, as

weather, temperature, and the like. It is a fact that in Greenland

footsteps in snow have been recognized many months after they were

made. A few summers ago, on an arctic expedition, I climbed Cape

Lisbourne, Alaska, in company with another person. The ground being

thawed in many places, our feet left very decided imprints in the mud.

A year afterward I visited the same spot, and on again making the

ascent was astonished to recognize the footsteps made the year before.

Circumstances sometimes direct expert attention to vestiges of other

animals. The tracks of a dog or of a horse may become the object of a

medico-legal inquest. The books record a case in which it was necessary

to ascertain whether a bite had been made by a large or a small dog.

This question was settled by producing the dogs and comparing their

teeth with the scars. Persons familiar with border life know the

importance of trails and the minute observation that is brought to bear

on them by the experienced frontiersman. In following cattle-thieves

and murderers, while with the Fourth United States Cavalry on the Rio

Grande frontier, I have known the peculiarity of a horse’s footprint in

the prairie to tell a tale of great significance.

Observation in this respect may extend to such apparently trivial

objects as the tracks of wheels, as those of a wagon, a wheelbarrow,

or a bicycle, or to the singular imprints left by crutches or a

walking-stick. The imprint left in the ground by a cane usually occurs

in the remarkable order of every two and a half or every four and a

half steps. Investigation of such circumstances may result in material

facts that may be of great assistance in establishing the relation of

one or several persons with some particular act.

DEFORMITIES AND PATHOLOGICAL PECULIARITIES.

The existence of deformities or injuries is so apparent in serving to

establish identity that it seems almost superfluous to mention them,

except for the purpose of deciding whether the wounds were made during

life or after death. In the matter of gunshot wounds on persons who

took part in the late Civil War, many of whom unfortunately belong to

the vagrant class and are often found dead, their wounds sometimes

afford excellent means of identification. In many instances the

multiple character of these wounds is almost incredible. When on duty

at the Army Medical Museum, in connection with the preparation of the

“Medical and Surgical History of the War of the Rebellion,” I saw a man

who was literally wounded from the crown of his head to the sole of his

foot, the scars being fifty-two in number.

WOUNDS MADE DURING LIFE might show the suggillation peculiar to

bruises or traces of inflammation. Besides, the gaping nature of the

lips of the wound, the fact of hemorrhage having taken place and the

coagulation of the blood, the infiltration of blood into the cellular

tissue, etc., are surgical facts that would leave but little doubt as

to the infliction of the wounds during life.

The _cause of death_ is often a difficult matter to determine, as

it may have been accidental, suicidal, or the result of homicide.

The causes relating thereto are, moreover, so many and varied that

space and time compel a reference to other headings of this work. In

forming an opinion as to _the probable date of death_ the extent of

putrefaction is the chief guide. If death is quite recent, we may be

guided by the post-mortem rigidity or the extent to which the body has

cooled. The march of putrefactive decomposition would, of course, be

regulated by circumstances. It takes place very rapidly in persons who

have succumbed to excessive fatigue or to any disassimilative excesses

or derangement resulting in ante-mortem change of the tissues, such

as those occurring in virulent or infectious diseases. The body of

an infant decays more rapidly that that of an adult. The course of

putrefactive phenomena is also influenced by the seasons, the extent

of the exposure to air, and to other mesological causes. There is a

manifest difference in the special putrefactive change accordingly as

a body is buried in the earth, submerged in a fluid, thrown into a

cesspool, or buried in a dung-heap.

In certain cases, especially where the body has been much mutilated, it

may be desirable to know whether there was _one or several murderers_.

While no definite rule can be laid down on this point, we are justified

in supposing that there were two or more assassins when the body of the

victim shows both gunshot and knife wounds, or that two persons were

concerned in the dismemberment and mutilation of a body which shows the

simultaneous presence of parts skilfully cut, while others show evident

awkwardness.

Where there is _more than one mortal wound_ on the same dead body,

a question of medico-legal significance may arise. This occurred in

the Burton murder case at Newport, R. I., in 1885, which gave rise to

discussion of the following abstract question: “Whether it is possible

for an individual, with suicidal intent, and in quick succession,

to inflict a perforating shot of the head and another of the chest

implicating the heart. Or, reversing the proposition, is it incredible

that a person bent on self-destruction can, with his own hand, shoot

himself in the heart and in the head?”

After consideration of the case referred to and reversal of the

previous decision of the coroner, the supposed suicide proved to be

a homicide. Yet if the abstract question of possibilities is alone

regarded, there is no doubt of the fact that a suicide could shoot

himself in such manner, both in the head and the heart, or, changing

the order, of shots in the heart and in the head. The number of

cases recorded establishes beyond a doubt the feasibility of the

self-infliction of two such wounds, and make it clear that the theory

of suicide may be maintained in such circumstances.[598]

JUDICIAL ANTHROPOMETRY.

Of late years the subject of anthropometric identification has taken

such a place before justice that it cannot be ignored by the medical

legist. The facts of scientific anthropology have here been applied in

such a way as to establish with great certainty both the present and

future identity of individuals who attempt dissimulation of their name

and antecedents. The method used principally in the identification

of criminals and deserters from the army has been adopted in the

public service[599] and by most municipalities, with the exception of

New York, where the subsequent identification of persons connected

with municipal affairs has been and may be a source of no little

embarrassment.

The system is based on three recognitory elements: photography,

anthropometric measurements, and personal markings, from which a

descriptive list is made that gives absolute certainty as to individual

identity.

Owing to the illusory nature of photography and the difficulty

in finding the portrait of any given individual in the large and

constantly increasing collection of a “rogues’ gallery,” the matter

has been simplified and facilitated by grouping the photographic

collection according to the six anthropological coefficients of sex,

stature, age, and color of the eyes. Each of these primordial groups is

again subdivided in such a way as to reduce the last group to a small

number, when the portrait is easily found and verified on comparing the

measurements of the head, of the extended arms, the length of the left

foot, and that of the left middle finger.

The photographic proof for each individual consists of two portraits

side by side, one of which is taken full face, the other in profile of

the _right_ side. On the back of the photographic card is recorded with

rigorous precision all personal markings or peculiarities.

The measurements, which can be made by any person of average

intelligence in three or four minutes, are extremely simple. The

_right_ ear is always measured, for the reason that this organ is

always reproduced in the traditional photograph which represents the

right face. Other special measurements are taken on the left side. The

height sitting, dimensions and character of the nose, color of eyes,

etc., are also noted.

It is contended that by these measurements alone the identity of an

individual whose face is not even known may be established in another

country by telegraph. The application of the system has proved of great

service in the apprehension of deserters from the United States army

(when the authorities have been able to find the card), while it is

claimed to have caused the disappearance of numerous dissimulators of

identity in the prisons of Paris. The police authorities of that city

report that out of more than five hundred annual recognitions by the

foregoing means, not one mistake has yet occurred.[600]

To avoid a _possible source of error_ mensuration of the organs and the

ascertainment of their form may be resorted to in the case of a cadaver

that is much decayed, or in one that has been purposely mutilated or

burned by the assassin in order to prevent recognition. A sufficient

number of cases may be cited in which the measurement of a limb or a

bone of a deceased person known to have been lame or deformed during

life has resulted in the establishment of identity or the reverse.

A mistake may be prevented in the case of supposed mutilation of a

drowned body, which may have been caused by the screw of a passing

steamer. Other errors may result from carelessness, incorrect

observation of signs, and neglect to follow the ordinary precautions

that should obtain in all researches on identity of the dead body.

Certain circumstances indicative of the _mental state of the culprit_

may throw light on the identity. A person of unsound mind would

certainly be suggested as the perpetrator of such a deed as that of

the woman already mentioned, who after killing and cutting up her

infant, cooked portions of the remains with cabbage and served them

at a meal of which she herself partook. Equally conclusive should be

the inference in the case cited by Maudsley of a person who, for no

ascertainable motive, kills a little girl, mutilates her remains, and

carefully records the fact in his note-book, with the remark that the

body was _hot and good_.

The _handwriting_ left by the assassin might also furnish a strong

presumption as to the existence of a mental lesion, since the writing

of the insane is often characteristic, especially in the initial stage

of dementia. I recall the case of a former patient, an _aphasic_,

imprisoned for having stabbed a man in the abdomen and for having

wounded his wife in such a way that her arm had to be amputated. Having

lost the power to express himself phonetically, this man used a book

and pencil, but his writing showed a degree of _agraphia_ which alone

would establish his identity beyond a doubt.

While it is quite possible that dishonest transactions, and even theft,

may take place by _telephone_ and the voices of the perpetrators may

be unmistakable between distant cities, it is more likely that the

phonographic registration of speech or other sound by means of a

_gramophone_ should become a matter of medico-legal investigation and a

possible means that may lend great assistance in establishing personal

identity. Although no precedent may be cited, it is not going into

the domain of theoretical hypothesis to mention a discovery of such

real scientific certainty that for years after death, and thousands of

miles away, gives an indefinite number of reproductions that cannot

possibly be mistaken by any one familiar with the voice before it had

become “Edisonized.” Some gramophone disks lately shown me from Germany

registered greetings and messages to relatives in Washington, who were

delighted to recognize the exact reproduction of familiar tones and

accents of the Fatherland.

So limitless is the field of research in this direction that there is

scarcely an anthropological, biological, or medical discovery that

may not sooner or later be applied with profit in the investigations

of personal identity where the combined efforts of an attorney and an

expert are required.

After the most rigid and scrutinizing anatomical and material

examination is made and the closest inquisition entered on, it may

often be impossible to give a reasonable explanation for the cause

of the physical facts observed. The medical man should remember that

his is the one great exception to the rule that rigidly excludes

opinions, and that scientific men called as witnesses may not give

their opinion as to the general merits of the case, but only as to the

facts already proved. This qualifying rule being altogether reversed

in investigations into personal identity, and the physician’s opinion

as to identity being indispensable, it becomes a matter of most

serious import that this opinion should be grounded upon absolute and

well-attested facts.

MEDICO-LEGAL DETERMINATION

OF

THE TIME OF DEATH.

BY

H. P. LOOMIS, A.M., M.D.,

_Professor of Pathology in the University of the City of New York;

Visiting Physician and Curator to Bellevue Hospital, New York;

Pathologist to the Board of Health, New York City; President New York

Pathological Society, etc., etc._

MEDICO-LEGAL DETERMINATION OF THE TIME OF DEATH.

SIGNS OF DEATH.

THE cessation of respiration and the absence of audible heart-beats

are signs generally regarded as sufficient in themselves to determine

the reality of death. But persons have been resuscitated from a state

of asphyxia or have recovered from a state of catalepsy or lethargy in

whom, _to all appearances_, the respiratory and circulatory processes

have been arrested.

So it is advisable that we should be acquainted with some absolute

tests of death which are not connected with the heart-sounds or the

respiration.

It is well known that these important functions, although apparently

held in abeyance, must be speedily re-established so as to be

recognized, or death will rapidly follow. This condition of apparently

suspended animation is seen among hibernating animals; the bear, for

instance, will remain for four or five months without food or drink

in a state of lethargy—the heart-action and respiration hardly

appreciable. Yet it will be sufficiently rapid to sustain life during

the slow metabolic processes. A number of well-authenticated cases are

reported in which persons could slacken their heart-action, so that

no movement of the organ could be appreciated. The case of Colonel

Townsend, reported by Cheyne, is an example. He possessed the power of

apparently dying, by slowing his heart so that there was no pulse or

heart-action discernible. The longest period he could remain in this

inanimate state was half an hour.

Instances have occurred in the new-born child where without question

there have been no heart-beats or respiratory movements for a number of

minutes, the limit being set at five.

These are exceptional cases, and it is setting at defiance all

physiological experience to suppose that the heart-action and

respiration can be suspended entirely when once they are established,

for a period as long. So, then, if no motion of the heart occurs during

a period of five minutes—a period five times as great as observation

warrants—death may be regarded as certain.

The respiratory movements of the chest are sometimes very difficult

to observe. They can always be better appreciated if the abdomen and

chest are observed together. There are two methods to determine whether

respiration is absolutely suspended or not. First, by holding a mirror

in front of the open mouth, observing whether any moisture collects on

its surface. Second, by placing on the chest a looking-glass or basin

of water, and reflecting from it an image by artificial or sun light.

The slightest movement would be registered by a change in position of

the image. While the writer considers the absence of heart-beats and of

respiratory movement an absolute test of death, still some cases may

occur in which the establishment of this test is very difficult, and

the following additional tests may be employed:

1. Temperature of the body same as surrounding air.

2. Intermittent shocks of electricity at different tensions passed into

various muscles, giving no indication whatever of irritability.

3. Careful movements of the joints of the extremities and of the lower

jaw, showing that rigor mortis is found in several parts.

4. A bright needle plunged into the body of the biceps muscle

(Cloquet’s needle test) and left there, showing on withdrawal no signs

of oxidation.

5. The opening of a vein, showing that the blood has undergone

coagulation.

6. The subcutaneous injection of ammonia (Monte Verde’s test), causing

a dirty-brown stain indicative of dissolution.

7. A fillet applied to the veins of the arm (Richardson’s test),

causing no filling of the veins on the distal side of the fillet.

8. “Diaphanous test:” after death there is an absence of the

translucence seen in living people when the hand is held before a

strong light with the fingers extended and in contact.

9. “Eye test:” after death there is a loss of sensibility of the eye

to light, loss of corneal transparency, and the pupil is not responsive

to mydriatics.

POST-MORTEM CHANGES.

The human body after death undergoes certain changes which will be

discussed under the following heads:

1. Cooling of the body.

2. Flaccidity of the body.

3. Rigor mortis.

4. Changes in color due to

(_a_) Cadaveric ecchymoses.

(_b_) Putrefaction.

COOLING OF THE BODY.

Immediately after death there is a slight rise of temperature, supposed

to be due to the fact that the metabolic changes in the tissues still

continue, while the blood is no longer cooled by passing through the

peripheral capillaries and lungs.

The body gradually cools and reaches the temperature of the surrounding

air in from fifteen to twenty hours; this is the ordinary course,

but the time may be influenced by a variety of causes, such as the

condition of the body at the time of death, manner of death, and

circumstances under which the body has been placed.

In certain diseases, as yellow fever, rheumatism, chorea, and tetanus,

the temperature of the body has been known to rise as high as 104° F.

and remain so for a time. Again, it has been observed that when death

has taken place suddenly, as from accident, apoplexy, or acute disease,

the body retains its heat for a long time. The bodies of persons dying

from hanging, electrocution, suffocation, or poisoning by carbon

dioxide, do not generally cool for from twenty-four to forty-eight

hours, and cases are recorded where three days have elapsed before the

body was completely cold. On the other hand, bodies dead from chronic

wasting diseases or severe hemorrhage cool very rapidly, even in four

or five hours.

In determining the temperature of a dead body the hand is not a

reliable guide: the thermometer should always be used.

FLACCIDITY.

The first effect of death from any cause is general relaxation of the

entire muscular system. The lower jaw drops, the eyelids lose their

tension, the limbs are flabby and soft, and the joints become flexible.

In from five to six hours after death, and generally while the body is

in the act of cooling, the muscles of the limbs are observed to become

hard and contracted, the joints stiff, and the body unyielding. Muscles

which are contracted in the death-agony do not necessarily become

relaxed at any time.

The muscular tissues in the dead body can be considered as passing

through three stages: (1) flaccid but contractile, (2) rigid and

incapable of contraction, (3) relaxed and incapable of further

contractility.

RIGOR MORTIS.

This is sometimes called cadaveric rigidity and occurs generally within

six hours after death and disappears within sixteen to twenty-four

hours. Many theories have been advanced to account for it, but the most

probable one is that the rigidity is due to the coagulation of the

myosin in the muscles by the weak acids which are no longer removed

from the system; the muscles always give an acid reaction and are

opaque instead of transparent; after putrefaction has set in ammonia is

developed, the myosin dissolved, and so flaccidity results.

Rigor mortis occurs first in the muscles of the eyelid, next the

muscles of the lower jaw and neck are affected, then the chest and

upper extremities; afterward it gradually progresses from above

downward, affecting the muscles of the abdomen and lower limbs. The

rigidity disappears in the same sequence. The period after death

when rigor mortis manifests itself, together with its duration, is

chiefly dependent upon the previous degree of muscular exhaustion.

Brown-Séquard has demonstrated that the greater the degree of muscular

irritability at the time of death, the later the cadaveric rigidity

sets in and the longer it lasts. He has also shown that the later

putrefaction sets in, the more slowly it progresses.

The more robust the individual and the shorter the disease, the more

marked and persistent is this muscular rigidity. It has been noticed

that the bodies of soldiers killed in the beginning of an engagement

become rigid slowly, and those killed late quickly. This explains the

reason why bodies are sometimes found on the battle-field in a kneeling

or sitting posture with weapons in hand.

If the rigidity of rigor mortis after it is once complete is overcome,

as in bending an arm, it never returns; but if incomplete it may

return. This will serve at times to distinguish real death from

catalepsy and its allied conditions. While the _average_ duration of

rigor mortis has been given as sixteen to twenty-four hours, it must

be remembered that in some cases it has been known to last only a few

hours, as in death by lightning or by electrocution. In other cases it

has persisted for seven and fourteen days.

This long continuance of rigor mortis has been noted in death from

strychnine and other spinal poisons, in suffocation, and in poisoning

by veratrum viride.

Atmospheric conditions modify to a large extent the duration of rigor

mortis. Dry, cold air causes it to last for a long time, while warm,

moist air shortens its duration. Also immersion in cold water brings on

rigor mortis quickly and lengthens its duration.

CADAVERIC ECCHYMOSIS—CADAVERIC LIVIDITY OR HYPOSTASIS.

Within a few hours after death the skin of the body, which is of a

pale, ashy-gray color, becomes covered by extensive patches of a bluish

or purple color, which are most pronounced and are first seen on the

back part of the trunk, head extremities, ears, face, and neck, and are

due to the blood, before coagulating, settling in the most dependent

parts of the body, producing a mottling of the surface with irregular

livid patches. There is also a stagnation of blood in the capillary

vessels, especially in those in the upper layer of the true skin or in

the space between the cuticle and cutis. The discoloration continues to

increase until the body is cold, when it is entirely arrested. Later

on, just before putrefaction begins, the color deepens, and the change

appears to proceed from an infiltration of blood pigment into the

dependent parts of the body.

At the same time the discolorations are appearing on the surface of the

body, _internal hypostasis_ is also taking place, most marked in the

dependent portions of the brain, lungs, intestines, kidneys, and spinal

cord.

This condition in the brain may be mistaken for so-called congestive

apoplexy; in the lungs, for pulmonary apoplexy or the first stage

of lobar pneumonia; in the intestines and spinal meninges, for the

beginning of inflammatory changes.

The position of these hypostases will afford the best correction for

this possible error. The appearances presented by cadaveric ecchymoses

have often been mistaken for the effects of violence applied during

life. Innocent persons have been accused and tried for murder or

manslaughter on charges afterward proved to be groundless. Therefore it

is of the utmost importance that the medical jurist should be able to

distinguish between ante-mortem and post-mortem ecchymoses.

The following are the points of difference:

1. Situation. Post-mortem ecchymoses are seen on that portion of the

body which has been most dependent, generally the posterior aspect,

and they involve principally the superficial layers of the true skin;

ante-mortem ecchymoses may occur anywhere, and generally the deeper

tissues are discolored.

2. In cadaveric lividity there is no elevation of the skin and the

discoloration terminates abruptly.

3. After cutting into the tissues where an ecchymosis has been produced

by violence, the blood without the vessels is free in the tissue; this

is not so in cadaveric ecchymosis.

4. Post-mortem ecchymoses are very extensive, ante-mortem generally

limited in area.

A peculiar appearance of cadaveric lividity is observed in bodies

which have been wrapped in a sheet and allowed to cool or that have

cooled in their clothing. It occurs in the form of bands or stripes

over the whole surface, and often gives an appearance as of a person

flogged. The explanation of this appearance is that the congestion of

the vessels takes place in the interstices of the folds, while the

parts compressed remain whole. The unbroken condition of the cuticle,

together with the other characteristics just mentioned, are sufficient

to distinguish these ecchymoses from those produced by violence. While

cadaveric lividity is seen in all bodies after death, it is especially

pronounced in those persons who have died suddenly in full health or

by violence, as from apoplexy, hanging, drowning, or suffocation. It

is very slight in the bodies of those who have died from hemorrhage or

anæmia.

The time at which cadaveric lividity appears varies greatly. Casper,

who has investigated the subject thoroughly, sets the time at from

twelve to fifteen hours after death.

PUTREFACTION.

At a period varying from a few hours to three days after death, certain

changes are seen in the human body which show that putrefaction has

commenced. A change of color appears first upon the middle of the

abdomen and gradually spreads over the rest of the body; it is first

pale green, which gradually deepens, and finally becomes purplish or

brown. This change in color is due to the action on the hæmoglobin of

the gases developed by decomposition. Similar discoloration makes its

appearance on the chest, between the ribs, on the face, the neck, the

legs, and lastly on the arms, where it is more marked along the large

venous trunks, and has sometimes been mistaken for marks of violence.

The eyeballs become flaccid, and if exposed to the air the conjunctiva

and cornea become dry and brown. Gases are formed, not only in the

hollow organs of the abdomen but also in the skin. Those developed in

the cavities of the head and face force frothy, reddish fluid or mucus

from the mouth and nostrils, and may cause swelling of the features and

protrusion of the eyes and tongue. It must be remembered that the gases

while producing distention of the abdomen may also cause changes in the

position of the blood and slight displacement of the organs; they may

also force undigested food into the mouth and into the larynx, and so

lead to suspicion of death from suffocation.

As putrefaction advances, after a period of five or six days the entire

surface of the body becomes green or brown, the cuticle becomes loose

and easily detached; the tissues flaccid and often bathed in a reddish

serum in such situations as the neck, the groin, and the back part of

the scalp. The thorax and abdomen become enormously distended, the

features distorted and scarcely recognizable, and the hair and nails

loosened. Beyond this, it is impossible to follow the changes leading

to disintegration with any degree of certainty. The changes which I

have just described as produced by putrefaction are the _ordinary_

ones seen in a body exposed to the air at a moderate temperature, but

it must be remembered that the time and rapidity of the development of

these changes may be influenced by a large number of factors, and that

they are of very little importance in estimating the time of death. I

have seen bodies buried two months that have shown fewer of the changes

produced by putrefaction than others dead but a week.

The appearance of a body buried in a coffin will be as follows after a

period varying from a few months to one or two years. The soft tissues

will have become dry and brown and the face and limbs covered with a

soft white fungus. Hard white crystalline deposits of calcium phosphate

will be found on the surface of the soft organs, and when found on

the surface of the stomach care should be taken not to confound them

with the effects of poison. In time the viscera become so mixed

together that it is difficult to distinguish them. For the most part

the changes that take place in a body buried in a coffin are similar,

but much slower, to those that occur if the body is exposed to the air

or buried in soil. Even under apparently identical circumstances the

most varied results have been observed, so it is not possible for a

medical jurist to fix a definite period of death or the time of burial

from the appearance of an exhumed body. For example, Taylor records a

case where after thirty-four years’ interment an entire and perfect

skeleton was discovered, surrounded by traces of shroud and coffin,

while in an adjoining grave all that remained of a body that had been

dead twenty-five years were the long bones and base of the skull, In

one case a body was found well preserved after six years’ burial and in

another after even thirty years’ interment.

This brings us next to a consideration of those factors that favor or

retard decomposition.

CIRCUMSTANCES FAVORING PUTREFACTION.

1. =Temperature.=—Putrefaction advances most rapidly at a temperature

between 70° and 100° F. It may commence at any temperature above 50°

F., but it is wholly arrested at 32° F. So one day’s exposure of a

body in summer may effect greater changes than one week in winter.

After freezing, putrefaction takes place with unusual rapidity upon

the thawing out of the body. A temperature of 212° F. stops all

putrefactive changes.

2. =Moisture.=—Putrefaction takes place only in the presence of

moisture. An excess of moisture, however, seems to retard the process,

possibly by cutting off the excess of air. The viscera according to

the amount of water they contain decompose at different times after

death—for instance, the brain and eye rapidly, the bones and hair

slowly.

3. =Air.=—Exposure to air favors decomposition by carrying to the body

the micro-organisms which bring about putrefaction; absence of air soon

arrests the changes: this is seen in bodies hermetically sealed in

lead coffins, which remain unchanged for a long period of time. Moist

rather than dry air favors putrefaction by lessening evaporation. Air

in motion retards while still air favors the change.

It is to be remembered that a body decomposes more rapidly in air than

in water or after burial. Given similar temperatures, the amount of

putrefaction observed in a body dead one week and exposed to the air

will about correspond to one submerged in water for two weeks or buried

in a deep grave for eight weeks.

4. =Age.=—The bodies of children decompose much more rapidly than

those of adults; fœtuses still more rapidly. Aged bodies decompose

slowly, probably on account of a deficiency of moisture. Fat and flabby

bodies decompose quickly for the same reason.

5. =Cause of Death.=—In cases of sudden death, as from accident or

violence, the body decomposes more rapidly than when death results

from disease. Putrefaction sets in early in death from the infectious

fevers, such as typhus, pyæmia, and typhoid fever, also in death from

suffocation by smoke or coal gas, by strangulation or after narcotic

poisoning. Those parts of a body which are the seat of bruises,

wounds, or fractures, decompose rapidly; this is especially seen in

parts after a surgical operation.

6. =Manner of Burial.=—When a body is buried in low ground in a damp,

swampy, clay soil, decomposition advances rapidly, as also when the

grave is shallow so the body can be exposed to constant variations of

temperature. A porous soil impregnated with animal and vegetable matter

favors putrefaction, as also burying a body without clothes or coffin;

this is especially seen where infants have been thrown into the ground

and loosely covered with earth.

CIRCUMSTANCES RETARDING PUTREFACTION.

1. =The Temperature.=—Below 32° F. and above 212° F. putrefaction is

entirely arrested. The rapidity of the change considerably lessens as

the temperature advances above 100° F. A remarkable instance of the

preservative power of cold is given by Adolph Erman, who states that

the body of Prince Menschikoff, a favorite of Peter the Great, exhumed

after ninety-two years’ burial in frozen soil, had undergone hardly any

change. Buried in hot sand as is seen in the desert, a body putrefies

very slowly and generally becomes mummified.

2. =Moisture.=—Absence of moisture retards decomposition. In the dry

air of the desert bodies have been preserved for a long period of time.

3. =Air.=—If access of air to a body be prevented in any way by its

inclosure in a coffin, by closely fitting clothes, or by complete

immersion in water, putrefaction is retarded.

4. =Age.=—Adults and old people decompose more slowly than children.

Males are said to change less rapidly than females, lean people than

fleshy ones.

5. =Cause of Death.=—Putrefaction is delayed after death from chronic

diseases unless they are associated with dropsy. Poisoning by alcohol,

chloroform, strychnine, and arsenic retard putrefaction. In the latter

case the putrefactive changes seem to stop after they have once

commenced, and often a result very similar to mummification is seen.

Death from the mineral acids, especially sulphuric, appears to delay

putrefaction.

6. =Manner of Burial.=—Putrefaction is retarded by burial a short

time after death; by interment on high ground, in dry, sandy, or

gravelly soil; by having the grave deep, over six feet in depth if

possible by the body being well wrapped and secured in a tight coffin,

a lead one being the best in this respect. Lime or charcoal applied

freely about a body will retard decomposition, as will also injection

of the body through the arteries with such substances as arsenic,

chloride of zinc, or antimony. The ultimate effect of putrefaction

is to reduce all bodies to inorganic compounds, chiefly water,

ammonia, and carbon dioxide. Three conditions are necessary for its

establishment, (1) a given temperature, (2) moisture, (3) free access

of air.

The order in which the various organs and tissues undergo

decomposition, as given by Casper, who has investigated the subject

carefully, is as follows: Trachea and larynx, brain of infants, stomach

and intestines, spleen, omentum and mesentery, liver, brain of adults,

heart and lungs, kidney, bladder and œsophagus, pancreas, large

vessels, and last of all the uterus.

As the result of putrefaction, fluids, generally blood-stained, collect

in the serous cavities of the body, and should not be confounded

with serous effusions occurring during life. So also the softening

of the organs and tissue resulting from decomposition should be

carefully distinguished from those resulting from inflammation. These

cadaveric softenings are most frequently found in the brain, spleen,

and gastro-intestinal mucous membrane. Inflammatory softenings are

differentiated by being rarely general but almost always limited, by

the substance of the inflamed part being infiltrated with serum or

pus and showing traces of vascular injection. In doubtful cases the

pathologist should have recourse to the microscope.

As the result of putrefaction, various changes take place in the mucous

membrane of the stomach and intestines which simulate the effects

of poisons. The color of the stomach varies from red, which becomes

brighter on exposure to the air, to a brown, slate, or livid purple. We

can only presume that these color-changes are the result of irritant

poisons when they are found in non-dependent parts and parts not in

contact with organs engorged with blood, when they are seen soon after

death, and when the membrane is covered with coagulated blood, mucus,

or flakes of membrane.

EFFECTS ON PUTREFACTION OF SUBMERSION IN WATER.

There are certain modifications of the putrefactive changes when bodies

have been submerged in water. In the first place, the changes are much

less rapid; they often do not show themselves until about the twelfth

day, and then as discolorations appearing generally first about the

ears and temples, then on the face, from which they spread to the neck,

shoulders, chest, abdomen, and finally to the legs. This is almost the

inverse order of the putrefactive changes in bodies exposed to the air.

As a result of the formation of gases, the body in a short time becomes

buoyant; after floating on the surface of the water for a time, the

gases escape and the body sinks, rising a second time when fresh gas

has formed.

The rapidity of decomposition in water varies, being most rapid when

the temperature is from 64° to 68° F. Stagnant as well as shallow water

favors putrefaction. If a body becomes coated with mud the change is

delayed. Submersion in a cesspool also retards it, and the conditions

are such as to favor the formation of adipocere.

After a body has been removed from the water an exposure of a very few

hours to the air causes rapid decomposition, so that in twenty-four

hours more marked changes may occur than would have resulted from a

fortnight’s longer submersion. The face soon becomes bloated and black,

so that identification is well-nigh impossible. It is quite important

in medico-legal cases to estimate the time which has elapsed since

death in bodies found submersed in water. The following are the various

changes ordinarily seen at different periods of time, as estimated by

Devergie, who has especially investigated the subject:

=First Four or Five Days.=—Little change: rigor mortis may persist,

particularly if the water is cold.

=Fourth or Fifth Day.=—Skin of the ball of the thumb and little

finger, also the lateral surface of the fingers, begins to whiten. This

whitening gradually extends to the palms of the hands and soles of the

feet. The skin of the face will appear softened and of a more faded

white than the rest of the body.

=Fifteenth Day.=—Face slightly swollen and red; a greenish spot

begins to form on the neck and skin of the mid-sternum. The skin of the

hands and feet is quite white and wrinkled. The subcutaneous cellular

tissue of the thorax is reddish and the upper part of the cortical

substance of the brain of a greenish tint.

=At One Month.=—The face is reddish-brown, the eyelids and lips green

and swollen, and the neck slightly green. A greenish discoloration is

also seen over the upper and middle part of the sternum. The skin is

wrinkled. The hair and nails still remain intact. The scrotum and penis

are distended by gas. The lungs become very emphysematous and overlap

the heart.

SAPONIFICATION.

When the bodies were removed from the Cimetière des Innocents in Paris,

in 1786, Fourcray observed that many of them had been converted into

a substance which he termed ADIPOCERE. He gave it this name because

it resembles both fat (_adeps_) and wax (_cera_). Under certain

circumstances which will be considered later, it is known to be a

late product of the putrefactive processes. Adipocere is a substance

of a cheese-like consistency, yellow or yellowish-brown in color,

and composed chiefly of a mixture of the fatty acids. Chevreul has

shown by analysis that it is a true ammoniacal soap, but that when

formed in water impregnated with lime a calcareous may be substituted

for an ammoniacal base. This may take place either in a body exposed

to river-water or buried in a grave wet by water containing calcium

carbonate or sulphate. Saponification can only take place when animal

fat is in contact with nitrogenous matter. Neither fat nor fibrin when

kept separate will saponify. Skin deprived of all its fat will not be

transformed into adipocere.

Saponification commences in the fat of the female breast, of the cheeks

and other parts of the body where large accumulations of fat are found,

such as around the kidneys and in the omentum. As fat is distributed

extensively throughout the body, nearly all parts may undergo this

transformation. Taylor gives the following conditions as favorable to

the change:

1. Bodies of young persons, because the fat is abundant and chiefly

external.

2. Bodies of corpulent adults.

3. Exposure of bodies to the soil of water-closets.

4. The immersion of bodies in water, the change taking place more

rapidly in running than in stagnant water.

5. Humid soil, especially when bodies are placed in it one upon the

other. In this case the lowest of them is first changed.

When a body has been completely saponified it may remain in this state

for years. In one instance, after seventeen years’ burial many of the

organs could still be recognized.

The time required for saponification to take place is sometimes of

medico-legal importance. Three years are _usually_ necessary for bodies

buried in the earth. The change occurs more rapidly in water. Cases are

recorded where the body of a new-born child was completely saponified

in six weeks, and again, the change had commenced in a body which had

been in the water about four months; but these are unusual cases.

DATA UPON WHICH OPINION AS TO TIME OF DEATH IS FORMED.

The changes which take place in a body before putrefaction sets in may

enable a medical jurist to form an opinion as to the probable time

which has elapsed since death; yet it must be remembered, to pronounce

the time which has elapsed can only be done approximately, for very

many conditions will have to be considered, which will vary in each

individual case. The importance of considering the minutest detail is

well illustrated by the death of Prince de Condé, Duke of Bourbon,

who was found dead in his bedroom in the chateau of St. Cyr. When

discovered at 8 o’clock in the morning, the deceased was found partly

undressed, hanging by his cravat to one of the window shutters. The

body was cold and the lower extremities rigid. As in asphyxia from

hanging the warmth of the body is usually preserved longer than under

common circumstances, viz., from twelve to fifteen hours, before which

period rigidity is seldom complete, the medical examiner inferred that

the deceased must have died very soon after he retired to his bedroom

on the previous night. As this was proven to have been 10 P.M., it

followed that only ten hours had elapsed—a short time for cooling and

rigidity to have taken place. It was thus rendered probable that the

hanging took place soon after deceased reached his bedroom. It was

alleged that the duke had been murdered, and that his body had been

afterward suspended to create a suspicion of suicide. The condition of

the body was, among other things, adverse to this opinion. From 10 to

12 o’clock it was proved there were numerous attendants moving about

near the duke’s apartments. They would have heard any unusual noise the

duke must have made in resisting his assailant. But no noise was heard

in the room at that or any other time, and the presumption of this

being a homicide was thus strongly rebutted.

=Cadaveric rigidity=, while often it will aid to, is not a reliable

guide. When once it is established it may remain two, three, or four

days, according to the season of the year and other circumstances, and

when it exists there is no rule by which it can be determined whether a

body has been in this state three hours or three days.

=Putrefaction=, while appearing on an average, under a mean

temperature, in from three to six days, is yet influenced by many

circumstances. The heat and moisture of the surroundings, the age, sex,

amount of flesh on the body, mode of death, position and coverings of

body, all must be considered.

=The temperature= of the body aids us, yet the retention of warmth by

the abdominal viscera may be met with in a marked degree twenty hours

after death; in one case, personally known to me, the thermometer

registered 76° F. seventeen hours after death.

The temperature of the body, its rigidity, and the evidences of

putrefaction all furnish data from which we can estimate the _probable_

time which has elapsed since death. It must be remembered that no one

of them furnishes any positive proof.

Some medical jurists have attempted to give a more definite character

to these changes in the recently dead body by dividing the interval

between the stopping of the heart’s action and the beginning of

putrefaction into three periods. In the first, the warmth, pliability,

and muscular irritability remain. In the second, these conditions are

lost and the body is cold and rigid. In the third, the body is cold

and pliant, the muscles are relaxed, and the joints are flexible, the

cadaveric rigidity having entirely ceased.

There can be no doubt about the existence of these stages, but when we

come to define the precise time at which one begins and the other ends,

we find it impossible. For example, the first stage embraces a period

which cannot be more closely defined than by stating that the person

may have been dead from a few minutes to twenty hours—a statement too

vague to be upheld by a counsel who defends a prisoner.

The changes which take place in these periods and the average time they

last have been given as follows by Devergie:

FIRST PERIOD, _Few Minutes to Twenty Hours_.—Characterized by warmth

of the body and general or partial relaxation of the voluntary muscles.

To what portion of this period the special case belongs must be

estimated according to the degree of heat in the trunk and extremities

and the degree of rigidity in the muscles, the neck and the jaws

commonly showing this condition first, the legs last. Warmth of the

body rarely remains as long as twenty hours; in general it is sensibly

cold in from ten to twelve hours. During this period the muscles are

susceptible of contraction under the galvanic current, and in the early

stage under the stimulus of blows.

SECOND PERIOD, _Ten Hours to Three Days_.—The body is perfectly cold

throughout and rigidity is well marked. The muscles no longer respond

to stimuli. The duration of this period seems long, yet in one instance

the body will be found cold and rigid nine hours after death. Again,

cooling and rigidity may not come on for three or four days.

THIRD PERIOD, _Three to Eight Days_.—The body is perfectly cold. The

limbs and trunk pliant and free from cadaveric rigidity. The muscles

are not capable of contracting. In summer this period is much shorter;

often it will come on before three days.