"An inquest was held on the body of a man who had been murdered on
the high road, and at first it was thought that the murder had
been committed by robbers, but on examination the corpse was found
to be fully clothed and bearing the marks of some ten or more
wounds from a sickle. The coroner pointed out that robbers kill
their victims for the sake of booty, which evidently was not the
case in the present instance, and declared revenge to be at the
bottom of it all. He then sent for the wife of the murdered man,
and asked her if her husband had lately quarrelled with anybody.
She replied No, but stated that there had been some high words
between her husband and another man to whom he had refused to lend
money. The coroner at once despatched his runners to the place
where this man lived, to bid the people of that village produce
all their sickles without delay, at the same time informing them
that the concealment of a sickle would be tantamount to a
confession of guilt. The sickles were accordingly produced, in
number about eighty, and spread out upon the ground. The season
being summer there were a great quantity of flies, all of which
were attracted by one particular sickle. The coroner asked to whom
this sickle belonged, and lo! it belonged to him with whom the
murdered man had quarrelled about a loan. On being arrested, he
denied his guilt; but the coroner pointed to the flies settling
upon the sickle, attracted by the smell of blood, and the murderer
bent his head in silent acknowledgment of his crime."
Inquests are often held in China many years after the death of the
victim. Give a Chinese coroner merely the dry and imperfect skeleton
of a man known to have been murdered, and he will generally succeed in
fixing the guilt on some one. To supplement thus by full and open
confession of the accused is a matter of secondary difficulty in a
country where torture may at any moment be brought to bear with
terrible efficacy in the cause of justice and truth. Its application,
however, is extremely rare.
"Man has three hundred and sixty-five bones, corresponding to the
number of days it takes the heavens to revolve. The skull of a
man, from the nape of the neck to the top of the head, consists of
eight pieces--that of a Ts'ai-chow man, of nine; women's skulls
are of six pieces. Men have twelve ribs on either side; women have
fourteen."
The above being sufficient to show where the Chinese are with regard
to the structure of the human frame, we will now proceed to the
directions for examining bones, it may be months or even years after
death.
"For the examination of bones the day should be clear and bright.
First take clean water and wash them, and then with string tie
them together in proper order so that a perfect skeleton is
formed, and lay this on a mat. Then make a hole in the ground,
five feet long, three feet broad, and two feet deep. Throw into
this plenty of firewood and charcoal, and keep it burning till the
ground is thoroughly hot. Clear out the fire and pour in two pints
of good spirit and five pounds of strong vinegar. Lay the bones
quickly in the steaming pit and cover well up with rushes, &c. Let
them remain there for two or three hours until the ground is cold,
when the coverings may be removed, the bones taken to a convenient
spot, and examined under a red oil-cloth umbrella.
"If the day is dark or rainy the 'boiling' method must be adopted.
Take a large jar and heat in it a quantity of vinegar; then having
put in plenty of salt and white prunes, boil it altogether with
the bones, superintending the process yourself. When it is boiling
fast, take out the bones, wash them in water, and hold up to the
light. The wounds will be perfectly visible, the blood having
soaked into the wounded parts, marking them with red or dark blue
or black.
"The above method is, however, not the only one. Take a new yellow
oil-cloth umbrella from Hangchow, hold it over the bones, and
every particle of wound hidden in the bones will be clearly
visible. In cases where the bones are old and the wounds have been
obliterated by long exposure to wind and rain or dulled by
frequent boilings, it only remains to examine them in the sun
under a yellow umbrella, which will show the wounds as far as
possible.
"There must be no zinc boiled with the bones or they will become
dull.
"Bones which have passed several times through the process of
examination become quite white and exactly like uninjured bones;
in which case, take such as should show wounds and fill them with
oil. Wait till the oil is oozing out all over, then wipe it off
and hold the bone up to the light; where there are wounds the oil
will collect and not pass; the clear parts have not been injured.
"Another method is to rub some good ink thick and spread it on the
bone. Let it dry, and then wash it off. Where there are wounds,
and there only, it will sink into the bone. Or take some new
cotton wool and pass it over the bone. Wherever there is a wound
some will be pulled out [by the jagged parts of the bone]."
A whole chapter is devoted to counterfeit wounds, the means of
distinguishing them from real wounds, and the manner in which they are
produced. Section 2 of the thirteenth chapter is on a cognate subject,
namely, to ascertain whether wounds were inflicted before or after
death:--
"If there are several dark-coloured marks on the body, take some
water and let it fall drop by drop on to them. If they are wounds
the water will remain without trickling away; if they are not
wounds, the water will run off. In examining wounds, the finger
must be used to press down any livid or red spot. If it is a wound
it will be hard, and on raising the finger will be found of the
same colour as before.
"Wounds inflicted on the bone leave a red mark and a slight
appearance of saturation, and where the bone is broken there will
be at either end a halo-like trace of blood. Take a bone on which
there are marks of a wound and hold it up to the light; if these
are of a fresh-looking red, the wound was afflicted before death
and penetrated to the bone; but if there is no trace of saturation
from blood, although there is a wound, if was inflicted after
death."
In a chapter on wounds from kicks, the following curious instructions
are given regarding a "bone-method" of examination:--
"To depend on the evidence of the bone immediately below the wound
would be to let many criminals slip through the meshes of the law.
Where wounds have been thus inflicted, no matter on man or woman,
the wounds will be visible on the upper half of the body, and not
on the lower. For instance, they will appear in a male at the
roots of either the top or bottom teeth, inside; on the right hand
if the wound was on the left, and _vice versa_; in the middle of
the wound was central. In women, the wounds will appear on the
gums right or left as above."
The next extract needs no comment, except perhaps that it forms the
most cherished of all beliefs in the whole range of Chinese medical
jurisprudence:--
"The bones of parents may be identified by their children in the
following manner. Let the experimenter cut himself or herself with
a knife and cause the blood to drip on to the bones; then, if the
relationship is an actual fact the blood will sink into the bone,
otherwise it will not. N.B. Should the bones have been washed with
salt water, even though the relationship exists, yet the blood
will not soak in. This is a trick to be guarded against
beforehand.
"It is also said that if parent and child, or husband and wife,
each cut themselves and let the blood drip into a basin of water
the two bloods will mix, whereas that of two people not thus
related will not mix.
"Where two brothers who may have been separated since childhood
are desirous of establishing their identity as such, but are
unable to do so by ordinary means, bid each one cut himself and
let the blood drip into a basin. If they are really brothers, the
two bloods will congeal into one; otherwise not. But because fresh
blood will always congeal with the aid of a little salt or
vinegar, people often smear the basin over with these to attain
their own ends and deceive others; therefore, always wash out the
basin you are going to use or buy a new one from a shop. Thus the
trick will be defeated.
"The above method of dropping blood on the bones may be used even
by a grandchild, desirous of identifying the remains of his
grandfather; but husband and wife, not being of the same flesh and
blood, it is absurd to suppose that the blood of one would soak
into the bones of the other. For such a principle would apply with
still more force to the case of a child, who had been suckled by a
foster-mother and had grown up, indebted to her for half its
existence. With regard to the water method, if the basin used is
large and full of water, the bloods will be unable to mix from
being so much diluted; and in the latter case where there is no
water, if the interval between dropping the two bloods into the
basin is too long, the first will get cold and they will not mix."
Not content with holding an inquest on the bones of a man who may have
been murdered five years before, a Chinese coroner quite as often
proceeds gravely to examine the wounds of a corpse which has been
reduced to ashes by fire and scattered to the four winds of heaven. No
mere eyewitness would dare to relate the singular process by which
such a result is achieved; but directions exist in black and white, of
which the following is a close translation:--
"There are some atrocious villains who, when they have murdered
any one, burn the body and throw the ashes away, so that there are
no bones to examine. In such cases you must carefully find out at
what time the murder was committed and where the body was burnt.
Then, when you know the place, all witnesses agreeing on this
point, you may proceed without further delay to examine the
wounds. The mode of procedure is this. Put up your shed near where
the body was burnt, and make the accused and witnesses point out
themselves the very spot. Then cut down the grass and weeds
growing on this spot, and burn large quantities of fuel till the
place is extremely hot, throwing on several pecks of hempseed. By
and by brush the place clean, and then, if the body was actually
burnt in this spot, the oil from the seed will be found to have
sunk into the ground in the form of a human figure, and wherever
there were wounds on the dead man, there on this figure the oil
will be found to have collected together, large or small, square,
round, long, short, oblique, or straight, exactly as they were
inflicted. The parts where there were no wounds will be free from
any such appearances. But supposing you obtain the outline only
without the necessary detail of the wounds, then scrape away the
masses of oil, light a brisk fire on the form of the body and
throw on grains mixed with water. Make the fire burn as fiercely
as possible, and sprinkle vinegar, instantly covering it over with
a new well-varnished table. Leave the table on for a little while
and then take it off for examination. The form of the body will be
transferred to the table and the wounds will be distinct and clear
in every particular.
"If the place is wild and some time has elapsed since the deed was
done, so that the very murderer does not remember the exact spot,
inquire carefully in what direction it was with regard to such and
such a village or temple, and about how far off. If all agree on
this point, proceed in person to the place, and bid your
assistants go round about searching for any spots where the grass
is taller and stronger than usual, marking such with a mark. For
where a body has been burnt the grass will be darker in hue, more
luxuriant, and taller than that surrounding it, and will not lose
these characteristics for a long time, the fat and grease of the
body sinking down to the roots of the grass and causing the above
results. If the spot is on a hill, or in a wild place where the
vegetation is very luxuriant, then you must look for a growth
about the height of a man. If the burning took place on stony
ground, the crumbly appearance of the stones must be your guide;
this simplifies matters immensely."
Such, then, are a few of the absurdities which pass muster among the
credulous people of China as the result of deep scientific research;
but whether the educated classes--more especially those individuals
who devote themselves in the course of their official duties to the
theory and practice of _post mortem_ examinations--can be equally
gulled with the gaping crowd around them, we may safely leave our
readers to decide for themselves.