Footnotes

1. “But there is a particular kind of manslaughter proper to be considered here, from which the benefit of the clergy is taken away byJa.1,c.8.” “Where any person shall stab or thrust any person or persons that hath not then first striken the party which shall so stab or thrust, so as the person or persons so stabbed or thrust, shall thereof die within the space of six months then next following, although it cannot be proved that the same was done of malice forethought.” See 1Hawk. P. C.This statute was passed in consequence of the numerous murders committed by the Scots, who with their dirks stabbed before an ordinary weapon could be drawn.For an extraordinary case on this statute, and much learning on the subject, see the trial ofWilliam Chetwyndfor the murder ofThomas Rickets. 18How St. Tri. p.290.

For an extraordinary case on this statute, and much learning on the subject, see the trial ofWilliam Chetwyndfor the murder ofThomas Rickets. 18How St. Tri. p.290.

2. Od. Lib. v. lin. 757.

3. Tractat. de Peste Lib. iv. Hist. 85.

4. In returning, the ship was cast away on the island of Zante, when this unfortunate philosopher perished from hunger.

5.Bruhier, John, a physician at Paris, in the middle of the seventeenth century; he was author of many works, but his principal celebrity rested on his warnings against burying persons, supposed to be dead, too early. “Dissertation sur l’Incertitude des signes de la Mort et l’abus des enterremens, et embaumemens precipites.” Paris, 1742. He was at the pains of collecting histories of persons who had revived after being supposed to be dead, some of whom had been buried. Bodies ought not to be interred, he says, until putrefaction has commenced. “Memoire sur la necessité d’un Reglement general au sujet des enterremens.” 1745. No one should be buried until the fourth day from their dying. “Addition aux Memoires,” &c. in which he adds to the number of examples of persons who had been buried alive, or had revived after being interred. These works have passed through numerous editions, and have been translated into several other European languages.

6. Horrible as it may appear, it was a custom in Persia, at the time thatHerodotuswrote, ofburying alive; and this historian was informed thatAmestris, the wife ofXerxes, when she was far advanced in age, commanded fourteen Persian children of illustrious birth to be interred alive, in honour of the Deity whom they supposed to exist under the earth.—Polyhymnia, c. xiv.

7. “A Dissertation on theDisorder of Death, or that state of the frame under the signs of Death, called Suspended Animation,” by the Rev.Walter Whiter, Rector of Hardingham. Norwich, 1819. 8vo.

8.Plin.Nat. Hist. Lib. vii, c. 52; see alsoValer. Maxim.Lib. 1, c. 8. For extraordinary histories of persons roused from the tomb, seeDiemerbroeck, Lib, ii;Joannes Mathæus, Quæst. Med.;HildanusCent. 2. Obs. 95, 96;Phillip SalmuthCent. 2, Obs. 86, 87, 95.Maximilian Missonrelates in his voyages many curious cases of this kind. “NouveauVoyage d’Italie.” But the works ofBruhier, before mentioned, contain the greatest collection of such anecdotes.

9. Thus in the Greek, the most philosophically constructed language with which we are acquainted, thealphaandomega, the first and last acts of life, are conveyed in the verb αωspirocompounded of those letters. In Latin we also findspiroandspiritus.

10. Lettres sur la certitude des signes de la mort.

11. Recherches Physiologiques sur la Vie et la Mort.

12. Phil. Trans. 1811.

13. Phil. Trans. 1667, vol. ii, p. 539.

14.Hunteron the Blood, p. 54.

15. Medical Reports, p. 75.

16. Zoonomia, vol. 1, p. 40.

17. An Essay on Respiration byJ. Bostock, M. D.

18. A question has arisen, saysMr. Brodie, (Manuscript Notes) whether the whole of the brain is essential to the function of respiration, or whether the power of calling the respiratory muscles into action may not reside in some particular part of that organ? It has been stated byLe Galloisthat if you expose the cavity of the cranium, and remove the upper part of the brain, the muscles of respiration continue to act as usual; if, however, the dissection be continued, as soon as that portion of theMedulla Oblongatais removed which corresponds to theCorpora Olivaria, their action is immediately suspended. The theory which such an experiment naturally establishes has received no inconsiderable support from the history of a fœtus, published byMr. Lawrencein the Medico Chirurgical Transactions: in this monster theCerebrumandCerebellumwere entirely absent, but theMedulla Spinaliswas continued for about an inch above theForamen Magnumof the occiput, so as to form an imperfectMedulla Oblongata, and to give origin to several nerves. Death did not take place immediately after birth, as in other instances of cerebral deficiency, but the child breathed for four days after it had been expelled from the uterus.

19.Lower, as early as the year 1667, shewed that if the nerves which go to the diaphragm in a dog be divided, he breathes “like a broken-winded horse.”Phil. Trans.vol. ii, p. 544.

20. While this work was in progress we have read an account of a person who, being in a state of debility, died suddenly from the shock of a shower bath at Brighton. In this case Syncope was probably occasioned in the same manner as by a blow on the head.

21.Trance.Although this term is extremely familiar, it does not appear that any precise meaning is attached to it; the popular notion is that the body may for a time be abandoned by the soul, and remain for a certain period in a deep sleep, during which the exercise of the vital functions is so obscure, that the individual is reduced to a state of close simulation of death.

22. A great question has arisen upon this subject, whether rupture of the heart ever takes place in the sound state of that organ? And it has been answered by several pathologists in the affirmative. Fischer’s case from theJournal der Practischen Heilkunde, may be seen in theMedical Repository, Vol. 11, p. 427, and Vol. 12, p. 164.Harveyfound in a male subject a rupture in the aortic ventricle, capable of admitting a finger, and remarked that the parietes of the cavity possessed their natural strength and thickness (Exercitat III. De Circulo Sanguinis, T. p. 1. 281.)Bohnalso gives a case of a man who had died suddenly, when a fissure was discovered in theOstium Aortæ.Portalhas informed us, that in a rupture of the basis of the heart, which he examined, the structure of the organ was as firm and compact as in the natural state, and that in another case the parietes of the heart displayed their natural solidity. (Memoires de l’Academie des Sciences, a Paris, 1784, p. 51.)Soemeringconsiders it as having been very correctly remarked by Portal, that the Aortic ventricle commonly bursts without any previous weakening of the substance of the heart. (See Soemering’s German Translation of Baillie’s Morbid Anatomy, with Additions.)Dr. Whytthas likewise seen the heart burst from protracted grief, and therefore does not regard the term, “BROKEN HEART,” in the light of a mere metaphor. On the contrary,Boerhaavehas recorded two cases, and believes that the rupture was occasioned by the morbid accumulation of fat;Kreysigsuspects that in most of these cases of ruptured heart an insidious inflammation had been established, and he considers that the quantity of adipose substance in which ruptured hearts are so commonly found enveloped, furnishes an evidence of this inflammatory state (Sopra i Malattée del cuore.) We are decidedly of opinion that such ruptures take place in consequence of a morbid state of the heart capable of diminishing the cohesive power of its fibres. See a Treatise on the Diseases of the Chest byR. T. H. Laennec, M. D.translated byJ. Forbes, M. D.London, 1821.

23. Recueil Periodique de la Societé de Medicine de Paris. T. LXI. p. 87

24. Medico-Chirurg. Trans. vol. 1, p. 157. Analogous cases to those related byMr. Chevalierwill be found inBonetusSepulchr. Anat. vol. 1, p. 383; andMorgagniEpist. 48, Art. 44; see also a communication byDr. Ozanamin the Recueil Periodique de la Societé de Medicine de Paris, tom. 61, p. 87.

25. A young animal may not so soon perish as an older one; and a strong and healthy individual may survive during a longer period than a creature that is in a state of debility. By filling the lungs with air a person may also be enabled to dispense with the act of respiration for a longer period;Mr. Kitemade a very deep inspiration of 300 cubic inches, and was thus enabled to retain this quantity for 72 seconds, without a fresh inspiration; and divers in the pearl fisheries, inspire deeply before they descend. It has been, moreover, established by numerous experiments that the demand for oxygen in the lungs is materially influenced by the nature of the ingesta received into the stomach;Mr. Spalding, the celebrated diver, observed, that whenever he used a diet of animal food, or drank spirituous liquors, he consumed in a much shorter time the oxygen of the atmospheric air in his diving-bell; and therefore he had learned from experience to confine himself to a vegetable diet, and water, when following his avocation. And the priest, or conjurer (Pillal Karras, in the Malabar language) who attends the divers in the pearl fisheries of the east, enjoins, as a religious duty, an abstinence from all food, before he plunges into the ocean.Muscular exertions, as in the act of struggling, will without doubt contribute to the expenditure of oxygen, and increase the demand for it, and therefore in its absence such movement must accelerate death by suffocation; this physiological fact will be hereafter more fully elucidated.

Muscular exertions, as in the act of struggling, will without doubt contribute to the expenditure of oxygen, and increase the demand for it, and therefore in its absence such movement must accelerate death by suffocation; this physiological fact will be hereafter more fully elucidated.

26. We anticipate the objections that will be urged against the truth of this assertion. It will be asked how it can be reconciled with the accounts of persons who have recovered after an asphyxia of a much longer duration? It may be inquired how the statement can be reconciled with the ordinary histories of divers, who have become so expert in the art which they profess, as to be capable of remaining beneath the water for twenty minutes, or even for a longer period: we are bound to consider such statements as no better than extravagant fables; not more authentic, saysMr. Brodie(Manuscript Notes), but certainly less poetical and elegant, than those of the nymphs and mermaids, whose ordinary residence is in grottos beneath the waves of the sea; or than those Arabian fictions which have amused and astonished our youthful imaginations with the description of the Princes who govern the submarine nations, and pass their lives in palaces of crystal at the bottom of the ocean—but of this we shall speak more fully hereafter.

27. Although the termAsphyxiamerely signifies the absence of the pulse, yet the name is erroneously applied to every apparent loss of vitality.

28.De Haenthought that death was produced in drowning by the water flowing into the lungs, and thus stopping the passage of the blood in the arteries. This belief gave origin to the very erroneous and mischievous practice, which still continues amongst the more ignorant, of suspending drowned persons by the heels, or of rolling them over barrels.

29.Mr. Colemanexamined the lungs of a cat which had been drowned, by placing a ligature on the trachea, removing the lungs from the thorax, and then making an opening in the trachea under water, so as to collect the air which issued from the orifice; the whole quantity of air thus obtained, amounted only to half a drachm; yet the same lungs when inflated, required as much as two ounces of air, by measure, for their distention. Nor would the presence of water appear to be immediately fatal, when introduced into the lungs; Dr.Goodwynpoured two ounces of water into the lungs of a cat, through an opening made between the cartilages of the trachea; the animal had an immediate difficulty of breathing, and a feeble pulse, but lived several hours afterwards without much apparent inconvenience; it was at length strangled, and the water was found in the lungs. From which it would appear, that the admission of a certain portion of water, does not tend to hasten death. The author of this note was present at an experiment made by Mr.Brodie, in which he drowned a guinea pig, whose trachea had been previously perforated; so that in this case, no spasm of the glottis could arrest the ingress of the water into the pulmonary air cells; but this produced no modification of the usual symptoms; nor did it prevent the resuscitation of the animal, which was afterwards effected by the appropriate methods.

30. An animal also dies sooner by drowning, than by simple strangulation; Mr.Brodieconsiders that the abstraction of heat in the former case is quite sufficient to account for this difference.

31.Foderè, 90.

32.Walther, de Morbis Peritonai, et Apoplexia. 3Foderè, p. 106.

33. See the Reports of the Edinburgh colleges, in the case of SirJames Standsfield, as printed in the Appendix, p. 225, also Extracts from Medical Evidence in the case ofSpencer Cowper, Esq. for the murder ofSarah Stout, ibid. p. 230. 3Foderè, p. 93. 100. 108. The case ofServin, ib. 125. ofPaulet, ib. 126.

34. Medicine Légale, vol. iii. p. 85.

35. During such a state of the body there would be but a feeble call for oxygen; it is muscular action which so rapidly expends this important principle.

36. In an experiment with a drowned cat, Mr.Brodiefound less than a drachm of water in the bronchial vessels. Other physiologists have ascertained the same fact by drowning animals in different coloured fluids.

37. See a very curious paper upon this subject by Mr.Robertson, in the Philosophical Transactions, 1757, vol. 1. p. 30; from which it appears that the author made ten experiments, in which, with the exception of one person, he found all the menspecifically lighterthan water, and hence he concludes that drowning might be avoided, if the person who falls into the water were not deprived of his presence of mind.

38.Franklin’sArt of Swimming.

39. VideValent. Pand. Med. Leg.297. “De reperto sub aqua Cadavere,” and 299 “De Submersorum morte sine pota aquæ.”

40. We say, “generally” because the comparative size of bone, on the one hand, or the quantity of fat on the other, will make a very considerable difference in the specific gravity of different parts of the human body.

41. SeeSouthey’sLife of Nelson; and the New Monthly Magazine for January, 1821.

42. This was the opinion ofBoerhaaveandMorgagni.M. Portalalso coincides with them, and observes that the examination of the bodies of executed criminals formerly carried to him at theJardin des Plantesfor his lectures, has confirmed him in this idea.

43. See 3Foderè, 130.

44. See several cases cited byFoderè, T. 3. p. 134.

45. Memoires de l’Academie Royale, &c. 1704.

46. State Trials, vol. xii.

47. In consequence of plants, in the absence of the sun, giving off nitrogen and carbonic acid gases, the custom of sleeping with flowers in the bed chamber is deleterious, and may even, under certain circumstances prove fatal; a melancholy proof of this occurred in October, 1814, at Leighton-Buzzard, in Bedfordshire. “Mr. Sherbrookhaving frequently had his pinery robbed, the gardener determined to sit up and watch. He accordingly posted himself with a loaded fowling piece, in the green-house, where it is supposed he fell asleep, and in the morning was found dead upon the ground, with all the appearance of suffocation, evidently occasioned by the discharge ofMephiticgas from the plants during the night.”Observerof 16th, andTimesof 17th October, 1814; see alsoCurrie’s“Observations on Apparent Death,” &c. p. 181.

48.RozierandSir Humphrey Davyconclude from their experiments that carbonic acid kills by exciting a spasmodic action, in which the epiglottis is closed, and the entrance of this fluid into the lungs altogether prevented.Dr. Babingtonappears to entertain a different opinion, (see “a case of exposure to the vapour of burning charcoal,” Medico-Chirurg. Trans. vol. 1, p. 83,) and asks how we shall explain the fact, that the loss of irritability in the muscles of animals which have been destroyed by immersion in noxious airs, is comparatively greater than in such as are hanged or drowned, unless we suppose that the carbonic acid exerts a deleterious influence on the nervous and muscular systems? The farther consideration of this subject will be more properly entertained under the head of poisons.

49. Comparative anatomy would furnish us with a variety of beautiful arguments, if it were necessary, to support these views. The bird whose muscular exertion is so great during its flight, is provided with a more than ordinary extent of pulmonary apparatus; and amongst insects we find that many of thecoleopterousspecies disclose avenues of air, in the act of flying, which, in their quiet state, are closed by the cases of their wings, thus procuring for themselves a larger supply of oxygen, at a period when from their exertions they most require it. Flat fish who, having no swimming bladder, remain at the bottom, and possess but little velocity, have gills that are quite concealed, while those who encounter a rude and boisterous stream, as trout, perch, or salmon, have them widely expanded. For further observations upon this subject, the author begs to refer to his paper in the 10th vol. of the Linnean Transactions, entitled “On the Physiology of the Egg,” byJ. A. Paris, M. D.&c.

50. This was thepeine fort & dureof our ancient law, which was inflicted on prisoners who stood mute out of malice, or who feigned themselves mad, or challenged peremptorily more than the number of Jurors allowed by law, thus refusing their legal trial. “The manner of inflicting this punishment may be best found from the Books of Entries and other law books, all of which generally agree, that the prisoner shall be remanded to the place from whence he came, and put into some low dark room, and there laid on his back without any manner of covering, except for the privy parts, and that as many weights be laid upon him as he can bear and more, and that he shall have no manner of sustenance but the worst bread and water, and that he shall not eat the same day in which he drinks, nor drink the same day on which he eats, and that he shall so continue till he die.” Some authorities say till he answers. See 2Hawk. P. C.330.c.30. § 16. 4Bl. Com.p.319.Jac.Law Dict. tit. Mute. The memory of this barbarous punishment remains “as a monument of the savage rapacity with which the lordly tyrants of feudal antiquity hunted after escheats and forfeitures,” for when the criminal died mute, the lord in some cases lost his escheat; (see 4Bl. Com.323). But its execution is no longer permitted by our laws. By Stat. 12Geo.3. c. 20, sentence may be passed on those who stand mute as if they had been found or pleaded guilty.

51. This, however, can but rarely occur; and it seems to have been wisely ordained by Nature, that the stomach should lose the power of rejecting its contents, whenever the brain loses its sensibility. SeeParis’sPharmacologia, edit. 5, vol. 1, p. 150.

52. Manuscript Notes.

53.Dr. Badenochhas very satisfactorily shewn that theCoup de Soleilkills by producing apoplexy.

54. This does not hold universally, forBeccariamentions the case of a man whose body became exceedingly stiff, very shortly after having been struck dead by lightning;—and in one of Mr.Brodie’sexperiments, the muscles of a Guinea pig killed by electricity became stiff.

55. Manuscript Notes.

56.Mayerdirected his attention very particularly to the appearances which were thus produced, and had drawings made of them. It would appear that they most commonly passed in the direction of the spine.In the First Volume of the Philosophical Transactions, there is an account of the dissection of a man killed by lightning, but it contains nothing remarkable.

In the First Volume of the Philosophical Transactions, there is an account of the dissection of a man killed by lightning, but it contains nothing remarkable.

57. See also an account of a thunder-storm, by Mr.Brydone, in the 77th vol. of Phil. Trans.

58.Morgagnide Sedibus et Causis Morb. Epist. 68. No. 6 and 7.

59.Hippocrat.Aphor. 13. Sect. 2.

60. Osservaz: intorno agli Anim. viventi, etc. No. 3 et 4.

61. This event occurred during the period of the author’s studies at Cambridge; and he can therefore offer his testimony to the truth of the statement; he visited the woman soon after her disinterment.

62. See Vol. i. p. 369.

63. Starving to death was a punishment inflicted by the people of Aragon, some years ago; and it is reported byTavernier, that the chief ladies in the kingdom of Tonquin, are at this day starved to death for adultery. The severity of the Roman law on an unchaste Vestal has often exercised the pencil of the artist. An account of its execution onRhea, marked as it always was by circumstances of peculiar horror and solemnity, is to be found inPlutarch’sLife ofNuma; the offender, conducted by a mute procession across the Forum to the place of her interment near the Colline gate, was made to descend a ladder into the sepulchre, and left there with a lamp, a loaf of bread, and a cruse of water, the opening being immediately closed with earth and stones.

64. Corsican Gazette, and London Med. & Phys. Jour. March, 1822.

65. The siege of Jerusalem by the Romans will at once occur to the reader; and of whichJosephushas left us so tragic a history: amongst other atrocities, an unhappy woman, reduced to the last extremity by pinching hunger, sacrifices the feelings of a mother to the voracious calls of appetite, butchers her child, and feeds upon the body!

66. See “Naufrage de la Frégate la Méduse, faisant partie de l’Expedition du Sénégal en 1816,” parF. B. Savigny, ex Chirurgien de la Marine, etAlexandre Corréard, Ingénieur-Geographe. Paris, 1817.—A very interesting account of this narrative may be found in the Quarterly Review, for October, 1817.

67. That which we call duration is in fact a feeling of succession, and is computed by the number of ideas that pass through the mind; whenever an event occurs which powerfully excites the attention of an observer, he watches the most minute change, whence he believes that the time which elapses before the whole event is completed, appears to be unusually prolonged. When the infidel sultan of Egypt refused to believe that Mahomet could have ascended into the seven heavens, and have held some thousand conferences with the Almighty in the space of a few minutes, the learned mussulman, who was consulted on the occasion, endeavoured to turn his Majesty to a more strict faith, by demonstrating to him that a short period of time became converted into a long one, when a great multitude of important events were crouded into it.

68. In a tract entitled “Observations on Animal Life and Apparent Death, byJohn Franks, surgeon, 8vo. London, 1790,” the author says that “when the lateMr. Justamond(Surgeon to the Middlesex hospital) lived on the terrace, Palace yard, Westminster, a boy who had been drowned in the Thames was brought to him; he made an opening into the wind-pipe, in order to inflate the lungs; but the discharge of blood which ensued was such as gave him no chance of succeeding in the recovery; for he could not prevent the blood from pouring down into the lungs.” Although, saysDr. Currie, nothing is said in this case about the pulse, yet from the blood flowing so copiously, there is reason to believe that the heart had begun to act; and therefore to conclude, that life was in factdestroyedby this operation, whichmighthave been saved without it. See “Observations on Apparent Death from Drowning, Hanging, Suffocation by noxious vapours, &c.” byJames Currie, M.D. London, 1815.

69. The first body galvanised in this country was that of the malefactorGeorge Foster, who was executed in January 1803, before Newgate, for the murder of his wife and infant daughter, by drowning them in the Paddington Canal; the experiment was conducted under the direction ofAldini, the nephew ofGalvani.

70.Medico-Chirurg. Trans.vol. 1, p. 26.

71. Elements of Juridical or Forensic Medicine.

72. Newgate Calendar.

73. SeeMaclaurin’s Crim. Ca.p. 71.where this circumstance is alluded to.

74. By the Scottish law, in part founded on that of the Romans, a person against whom the judgment of the Court has been executed, can suffer no more in future, but is thenceforward totally exculpated; and it is likewise held, that the marriage is dissolved by the execution of the convicted party.Margaret Dicksonthen, having been convicted and executed, as above mentioned, the king’s advocate could prosecute her no farther, but he filed a bill in the high court of Judiciary against the sheriff, for omitting to fulfil the law. The husband of this revived convict, however, married her publicly a few days after her resuscitation; and she strenuously denied the crime for which she had suffered.

75. The Lord Chief Justice of the King’s Bench is the principal Coroner in the kingdom, and may, if he pleases, exercise the jurisdiction of a coroner in any part of the Realm. 4Rep.57.

76. Except in case of persons dying in jail, the Coroner must not hold unnecessary inquests on the bodies of those who have died in the ordinary course of nature. “And the Court of King’s Bench, on two several occasions within my own memory, blamed the Coroners of Norfolk and Anglesea, for holding repeated and unnecessary inquests, for the sake of enhancing their fees, on bodies and parts of bodies which were cast up by the sea shore, without the smallest probability or suspicion of the deaths happening in any other manner than by the unfortunate perils of the sea.” 1East. P.C.382. Seeib.the case ofRex v. Harrison, for extorting money fornotholding an inquest.

77. For this purpose the Coroner issues a precept to the constable of such townships to return a competent number of jurors, viz. not less than twelve. 2Hale, P.C.59. 62. 1East. P.C.380.

78. But this power should be used with discretion. On a late occasion, the Judge severely reprobated the conduct of a magistrate, who had committed a poor lad to await the assizes, in company of notorious thieves and other desperate characters, because he had been the innocent witness of a felony, and was too poor to find recognizance.

79. Thus in the case of SirEdmondsbury Godfrey, much blood might have been spared, and much political controversy avoided, if it had been possible to determine whether the murder had taken place in the field where the body was found, or at Somerset House, as charged by witnesses who afterwards confessed their perjury.

80. “It is true that the statute does in terms only require the coroner to put in writingthe effectof the evidence. But this must not be taken to give him a latitude, such as hath been but too often taken by persons of this description to the great perversion of truth and justice, of putting down, not the words of the witnesses, but his own conception of their tendency. It is doubtless the meaning of the act, that the examination of the witnesses should be taken down with the greatest possible accuracy as to all material points of the inquiry: otherwise one great benefit of the act, which is to enable the Court to compare the examination with the evidence, must be defeated.The effectmentioned therein, means the true and genuine sense of the evidence, as delivered in detail, not indeed in letters, syllables, or even words; though these should not be needlessly departed from; but the fair and obvious meaning of the words spoken, and not the final result of the evidence. Complaints have in my own memory been made by judges on the circuits of the culpable neglect of coroners in this respect, and threats of exemplary punishment holden out to them, to prevent a repetition of the same abuse in future.” 1East. P.C.384.

81. It must be on the actual view of the body, the coroner and his party seeing it together. 2Hale60. 1East.380.King v. Ferrand.2Barn. & Ald.260.It was evidently the original intention of the Legislature, that the coroner should view the body on the spot where it was found; that he and his jury might judge as well by inspection of the body, as by an examination of surrounding objects, whether the deceased had died by violence. And SirWilliam Blackstonesays, “He must also sit at theveryplace where the death happened,” 1Com.348. and this should certainly be done in all possible cases, for the state of surrounding objects most frequently will testify more strongly than any other evidence. Modern fastidiousness has introduced the custom of removing the body to some public-house, even where the death had happened in an ordinary dwelling; this if not illegal, is at least improper.

81. It must be on the actual view of the body, the coroner and his party seeing it together. 2Hale60. 1East.380.King v. Ferrand.2Barn. & Ald.260.

It was evidently the original intention of the Legislature, that the coroner should view the body on the spot where it was found; that he and his jury might judge as well by inspection of the body, as by an examination of surrounding objects, whether the deceased had died by violence. And SirWilliam Blackstonesays, “He must also sit at theveryplace where the death happened,” 1Com.348. and this should certainly be done in all possible cases, for the state of surrounding objects most frequently will testify more strongly than any other evidence. Modern fastidiousness has introduced the custom of removing the body to some public-house, even where the death had happened in an ordinary dwelling; this if not illegal, is at least improper.

82. See also the proceedings on the Oldham inquest, and the subsequent judgment in the Court of King’s Bench.A.D.1818, 1819. TheKing against Ferrand, 2Barn & Ald.260.

83. This was publicly disputed on a late occasion; it is well to question all extra-judicial dicta, which may be delivered during the heat of political controversy.

84. The evidence must be on oath;vide antep.167.

85. InScorey’scase,Leach C. L.50. the coroner refused to take the evidence of a man who had accompanied the accused in search of deer-stealers, and only admitted the man who was with the deceased. The coroner, on the testimony of this man, told the jury, that the crime was murder, but they refused to find any other verdict thanAccidental death; which verdict the coroner recorded, and then by his warrant sentScoreyto the county goal for murder.Scoreybeing now brought up by Habeas Corpus—The Court, on full affidavit of the fact, admitted him to bail, and granted a rule against the coroner to shew cause why an information should not be filed against him.

Scoreybeing now brought up by Habeas Corpus—The Court, on full affidavit of the fact, admitted him to bail, and granted a rule against the coroner to shew cause why an information should not be filed against him.

86. There are many cases in which there is no substance which can be made the subject of deodand; as in death by poison or by explosions in mines, either from inflammable gas, or the powder used in blasting. The first of these cases calls for immediate remedy; as the instances of fatal substitution of poison for medicine occur continually, notwithstanding the repeated warnings published on the subject. Nor are accidents in mines less worthy of attention; ordinary precaution might have prevented many which have lately taken place. The Safety lamp of SirH. Davyis so firmly established in reputation, that no doubts can be entertained of its efficacy; some late inventions also have secured the miner from the numerous disasters to which he is liable in the dangerous operation of blasting. When the conductors of mines neglect these ordinary and well-known precautions, they become morally responsible for any mischief which may consequently occur; we have only to lament that they are not legally answerable for their criminal neglect.

87. With respect to a second inquest, the law is thus laid down (3Barn. & Ald.266.) So also he (the coroner) may dig up the body, if the first Inquisition be quashed.Str.533. But it must be by order of the Court of King’s Bench, on motion,Str.167. And the judges will exercise their discretion, according to thetimeand circumstances, whether he shall or shall not do it.Salk.377.Str.22. 533. 2Mod.16.

88. It is not for us in this place to argue the question whether excessive severity of punishment does or does not defeat its punishment; as more injury is done by inducing that illegal mercy which is here complained of, than benefit is derived by terror of the unexecuted sentence of the law: the subject is in abler hands; we shall, therefore, content ourselves with suggesting, that coroners should be far more strict in their examination of the bodies of persons supposed to befelo de se; nay, that anatomical inspection of the great cavities should be absolutely required in all cases. We will not maintain with a French author on Medical Jurisprudence, that the signs of insanity can often be discovered on dissection; though we can imagine some cases, as where there has been an excessive determination of blood to the brain, in which this inspection may be satisfactory; (See vol. 1, p. 327).FourcroyandDurandehave also found, on dissecting persons who had committed suicide, hardness of the liver, and gall stones; andFoderéobserves that, in failure of other evidence, such appearances deserve to carry some weight. But benefit would still result from the practice; first from the general horror in which dissection is held, for if the dread of an ignominious burial, however remote the chance of its infliction, can be supposed to discourage this offence, under the existing law, the certainty of personal mutilation would operate in the proposed alteration. It is related, that when suicide had become so frequent among the Roman ladies, as to threaten ill effects to the commonwealth, the Senate decreed that the bodies of all who died by their own hands should be exposed naked in the public ways.The effect of the decree was an immediate cessation of the crime; possibly the same result might be produced by the dread of dissection.

The effect of the decree was an immediate cessation of the crime; possibly the same result might be produced by the dread of dissection.

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