Text-book of forensic medicine and toxicology

=The Coroner‘s Court.=--The office of coroner is mentioned in a charter in 925. Coroners were formerly chosen for life by the freeholders of the district, but their election is...

On the subject of evidence it is necessary to say a few words, for it must be remembered that that which may be held to be evidence in logic may not be so in law. Nothing in law...

_Shock._--Emotion; blows on the head or epigastrium; sudden evacuation of fluids from the body, as in emptying an over-distended bladder, tapping a hydrocele, ascites, or a pleu...

equal, the conjunctival reflex usually present. There is the odour of opium in the breath. The pulse is slow, and the respiration stertorous and slow. There is no paralysis, and...

13. When any portions of the body, or any substances found in or near it, are to be preserved for further examination, they ought never to be put out of the custody of the inspe...

=Assault.=--Every act of attack upon the person of another is an assault in law, whether it injure or not; nor is it necessary that the act done take effect. Spitting on anyone...

It is important in medico-legal investigations to determine the nature of stains found on clothes, weapons, articles of furniture, &c. In the case of blood-stains note should be...

Burns and Scalds are lesions characterised by a more or less marked destruction of the tissues of the body, caused by the action upon its internal or external surfaces of a temp...

Suffocation may therefore be caused by pressure on the chest, as in persons crushed in a crowd. It may also be due to the respiration of certain gases, or to the presence of pul...

Death by drowning occurs when the breathing is arrested by watery or semi-fluid substances, blood, urine, or the muddy semi-fluid matter found in cesspools and marshes. It is no...

Death from starvation may occur during famines, amongst ship-wrecked sailors, and persons entombed in mines or pits, and is due to sheer privation. It may follow criminal starva...

According to the Statute 24 and 25 Vict. c. 100, sec. 48, rape in England is defined as the “carnal knowledge of a woman against her will.” In Scotland rape is held to be “the c...

It not infrequently happens that a medical man is called upon to make an examination of a woman for legal purposes, in order to decide--(_a_) The existence of an alleged pregnan...

[“_Every woman, being with child, who, with intent to procure her own miscarriage, shall unlawfully administer to herself any poison or other noxious thing, or shall unlawfully...

According to the present state of English law, infanticide--murder of a _new-born_ child--is not regarded as a specific crime, but is treated and tried by those rules of evidenc...

This subject will be discussed under the following heads: (1) The child must be born alive. (2) The child must be born during the lifetime of the mother. (3) The child must be b...

In the whole range of medical jurisprudence there is no subject more interesting, more difficult, or more important than the diagnosis of insanity, and its relation to the crimi...

Toxicology is that division of Forensic Medicine which takes into consideration the modes and actions of poisons upon the living body, the treatment of their effects upon the bo...

Arsenic, and its medicinal preparations. Aconite, aconitine, and their preparations. Alkaloids.--All poisonous vegetable alkaloids not specifically named in this schedule, and t...

Almonds, essential oil of (unless deprived of prussic acid). Antimonial wine. Cantharides, tincture and all vesicating liquid preparations or admixtures of. Carbolic acid, and l...

the meaning of the Pharmacy Acts, except preparations or admixtures the exclusion of which from this schedule is indicated by the words therein relating to carbolic acid, chloro...

With those in Part I. a registration of the sale is compulsory, the purchaser must be known to or introduced by some person known to the vendor, and the purpose for which the po...

_General Characters._--The mineral acids have no remote effects on the system; their action is purely local. They are seldom used for the purpose of homicide, except in the case...

Poisoning by this substance is more common in France than in England. In England, the deaths due to this poison are more frequently the result of accident, from the incautious u...

Metallic arsenic is of a steel-grey colour, brittle, and sublimes at a temperature a little below 400° F., without, however, previously fusing. The vapour of the metal has a pec...

3. The irritant properties appear to reside in an acrid oil or resin. In colchicum, stavesacre, and some others, the presence of an alkaloid may account for their active propert...

Instances have occurred from time to time of serious illness attacking individuals either separately or collectively shortly after the ingestion of food. The food may be rendere...

Vegetable alkaloids may be classified in three groups: (1) derivatives of pyridine, _e.g._ atropine, conine; (2) derivatives of quinoline, _e.g._ cinchonine, narcotine; (3) subs...

The poisonous properties of this drug reside in an alkaloid, _morphine_--in combination with an acid, _meconic acid_. The several varieties of opium vary considerably in the qua...

Under this head will be noticed those poisons whose action on the animal economy is characterised by _delirium_, illusion of the senses, and marked _dilatation_ of the pupil. In...

The poisons grouped under this head are characterised by causing delirium, followed by narcotism. Recovery is not infrequently slow, the system suffering more or less severely f...

The common foxglove, _Digitalis purpurea_, (_N.O. Scrophulariaceæ_), grows wild in the hedges in the South of England. All parts of the plant are poisonous, from the presence of...

The symptom most characteristic of these poisons is the marked anæsthesia which they produce when their vapours are inhaled. The hydrate of chloral, though placed under the abov...

The common or spotted hemlock, _Conium maculatum_ (_N. O. Umbelliferæ_), is indigenous. It must be distinguished from the _Myrrhis temulenta_, another indigenous, umbelliferous...

The Java poison, Upas Tieuté, is a watery extract of _S. Tieuté_; the basis of the poison used in Guiana, and known as Wourali, Ourari, Urari, or Curare, is the juice of _S. tox...

_Circumstances under which it occurs accidentally._--Death may result where several persons are sleeping in the same room, and the ventilation is imperfect; from the admission o...