attempt to ravish their sister;* and in that of a wretch, at Bhaugulpore, who attempted to steal Mangoes;† or in that of another unfortunate, at Azimgurh, who died in eighteen days after having had both his legs broken by club blows, dealt by thieves who came in the night to steal his Mangoest -it may fairly become a question, whether death has not been inflicted with evidences of premeditated cruelty. In 1848, Dr. Archer, then of Nuddea, reported the case of a man who had suffered Dislocation of both Elbows with fracture of the bones, evidently caused by twisting the arms violently, and then beating them with a stick. The joints, Dr. Archer believed, must have been first dislocated, and the bones afterwards broken both above and below the elbow. The manner in which, often, a crowd of Bengalees fall upon a victim of their displeasure, and beat and tear him to pieces, with sticks, fists, feet, hands and any weapon which may happen to have been brought or caught up, until the body lies in the midst of them, a mere bloody, featureless, disjointed, broken mass,-is scarcely characteristic of the reputed mildness of the national character. Two recent examples will suffice. In 1853, a Hindu, carrying on mahajunee business in East Burdwan, went to a village to collect some money. Here a crowd of persons, some of whom were his debtors, seized bamboos and a wooden mallet, and beat him to death. Both arms were broken, the left arm and the left leg were broken by the joints being twisted backwards, the end of the thigh bone protruded at the back of the last named joint, all the vessels of that part were torn, and death must have been caused by hæmorrhage. The nose was also beaten in.§ *Nizamut Adawlut Reports, vol. iii. part 1, p. 210. Nizamut Adawlut Reports, N. W. P., 26th December 1854, p. 853. § Nizamut Adawlut Reports, 10th Dec. 1853, p. 873. In 1854, a man, weak in his right foot and left hand, was attacked by a party, led by a person whose service he had lately quitted, and was beaten to death with clubs. In addition to the mashed condition of the left arm, already described at p. 232, the Civil Surgeon found that there were marks of very severe beating over the whole body, but more especially about both legs and the back. There were several incised and contused wounds on the front of both legs, and both bones of the right leg were broken to splinters and protruded externally.* Cases of Gun-shot Wounds are not of very rare occurrence in our civil practice. Small shot is sometimes used, but probably not with homicidal intent. For purposes of attack, the Natives of Bengal generally load with slugs, or roughly cut lumps of lead of greater weight. In one instance, a man was imprisoned for seven years, for killing another by firing at him a gun loaded with Seed, in which it appeared that a single shot had been mixed,† One Nunhey, of Chunderee, (Saugor,) confessed that, believing that his brother-in-law had seduced his wife, while yet a virgin, he borrowed a matchlock and practised at a mark to secure a good aim. He approached the man as he lay sleeping on his charpoy, and, holding the weapon close to his victim's body, shot him through the heart with two iron balls, which were produced in Court.‡ In 1853, one Bhowanee, of Furruckabad, was sentenced to transportation for life for blowing up certain persons with gunpowder. It appeared that, the prisoner having been betrothed to a girl, the marriage was broken off, and she became engaged to another. Failing to get any redress, he purchased four pice worth,―a quarter seer (half a pound),—of - Nizamut Adawlut Reports, 5th Aug. 1854, p. 222. ‡ Nizamut Adawlut Reports, N. W. P., 31st Dec. 1852, p. 1567. gunpowder and, entering the girl's house at night, threw it on the choola near which she and her mother were sitting. He, as well as they, was severely burned by the explosion. He recovered, but remained much marked with the powder. The two women were so much injured that the younger died five, and the elder fourteen days afterwards.* Rupture of Internal Organs.-Apart from the various other internal injuries, resulting from mechanical violence, observed in all countries, the cases of Rupture of the Spleen and Liver, which so frequently occur in India, require distinct comment here. In a country where, owing to the almost universal prevalence of miasmatic poison, the Liver and Spleen of nearly every Native of the lower class may be considered liable to become the seat of chronic enlargement at any period of his life, and where also the practice of beating adults,-especially servants by their masters, and wives by their husbands, is everywhere prevalent,—it is only remarkable that cases of rupture of these viscera are not of almost daily occurrence. A very considerable number of instances of the kind do, from time to time, come under judicial investigation here. The nine years' Medical Reports to the Nizamut contain four cases, in which the Liver had suffered rupture. It is worthy of remark that three of these occurred under the notice of Dr. Davies, of Patna. In two of the cases there were also other traces of severe ill-usage,† in a third, the injury had been caused by the fracture of a rib. Dr. Davies remarked that, in these cases, the injury is sometimes done by a kick or blow; and often, he had reason to think, by forcing the knee or foot into the right side. * Nizamut Adawlut Reports, N. W. P., 13th April 1853, p. 554. † See also a case in which a healthy Liver was ruptured by severe blows with a heavy bamboo.* * Nizamut Adawlut Reports, N. W. P., 12th Jan, 1853, p. 40. In all cases where the Liver becomes so much enlarged as to descend below the ribs, the fragility of its structures is much increased. Wounds of the Liver are by no means necessarily mortal. Mr. Guthrie mentions that he had known three persons who had been wounded [by gun-shot] through the Liver, and who suffered little subsequent inconvenience.* Dr. John Macpherson, now of Calcutta, removed a large piece of the Liver of a Hindu who had been wounded by a spear.† Dr. Taylor considers that wounds of the Liver do not prove very rapidly fatal unless some of the larger trunks are involved. The organ may certainly be torn to a frightful extent without an immediately fatal result ensuing.‡ * Commentaries, p. 557. See also Cooper's Lectures, p. 224, (Stabs)—A case of arrow wound of the Liver recovered from, by Dr. Goodeve.-Trans. Med. and Phys. Society, vol. v. 1, p. 482. †This case is quoted in the London Med. Gazette for January 1846. ‡ The following case, not hitherto reported, occurred within my own observation. A stout Brewer's Drayman, about 25 years of age, was brought, on a stretcher, to the Surgery of Guy's Hospital, in the summer of 1840, at between 10 and 11 o'clock in the evening. He was found lying in the road, and his horses had taken the dray home without him. His condition was examined by Dr. - - Wilson and my friend Mr. Walter Chapman, of Tooting, (whose notes of the case, with my own, are now before me)—both very careful and accurate observers. There was no mark or evidence of injury; he " was very violent; he swore and endeavoured to strike the bystanders." My notes say that "he walked and moved with the greatest freedom." He was, therefore, considered to be merely intoxicated, and was made over to the police, who took him to the station house. About 6 o'clock the next morning, he was found seated in the water-closet looking very faint and pale; the Surgeon to the station was sent for, but the man was dead before he arrived. A large quantity of blood was found in the peritoneal cavity. The Liver was almost cloven in two by a vertical fissure, seven or eight inches long and, in some places, nearly three in depth,-which had almost separated its two principal lobes. The edges of this fissure were jagged and irregular, but appeared to have been completely coated with a thick layer Ruptures of the Liver may heal, at least partially.* In the majority of cases, however, death ensues rapidly where the Liver is ruptured by blows. Extensive rupture of the Kidney is almost inevitably fatal by hæmorrhage, but life is generally protracted for some. hours at least, the effusion being sub-peritoneal. In a man æt. 27, who had fallen on a cask, when intoxicated, and who was under treatment in Guy's Hospital for 27 hours, I saw that the left Kidney was completely divided transversely into halves, as if cut in two by a blunt knife.† Cases of Rupture of the Spleen are certainly of very far more frequent occurrence, but the nine years' Reports contain only seven instances. In four of these there were discovered other evidences of severe maltreatment. In two, there were traces of injury to the brain; in two others the Spleen had been pierced by the ends of fractured ribs. In the remaining three instances, the organ appeared to have been ruptured without very extraordinary violence, when in an enlarged and softened condition. I have met with only two instances in my own Indian practice, both occurring in females struck by their husbands, in which rupture of an enlarged Spleen was the only severe injury discoverable. I find sixteen other cases in which the rupture of diseased Spleens occurred in India, resulting from blows and falls; and many others might, doubt of intimately adherent dense coagulum, considerably firmer than the crassamentum of an ordinary clot. Outwardly, the surfaces of this coagulum were not at all irregular, but were smoothly moulded by the pressure of the diaphragm and other surrounding parts. There was no external trace of injury. It was thought probable that he fell from the shaft of his dray and that the wheel had passed over his body.-See somewhat similar cases, Med. Chir. Review for 1831, and Lancet for Dec. 11, 1847. * Case by Dr. Chisholm, Edinburgh Med. and Surg. Journal, vol. vii. See also Med. Chir. Review, July 1837, p. 270. + See a case, Med. Chir. Review, July 1837, p. 270, in which rupture of the Kidney proved fatal after ten days. |