cival.32 "A girl four years of age was admitted to the Manchester Infirmary, on account of a mortification in the female organs, attended with great soreness and general depression of strength. She had been in bed with a boy, and there was reason to suspect that he had taken criminal liberties with her. The mortification increased, and the child died. The boy, therefore, was apprehended, and tried at the Lancaster Assizes, but was acquitted on sufficient evidence that several instances of a similar disease had appeared near the same period of time, in which there was no possibility of injury or guilt." The following more recent case presents very close analogies with the one just cited. In December, 1857, Amos Greenwood, aged twenty-two years, was tried at Liverpool for the murder of Mary Johnson, ten years of age. On a Thursday night the prisoner and deceased occupied the same bed in a room with other members of the family with which they resided, and then and there it was charged that the crime had been committed. The other inmates of the room heard no noise, and the girl made no complaint of suffering for three entire days, when her genitals were found to be sore and her thighs excoriated. On the fourth day she was seen by a surgeon, who pronounced her affection vaginitis. Becoming rapidly worse, her friends urged her to confess a criminal cause for her ailment, but she protested that she had nothing to divulge, until, being threatened that unless she did so she should be left to die, she declared that "her bedfellow had been upon her, and hurt her very much." Mercury was then administered to her by an unlicensed practitioner, when sloughing and mortification set in, and proceeded with great rapidity. A surgeon next saw the patient, and discontinued the use of the mercury. The mortification extended, however, to the pubes and nates, including the urethra, labia, and vagina to the depth of two inches, and the child died thirteen days after the alleged attempted intercourse, and ten days from the first discovery that she was diseased. Greenwood was then arrested, and found to have venereal warts on his penis, and syphilitic sores beneath the prepuce. He was tried, convicted of manslaughter, and sentenced to penal servitude for life. In this case the only direct testimony implicating the prisoner was that of the girl, from whom it was extorted by threats, after she had repeatedly denied that he had had anything to do with her.33 Evi "Medical Ethics, 1803, p. 103. ""Frequently," says Casper, "have I heard very young but quick-witted children reveal, with the most perfect unconstraint, or even impudence, the whole course of the alleged affair and all its details in disgusting minuteness, so that it required but little penetration to perceive that they were merely rehearsing a lesson which had been taught dently, if copulation was attempted, it must have been so without violence, and without the infliction of pain, for the occupants of the adjoining bed heard no noise, and for three days afterwards the girl made no complaint, nor was her appearance observed to be different from usual. Her subsequent condition cannot, therefore, be attributed to an attempted violation. Is it with more probability attributable to a syphilitic infection derived from the prisoner? The existence of syphilitic sores beneath his prepuce would render his attempting coition improbable. But, admitting that they might have been insufficient to restrain his lust, is the existence of a syphilitic infection proved by an examination of the child's genital organs? These were first seen by a medical man upon the fourth day, who deposed that the girl had vaginitis, with ulcerated spots all over, from the size of a pea downwards. These sores had no resemblance, in number or appearance, to syphilitic ulcers, but, on the contrary, presented all the characteristics of aphtha. The state of the parts certainly did not suggest to the medical man in attendance either that the child had syphilis, or that she was the victim of an attempted rape. It was not until an unlicensed practitioner had administered mercury injudiciously that the symptoms which ended fatally were developed. Since, therefore, neither the nature nor the fatal issue of the child's disease could be distinctly traced to the prisoner, even on the supposition that there had been contact between the genital organs of the latter and those of the child, his conviction of manslaughter would seem to have been unjust. The person really guilty of the child's death was undoubtedly the unlicensed practitioner, who gave her mercury without judgment, immediately after which the fatal symptoms began to be developed.3 34 188. Rape on adult women.-Rape on the adult female of full vigor and in full possession of her will and ability to resist, we have seen, is not an easy matter to accomplish, but still it has been recognized by the courts.35 The medical evidence of rape, if the woman be married, may be entirely wanting; and, as the crime is usually attempted without accomplices, the woman's statement is the main evidence against the man; but as cases of feigned rape are by no means rare, the evidence of the woman must always be taken with caution. them; and it has seldom happened that the facts of the case did not confirm this belief." For the details of this case, and the discussion to which it gave rise, see Wilde, Dublin Quarterly Journ., Feb., VOL. III. MED. JUR.-10. 1859, p. 51, and Med. Times and Gaz., Taylor, Medical Jurisprudence, 6th ed., p. 708. Dr. Taylor refers36 to two cases where the crime was attempted with the aid of accomplices. In one it appears, that while an accomplice held the head of the female, with her face downwards, between his thighs, the prisoner had forcible intercourse with the woman from behind, her limbs having been first widely separated. In the second case an accomplice held the woman down on a bed by the neck, while the prisoner separated her thighs, and thus had intercourse with her. She was examined nine hours afterwards by an experienced surgeon, and he found no mark or trace of violence or injury on or anywhere near her pudendum. There were bruises on her arms, neck and legs, where she had been forcibly held down. And in the Bates Case, cited by Dr. H. G. Storer,37 in an elaborate study of rape, a strumpet was forcibly violated by four men in succession, against, or without, her consent. The defendants were convicted on the evidence of an eyewitness, and sentenced to five years' imprisonment. age 189. Rape on old women.-Rape upon women of advanced may be committed with comparative ease. Casper relates38 the case of a woman sixty-eight years of age, decrepit and horribly pitted with smallpox, who was violated by a young fellow of twenty-seven. 190. Rape on the weak-minded.- Sexual connection with a woman who, on account of ignorance or weak-mindedness, offers little or no resistance, is also included as rape. A case in point may be found in Wharton's Criminal Law,39 Here a girl allowed a medical man to have connection with her, under the belief that this was medical treatment. Dr. Fleischmann relates a case from his own practice.40 He was consulted by the parents of a girl seventeen years of age. She had been brought up in a very secluded manner, and was both weakminded and wholly inexperienced. Her monthly periods became suppressed and symptoms set in which awakened in his mind suspicions of pregnancy. The mother indignantly repelled this idea, but he continued his attendance. At last the violence of her pains compelled the girl to take to her bed, and presently she gave birth to a living child. In answer to her mother's inquiries, she declared with the greatest candor and simplicity that she had never slept with any man, and knew nothing more than that, a long while before, her cousin "N.," one Sunday when her parents were not at home, had played "Storer, N. Y. Med. Journ., November, 1865. Wharton, p. 439. Casper, Gericht. Med., Vol. II., p. 1839, p. 294. Henke's Zeitschrift with her, and caressed her a great deal, and then she said, "er hat mir auf dem sofa recht schön gethan."41 191. Rape during unconsciousness; under the influence of drugs.— Where a woman has been wrought into a state of unconsciousness by intoxicating liquors or by narcotic drugs, and when she is prevented by these means from making resistance, there can be no doubt that her chastity can be violated. The cases are quite numerous which attest this.12 192. Under the influence of anesthetics.-Rape while the woman is under the influence of a general anesthetic is unquestionably possible, but gives rise to several very interesting questions. 193. Possibility of anesthetizing during sleep. Is it possible to anesthetize persons during sleep so that they will not waken? So far as we know this has been attempted only with chloroform, for the irritative effects of ether and its compounds are too great for any such change to be effected; and nitrous oxid, which is the only other widely-used anesthetic, needs such cumbersome apparatus that it would scarcely be attempted outside of an operating room. With chloroform the attempt has been made several times in an experimental way. Dolbeau attempted it on animals, but was never successful; he tried it on one person several times, but the patient always woke up. Later, he tried it again on twenty-nine sick people, and was successful in ten cases. Guerrieri tried it on nine weak-minded people and was successful with six of the nine. But these attempts have all been made on people in abnormal conditions of health, and the chloroform has been administered with scientific skill; not as it would be done by the laity. 43 194. Testimony of person under anesthetic.- Second come the questions bearing on the value of the testimony of the patient under the anesthetic: (1), whether there can be consciousness without the ability to resist, and (2), whether erotic sensations caused by the anesthetic may be of sufficient vividness to deceive the patient, and make her believe things to have taken place when they are pure imaginings of the brain under abnormal conditions. Taylor45 cites the case of a dentist, in France, where the woman, under ether, was considered as not yet unconscious, but totally incapable of offering any resistance. "This remark might be translated somewhat freely as, "He put me on the sofa and treated me beautifully." "See Legal Relations of Rape. Dolbeau, Ann. d'Hyg. Pub., Jan., 1874, LXI. "Guerrieri, Virchow's Jahresberichte, 1895, 1,440. Taylor, Med. Jurispr., 12th Eng. ed., 1891, p. 711, refers to Lond. Med. Gaz Vol. XL., p. 865. A full account is given of the following case, from the importance of the questions to which it has given rise. The history is extracted chiefly from Dr. Hartshorne's vindication:46 A young lady of unimpeachable character, who has, for some time, been engaged to be married, is accompanied by her betrothed to the house of an eminent and highly respectable dentist, who had been engaged to plug one of her teeth. They arrive about ten o'clock on a Friday morning. She enters the house, and after a few minutes spent in awaiting the exit of two other ladies, she is ushered into the operating room, or office. Here we will allow her to continue the narration in her own words: ""I went into the office, took off my bonnet, and Dr. B. went to the washstand to wash his hands, and asked me after the family; I took a seat on the operating chair; in a few minutes Dr. B. told me one of the men wanted to speak to him, and he gave me a book to read and left the room; did not say what man; I supposed there were men there; he has a room in which the teeth are made; I believe those to be the men; Dr. B.—'s family were out of town at that time; he said so, and the door was opened, and there was no furniture in the front room; I don't know how long Dr. B- was absent; when he came back I was sitting in the operating chair; he went to the instrument case, and began with my tooth; the tooth was on the left side; he commenced operating on the tooth before he gave me ether; the operation was very painful; he said he would either put something in to destroy the nerve or give me ether, leaving the choice to me; I told him I'd prefer taking ether; I didn't learn what he proposed putting into the tooth; he gave me the ether on a small napkin, folded up; I felt very dizzy at first; I was cold and felt very numb; it increased upon me; I did not lose my consciousness of what was doing; I continued to breathe the ether; my eyes were closed; I closed them voluntarily; I did not try to open them for some time after; after he gave me the ether he did not, as I remember, operate on my tooth; he felt my pulse several times; put his hand on my arm under my sleeve, up my arm; I had a loose sleeve; he did it once; he put his hand on my breast under my dress; on the bosom; he put his hand on my person, under my dress; I have a distinct memory of that; I was not able to make any resistance or outcry; he went round before me and raised my clothes; I am perfectly distinct in my memory of that; I did not try to cry out; do not know if I was able; after he had raised my The history of this case, and the re- inhalation, which follow, are published marks on the physical effects of ether in the Phila. Med. Exam., Dec., 1854. |