quaintance with the victim, had an interview with him in her room, where the arrangements for the murder had been previously made. In the alcove of the room, the background of which was a curtain, was a sofa, on which the victim was seated, with the girl, Bompard, on his knee. In the roof of the alcove a pulley had been fixed, hidden by the curtain, behind which the girl's accomplice, Eyraud, was secreted. Bompard playfully passed a silken noose round the neck of her victim, and then adroitly handed the free end to her accomplice behind the curtain, who immediately attached the loop over a hook at the end of a rope suspended from the pulley, and at once pulled up the victim. After the death they robbed the body, put it in a box, and conveyed it some distance from the scene of the crime, where they left it. Two weeks later the body was discovered and examined. The girl later confessed the mode of commission of the crime. In the following case, the evidence of homicide was derived from various sources: "The deceased was found sitting in a corner of her room, with a narrow tape around her neck, hung loosely and singly over a small brass hook, about 3 feet above her head. Her clothes were placed smoothly under her, and her hands stretched out by her side. There was a severe bruise on the right eye, and there were marks of blood on the tape, as well as on the floor and wall of the room at a distance from the body. There was a stain of blood on the knot of the tape where it passed over the hook; and there was no blood on the hands of the deceased. The windpipe for about an inch and a half was lacerated longitudinally in its rings, and there was a deep mark round the neck in the course of the double tape, as if from great pressure applied by some person, or from the weight of the suspended body. The latter hypothesis was untenable. The body of the deceased did not weigh less than 126 pounds, while the tape found round her neck broke with a weight of 49 pounds; hence, the deceased never could have been suspended by it." The prisoner confessed the crime.28

364b. Suicidal hanging.-Hanging as a means of suicide is the more common occurrence. But the question of proof of suicide is not always simple when wounds are found upon the body of the suspended person. A determined suicide may try various methods before accomplishing his purpose. Glaister quotes29 a most persistent attempt of a prisoner in a Glasgow prison, where the fact of suicide was unquestionable. This man tried first to hang himself, but the 28 Taylor, Med. Journ., 5th ed., 754.

"Glaister, Med. Jurispr., p. 146.

ligature broke; he next tried to smash his skull by butting his head against the wall of his cell. By this means he produced a considerable number of wounds, but not sufficient to end his life. The next time he suspended himself from the ceiling by a bed sheet, which he fastened to a strap around his neck. This time he was found dead. Glaister also quotes a case from Ogston of a man who cut his throat with a razor; and though he lost much blood, he managed to go to an outhouse and hang himself.

Another remarkable case in which the suicidal nature of the act was clearly determined is reported by Dr. Heyfelder;30 it occurred at the prison of Sigmaringen, in Germany. One of the prisoners, who, a few hours before, had been left by the turnkey in his cell, of which the latter alone had the key, was found hanging from the jamb of the door. The ligature used was his own silk cravat, twisted into a cord, 312 feet long, 2 inches broad, and 4 lines thick. His head was sunk upon his breast, his face pale and without expression, the lips blue, eyes, tongue, and mouth unchanged in position and appearance. The arms were brought forward over the stomach, and were rigid; the fingers were bent, and the feet extended and touching the ground. The mouth of the deceased was stopped with his own handkerchief. The mark of the cord was oblique, commencing between the os hyoides and thyroid cartilage, and ran upwards and backwards to the occiput. The skin was brown, and in some places shriveled, but there were no ecchymoses. Five contused and lacerated wounds were found upon the sides of the head; the right ear also was lacerated, and a portion of the head and face covered with blood. the sharp edge of the window-sill, which was only 2 feet from the floor, traces of dried blood and hair were found, and on the wall below the window there were several lines of dried blood running towards the ground. Had this case occurred in any other place than in a locked prison-cell, with a single occupant, the wounds upon the head, and the handkerchief thrust into his mouth, would have raised a very strong presumption of homicide, and perhaps involved the life of an innocent person.

On

We would here refer the reader to another case of hanging, singular and important from the fact of the woman having previously inflicted upon her own head, with a hatchet, no less than fifty-five wounds, some of which penetrated to and fractured the bone. Besides these, there were twenty-six superficial incised wounds upon the breast and the stomach, made from three to four days previously, as

"Henke's Zeitschr., 1849, H. 1.

they were in a state of suppuration. The loss of blood must have been very great, being estimated at three pounds. Yet this woman had been able to leave the room where she had committed this violence upon her own person, and proceed to a stable at the back of the house, and there, mounting upon a milking-stool, attach the cord to a beam, and consummate the act of self-destruction. In this case the indentation of the cord left no discoloration of the skin, probably owing to the loss of blood. The deceased had long been melancholy, and this, together with other facts and circumstantial evidence which came out upon investigation, left no doubt that the act was suicidal.31

The influence which the discovery of wounds and marks of violence upon the body of a person found hung will exert in the determination of the voluntary or passive character of the act must be decided, in each case, by the light obtained from an inquiry into the possible motives for suicide, into all the circumstances connected with the act, and into those general principles elsewhere referred to for the discrimination between self-inflicted and homicidal wounds. In some cases the injury may have been of accidental origin, as indeed may the hanging itself; but the case is hardly conceivable in which the true nature of the latter could not be ascertained, or the former not rendered probable. In conclusion, we would repeat the statement, that hanging is pre-eminently a suicidal mode of death, and strong evidence, both medical and other, will be required in any given case to overthrow this presumption, it being far more likely that a person would inflict barbarous injuries upon his own person, and then hang himself, than that a murderer would resort to so difficult and unusual a mode of assassination. This form of homicide can hardly be regarded as practicable unless there be an exceeding disproportion between the strength of the murderer and that of his victim. It can only be taken into consideration when the body found hung is that of a very young or feeble person, or one whom infirmity or temporary unconsciousness may have rendered helpless.

"Henke's Zeitschrift, 1850, H. 1

(Krügelstein).

CHAPTER X

DROWNING.

365. Conditions necessary for drowning.

366. Types of death.

367. Time of submersion without drowning.

368. Symptoms.

369. Post-mortem appearances; external. 370. Froth at nostrils.

371. Abrasions of the hands.

372. Internal appearances, in general.

373. Condition of the lungs.

374. Water in the stomach.

375. Marks of violence.

376. Ante-mortem versus post-mortem violence. 377. Submersion, ante-mortem versus post-mortem. 378. Accident, homicide, and suicide.

379. Decomposition; time of floating. 380. Putrefaction in water-soaked bodies. 381. Course of maceration in the water. 382. Time in the water.

365. Conditions necessary for drowning.- Drowning is the form of suffocation where the access of air is decreased by submersion of the respiratory openings beneath some liquid medium, most frequently water. If the person be unconscious or helpless, a very small quantity of water is all that is necessary; but in the majority of instances of death from drowning the whole body is submerged. That death is not due simply to exclusion of air seems to be shown by the experiments made upon dogs. Some London researches1 showed death to follow asphyxia proper in three minutes and fifty seconds, while in drowning, one and a half minutes was sufficient.

366. Types of death. Two distinct types of death seem to be distinguishable in cases of submersion: One, where the person, after a certain period of holding his breath, breathes in the water which covers his mouth and nose; the second, where, at the time of submersion, the person is in a condition of shock or syncope with inhibited

'Report on asphyxia by committee of ciety of London, Medico-Chirurgical the Royal Medical and Surgical So- Transactions, 1862, Vol. XLV.

physiological activities of all kinds, and does not breathe at all after striking the water. This latter mode of death appears to be dependent upon some nervous factors, and does not occur in animals. This second type is given in explanation of the cases where the person, after submersion for considerably longer than the time necessary for asphyxia, has been rescued and restored to life.

a

367. Time of submersion without drowning.-The time which person can remain under water without signs of drowning depends, to a large extent, upon the practice which the person has had. The deep-sea divers who make their livelihood by gathering sponges, coral, and pearls, ordinarily remain under water from a minute to a minute and a half. Even the most liberal estimates do not make the time under water more than two minutes. Individuals who give exhibitions of prolonged submersion in large glass aquariums, placed in full view of the spectators, do not go to the depths that these divers do, but remain for a longer period.2 Taylor says that the person who appeared some time ago in London under the name of "Lurline" could stay under water for three minutes. In London, too, on April 7th, 1886, James Finney stayed under water four minutes, twenty-nine and one fourth seconds; "Professor Beaumont" at Melbourne, on December 16th, 1893, made a record of four minutes and thirty-five seconds; and more recently "Professor Enochs" at Lowell, Massachusetts, stayed under water four minutes, forty-six and one fifth seconds. These instances would have but little weight from a legal standpoint, except in special cases.

The rapidity with which life is extinguished by drowning depends upon the frequency and the completeness of the renewal of the air in the lungs. In some cases, even though the person has been taken out of the water almost immediately, he has been found to be dead. If the individual has come several times to the surface of the water, and breathed, he will, of course, not die so quickly as one who has not had this opportunity; but it is probable that, in cases of drowning, where the person has not been able to support himself above water, life is extinct within five minutes. Where the submersion has been complete from the beginning, life can scarcely be prolonged more than two minutes. Woolley, the surgical attendant at the receiving house of the Royal Humane Society, in Hyde Park, believes that very few lives are preserved after four minutes of complete submersion. He, however, saw two cases recover that he believed had been under water

'See Gould and Pyle, Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine, p. 513.

Brodic's Lectures on Pathology and Surgery.