ternal evidence, as may pins introduced into the fontanelles or between the vertebræ, either from the skin or from the pharynx.79 The still more inhuman dismemberment of the body, with mutilation, at times is found. Infanticide by dislocation of the neck is also easily identified at the autopsy. The evidence of these wounds is subject to the same general considerations as the wounds in the adult. 135. Combustion.- Destruction of the body by combustion is far more likely than an attempt to burn up a living child. Usually burns of the skin occurring during life may be differentiated by the fact that the blebs contain an albuminous liquid, while they contain serum if the burns occur after death. Then in the living there is, as a rule, an inflammatory areola around the burn. In burning, the soft parts of the body shrivel up to such an extent that an infant at three months after birth looks likes an infant at term. The age here is to be determined by the centers of ossification of the bones. The possibility of burning up an infant, and completely destroying the traces of its body, exists. Brouardel says 80 the time required for the total combustion of an infant weighing three kilos is about two hours in a good hot fire, and that the odor so produced is insignificant and might easily pass unobserved. The ashes are not characteristic. In this connection Brouardel also mentions the destruction of the body in sulphuric acid, as is done with some of the material used in medical schools. He says that it takes about one hour for the destruction of a fetus in its own weight of sulphuric acid, and that a fetus of the fourth month-about three hundred grams-entirely disappears in twenty minutes. But if the acid is used for infanticide, it must then be gotten rid of; and that, to an inexperienced person, is no easy matter. 136. Poisoning.- Infanticide by poisoning is exceedingly rare. Brouardel81 notes only four cases; one each due to sulphid of antimony, copperas, hydrochloric acid, and nitric acid. Accidental poisoning at a later date is more common, when other drugs are mistaken for cathartics, or overdoses of opiate sleeping potions are given. The evidence in these cases is the same as that of poisoning in general. In the Edinburgh Monthly Journal82 there is reported the case of a woman who destroyed her child, which was only one day old, by arsenic. She was tried and acquitted upon the plea of insanity, although the evidence certainly did not warrant such a verdict. "For various instances of infanticide by means almost scientific in their delicacy, see Brouardel, L'Infanticide, p. 80 Brouardel, p. 126. "Edin. Month. Journ., Sept. 1852. 137. Lack of care; caul.- Death may also result from lack of proper care. The omission of this care may be either thoughtless or intentional. As an example of death from ignorance in the mother may be quoted a case cited by Brouardel 83 of a woman who was delivered of her first child in the company of two girls who had never before been present at a birth. The child was born in a caul; and as none of the three recognized the condition, the child perished, when the simple removal of the membranes from its face would have saved its life. 137a. Cord ligature. Again, in the case of primipara, not tying the umbilical cord, through ignorance, may lead to the death of the infant, though if the cord is not tied the child does not always die. Indeed, Valpeau calls the ligature of the cord a needless luxury. On the other hand, if the cord is tied, but inadequately, the child may also die from hemorrhage. 137b. Exposure.- Exposure of the child to cold is too slow a method of infanticide for ordinary use, though if the exposure is carried only to the point where the child catches a bronchitis, and the bronchitis leads to the child's death, the lack of proper care is the indirect cause of death, but leaves no convicting evidence behind. The time that a child can live when abandoned is not definitely settled. One case is related 84 of a child that was thrown out of a window, nine feet from the ground, in the middle of an April night. It fell to a pavement that was covered with straw and dung, and remained there, exposed and naked, for three quarters of an hour. It was then found and cared for, and lived twenty-four hours. It had received no injury from the fall. Another instructive case is the following: A peasant woman delivered herself of a mature child, in the vicinity of a wood, on the 18th of August, 1842, and, fearing discovery, she concealed it in the hollow of a tree, thrusting it, head forwards, into the portion of the cavity which led towards the root, so as to exert considerable compression on the body, doubling it up, as it were. She then laid two stones of three or four pounds' weight upon its buttocks, and concealed the hole in the tree with a large stone. By a lucky accident, a passer-by, on the 21st, heard its moaning, and withdrew it from its prison, covered all over with fir spiculæ and ants. There were numerous contusions and lacerations upon different parts of the body. Its respiration, at first very rapid, soon became more tranquil, and, although much emaciated, it cried with some vigor, "Brouardel, p. 131. "Henke's Zeitschr. Erg. Heft. 31. and very readily partook of food. Its temperature was normal. Any change of position called forth screams, due evidently to the pain of the various excoriations of the surface. It continued until the 25th to take nourishment, but the sores on the surface put on an ill character, and it died on the 29th. It seems almost incredible that life should have been prolonged during the exposure of this naked infant, without food, for three days and nights, the temperature of the air varying from 50° to 80° Fahr. Probably its close quarters within the tree protected it in some measure from cold. 137c. Inanition.- If a child is deprived of all nutrition, starting from three kilos, it loses about one hundred grams a day by inanition.85 Usually at the end of about one week, or when its weight has been reduced to 2,100 grams, it dies. The signs of inanition are the tense skin of the head, the over riding bones of the skull, the retracted neck, the eyes sunk in the sockets, the prominent ribs, and the empty intestine, with walls as thin as a cobweb.85a Usually the child is given scant or inappropriate nourishment, and lives a few weeks, leaving no evidence of crime. VII. TIME SINCE DEATH OF CHILD. 86 138. Evidence from putrefaction.-It is sometimes important to know the length of time that has elapsed since the death of the child. Estimates of the interval, based on the signs of putrefaction of the body of the child, are very unsatisfactory, for so much depends upon the conditions under which the child has been exposed. In one case 88 examined by Brouardel, where the body had been frozen, it appeared as fresh as if twenty-four or thirty-six hours old, but the other evidence proved that the body had been lying in the street gutter for six weeks during the winter. One point of difference between the putrefaction in the infant and in the adult is of aid in determining the time that putrefaction has been going on. For putrefaction being a microbic degeneration, as the infant is born free from all microbes the disintegration must begin in the skin unless the child has been given something to eat or drink, which would carry microbes into the intestine. So that, unlike the adult, putrefaction begins in the skin, and the skin is much more resistant to the action of the germs than the mucous membranes. Hence, it is at the mucus-lined orifices of the body-the mouth, nostrils, ears, vagina, and perhaps rectum--that Brouardel, p. 136. the first signs of putrefaction are found. While, on the other hand, in the adult putrefaction begins in the microbe-laden intestines.86a 139. Evidence from mummification.- Some extremely interesting studies have recently been made in determining the age of the mummified bodies, not merely of infants, but also of adults, by the determination of the age, condition, and nests of the insects that have been attracted to the cadaver in the course of its desiccation. has done some wonderfully accurate work in this line. cites several instances in which he calculated the date of death of the infant within two weeks, after an interval of one and a half years. Mégnin 87 Brouardel 88 140. Date of delivery from evidence of mother. The date of delivery, as determined by the evidence derived from the mother, is fairly accurate for the first few weeks, but a multipara examined fifty days after labor could not be distinguished from one three, or even five, months after labor. The signs of the pregnancy that has just passed are given in the chapter on the diagnosis of previous preg VIII. RESPONSIBILITY OF MOTHER FOR CARE OF INFANT. 141. Ignorance of pregnancy.— The responsibility of the mother is often, far too often, brought into question, to save the mother from the charge of infanticide. It is pleaded that the mother was unconscious of her condition of pregnancy, or of the delivery; that after the birth of the child she was too exhausted to give the child proper care, or that she committed the crime in a moment of puerperal insanity. That the woman may be unconscious of her pregnancy for the first three or four months is indeed probable; but later the possibility is very slight in a normal woman. The French and the Prussian laws allow the excuse of ignorance until the fetus is 210 days old, but after that the plea is no longer admissible. Of course, exceptions are made for idiots, imbeciles, and for exceptional cases of women with their first child, for women who have had irregular menstruation, and for pathological cases. A few such cases where the woman has gone to term ignorant of her condition are recorded, but such cases are usually in women about the time of the menopause, who ascribe the symptoms to the change of life or to some pathological condition. Tarnier describes the case of a woman forty-two years of age, who was unconscious of her condition. Her doctor too, had considered the symp 86a See § 410, post. post. Mégnin, La Faune des Cadavres. See 27, ante. toms due to the menopause, and it was not till labor had set in and a second doctor was called in consultation that the condition was recognized as pregnancy. And Vibert describes a case of a girl who had never been pregnant before, who was delivered alone, into a watercloset, and said that she did not know that she was pregnant, and felt no labor pains until the child was born. She had been told that she had an ovarian cyst. The question as to the ignorance of the pregnancy in any given case of infanticide may often be confuted by showing that the mother has been at least conscious enough of her condition to attempt to hide it by compressing her abdomen, modifying her dress, and maintaining marked secrecy about the changes which have been going on up to the time of the clandestine birth. 91 142. Unconscious delivery. The possibility of unconscious delivery is recognized beyond doubt by every ore, if the woman is under the influence of a narcotic or of a disease affecting the consciousness. Under normal conditions, also, it is recognized as possible in rare cases. Dubois 20 reports one case in which the labor was not recognized till the head of the child was on the perineum. Montgomery quotes two cases where the woman was delivered while asleep in bed, and the infant was discovered in one case by another child who was sleeping in the bed with the mother; and in the other case the infant was discovered by the woman's husband before it was known to the mother. He also describes a case that occurred in his own practice of a woman who was delivered of twins at six months while she was sitting at the dinner table, and the woman claimed to have known nothing of what was going on till she heard the fetus strike the floor. This case, however, was, to a certain degree, a pathological one; for on later examination there was found to be complete anesthesia of the woman's genitals. Brunon 92 describes the case of a woman twentytwo years old, a primapara, who took to bed and was delivered of an infant, not comprehending what was going on till she felt and saw the head of the child between her thighs. She had, however, been having labor pains, which she had interpreted as need to defecate, for over an hour before.93 143. Physical inability. The question as to whether the woman was physically able to give the infant due care immediately after labor 'Dubois, Revue Clin. Hebdom. Gaz. des Hop., 1854, 27-105. Montgomery, Signs and Symptoms of Pregnancy, p. 490. Brunon, quoted in Ann. d. Soc. de Méd. Lég. de France, 1890, XI., p. 370. "For many other instances, see Gould and Pyle's Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine, p. 114. |